Windows 1 Windows At the time of this edit, the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems runs the vast majority of the world's home computers. How did Windows rapidly become the dominant operating system for home use on the planet? History Microsoft Windows began as a GUI add-on to DOS. The early versions of Windows required DOS to be installed first. The first version that did not require DOS to be pre-installed was Windows 95. Early on, Windows split into two branches - the DOS-based branch and the NT based branch. Today, The DOS-based branch has been discontinued due to bugs (errors in software), Lack of hardware support, and instability. All versions of Windows since Windows NT 3.1 (these are Windows NT 3.1, NT 4.0, Windows 2000, XP and Vista) are NT based. Predecessors CP/M The CP/M Operating System, first written by Gary Kildall in PL/M, a language of his own invention, in 1975. It was written for the Intel 8080 CPU, which was the power behind such legendary machines as the Altair 8800 and the IMSAI 8080, one of which was used in the movie 'War Games'. The system was very popular among those early computer users, and saw the introduction of many new devices, such as the 5 1/4" floppy disk drive and the hard disk drive. In 1980, when IBM was building its first PC, they went to Gary Kindall, who didn't think the system would take off. It might interest you to know that one or two years later, the CP/M-86 OS was released independently of IBM, and cost about ten times what the then-new MS-DOS system did. Initially CP/M had many advanced features that MS-DOS did not have. However, because Gary did not want break off from his licensed based distribution of CP/M rather than accepting the OEM based distribution IBM wanted, Microsoft's MS-DOS was chosen to be the choice on the IBM PC. In addition to this, many of CP/M's features, such as multi-level directories and hard drive support, were not really thought of as needed. DOS DOS stands for Disk Operating System. A product called MSDOS was released by Microsoft in 1981 for the IBM Personal Computer. It offered file system access to FAT partitions and had tools for editing, programing, and management. Later versions would support a semi-graphical navigator, and the ability to mount remote shares. MSDOS had an long-lasting effect on the computer world, a very scaled down version of MSDOS was present in every Windows OS including the recent Windows vista (and the Windows NT Operating Systems, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003,and Windows XP). OS/2 (include OS/2 for Windows and explain source code overlap with Windows) Inception Microsoft was not the first company to investigate the use of a Graphical User Interface, or GUI, to control a personal computer. That distinction belongs to the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC). Xerox demonstrated seven key ideas whose strategic importance were immediately apparrent to both Microsoft and Apple, and critical to the success of both the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows: 1. The use of a windowing system to give a user common presentation and operation of differrent applications, 2. The concept and use of a mouse to navigate that system, 3. A clear demonstration that multitasking (running several applications at the same time) could actually be useful to Windows 2 home and business users, 4. The demonstration of a laser printer, which significantly increased the potential for desktop publishing, 5. That a computer could potentially be used by an operator with little or no training, 6. That such an operator, once familiarized with the system, would be strongly opposed to moving back to a more complicated environment, and 7. That such a computer could be networked. The impact of that final idea took a long time to be fully realized- Windows certainly did not embrace it, or even support it, initially- but the whole package really was demonstrated that long ago. Why Xerox wasn't able to capitalize on its own strokes of genius would be (and, indeed, is) another book, in and of itself. 16-Bit Versions (286/386/486; explain) Windows 3.0 - 3.1 (stub) (explain use of 386 protected mode and why this was important; note that apps, and significantly, device drivers, are still 16-bit) Windows for Workgroups (stress importance of being first version to really support networking; possibly compare Banyan Vines, Novell Netware, etc.; also eval those for Predecessors section above) 32-Bit Versions Windows NT (stress independence from DOS and differrences from consumer Windows version: kernel, multitasking model (preemptive instead of cooperative), driver model Windows 95 The first 32-bit Operating System in the Windows Family outside of Windows NT. But still, it is easier to crash than Windows NT (but harder to crash than Windows 3.1), and relative to Windows NT, not very stable. This project has been abandoned years ago. Windows 98 (stress changes in driver model; USB support; GUI changes) Windows 98 SE Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) included DVD support) Windows 2000 This version of Microsoft Windows preceded Windows XP. Its core functionality is very similar, but it lacks some of the features later added to XP. Many continue to use 2000 instead of XP, because they believe the extra XP features are unnecessary and cause the computer to run slower. Windows 2000 is the final NT-based system without activation. Windows 3 Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition was meant to bring an end to the 95/DOS line of OS's, although it still contains DOS 8.00. It sported new features in the multimedia area, such as Windows Movie Maker 1.0 and Windows Media Player 7. It also had other important new features such as System Restore. Most of the new features were continued into Windows XP making XP what it is. Windows Me is the final DOS-based system without activation. DOS 8.00 Windows XP Windows XP was originally released in year 2001. It included improved graphics, and a more user-friendly environment. Windows XP was built on the core of Windows 2000 but adds greater stability for most desktop users plus a fancier grapical user interface. Although the goal of perfect security continues to elude the OS, Service Pack 2 (SP2) improves matters over the original release and rolls up enhancements added between release and mid-2004. 64-Bit Versions There is currently support for the 64-bit Intel Itanium processor in Windows Server 2003 Enterprise and Datacenter editions, supporting up to 64 Itanium CPUs in the later. Windows Server 2003 SP1 adds x64 support. Note: Source update under this version will be suffixed by "IA64", there is the difference from the usual Intel/AMD architecture of "x64" bit sources. Note also that there are computers based on the 64-bit IBM Power chips that are used in the G5 Macintosh computers that are running the Windows NT kernel. These "Macs running Windows" are used for game development on the future generation Xbox that will use IBM Power CPUs. (explain existing 64-bit CPUs- AMD, Intel, etc.) Windows Vista This version of Microsoft Windows, released on January 2007, is the latest major upgrade for the Windows operating system. Until the product name was revealed in July 2005, Windows Vista was known as 'Codename Longhorn'. It includes major changes graphically. Translucency and other visual effects are highly used. Also, applications are now switching over to the .NET framework. (Add something more about core like avalon, and GUI) Windows Server 2008 Systems With this introduction of Microsoft Windows Servers, released on October 2008, it contains the same code base as Vista (Windows6.0). Its significant change and added feature set is enabling the virtualization of Microsoft Windows Server Systems. The support from 32-bit Windows 2000, Windows 2003, 2003 R2 and Windows 2008 itself, plus the associated existing 64-bit version will expect to become the enabler of any enterprise system, large, medium or small to harness the use and simplicity of virtuialized Windows systems (including some flavors of Linuxes) to meet everyday needs of computing. Windows 4 Design Goals (UI similarity; consistent experience; ease of use; hardware abstraction; compatibility; etc. should this be above the versions list? is it more useful for strategy context for the version descriptions that follow, so that the evolution becomes apparrent, or down here as a summary of modern goals?) Installation This chapter will explain how to install Windows. Since installation is fairly similar between versions- with important, and sometimes subtle, differences- we will example how to install Windows XP, Home Edition, and then review the differences for other versions. This chapter explains only the basics; once you're up and running, check out the Configuration chapter to personalize your system. Make sure that whatever you are installing, that you have a copy of the files you need stored in a safe place, even if it's on a separate partition. You're generally better off wiping the partition with your old operating system so as to remove all the incompatible files, viruses, spyware and general clutter/temp files that all computers accrue over their lives. Installing Windows XP, Home Edition Depends if you install from booting a CD or from running the setup program from another version of Windows. It's better to boot from the disk, this way you can alter your partitions before you install whereas otherwise you may find yourself being forced to install it over an old copy.