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The History of Windows Operating Systems

Poster · February 2008

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18028.23688

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 The History of
Windows Operating Systems
Computer Club, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune.
Anubhav Singh

COMPUTING THROUGH THE AGES: THE TRANSITION FROM COMMAND LINE TO GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE.

GRANDPA: MS-DOS
THE FORGOTTEN UNCLE: WINDOWS 1.0 WINDOWS 2.0

In the beginning, there was darkness; and out of that

darkness, there came a light, “A:\>” it said, and the world
was happy ! Launched in 1985, it offered to Windows 2.0 was released in
rescue users from the drab & 1987 to take advantage of the
The heart of the OS: tedious interface of DOS. processing power of Intel 80286
1. IO.SYS – This lets DOS communicate with the hardware processor.
through BIOS. System Requirements:
2. MSDOS.SYS – The DOS kernel. 1. MS-DOS 2.0 It introduced new concepts of
3. COMMAND.COM – The command interpreter. 2. 256 KB RAM. Maximising and minimising
4. CONFIG.SYS – Stores the hardware configuration 3. Two FDD or a HDD.
windows, and overlapping
information. windows.
5. AUTOEXEC.BAT – All the programs that were supposed Windows 1.0 gave the users the
to run at startup were called here. ability to run more than 1 DOS Windows 2.0 saw the
application at same time. It was introduction of the first versions
DOS gave drive letters to each disc drive like A:, B: for an extension to DOS that gave of Word and Excel.
floppy drives. If you were lucky enough to have a Hard the users a friendlier environment
Disc, it will be called C: to run their applications.

WINDOWS 3.0 WINDOWS 3.1x WINDOWS NT 3.1 WINDOWS NT 4.0 WINDOWS 95

Windows NT 4.0 had the strong heart Windows 95 came with better
Windows 3.0 was released in 1990. It Windows NT (meaning New Technology) networking support, better device
came with a 16 color interface. Windows 3.1 brought in Multimedia gave secure memory to the applications of its older version and the pretty face
support to Windows, and another support, and it was better looking than
Microsoft introduced Program Manager and the kernel, so theoretically nothing of Windows 95. It still controlled every
any other version of Windows before
and File Manager to ease things a little game – Minesweeper. could crash Windows NT. aspect of communication with hardware it.
bit, and the Control Panel, to bring all for security. The user interface for Windows 95
system configuration options under one Windows 3.11 For Workgroups It did not run on-top of DOS, and did not It also still lacked good multimedia was its mostground-breaking aspect.
roof. brought in Networking, File and require DOS for booting the computer. support, and was hence regarded as The new ‘Start’ button gave users a
Windows 3.0 also saw the birth of one Printer Sharing, and Microsoft Mail. It for the first time brought in NTFS (New more of an enterprise OS than a home one-stop solution to access programs.
of the most popular games of all time – Technology File System). OS. It added support for file names that
Solitaire ! were 255 characters long, and first
time introduced Direct X API.

WINDOWS 98 WINDOWS 2000 WINDOWS MILLENIUM WINDOWS XP WINDOWS Vista

Windows 98 was just a version of Initially called Windows NT 5.0, it was Later in year 2000, Windows Windows XP was first released on Windows Vista, code named
Windows 95 brought up to speed with the based on the rock-solid NT kernel, but Millennium Edition was released for October 25, 2001 The letters "XP" stand “Longhorn” is the latest from Microsoft
newest technologies. It now supported promised to be as user-friendly as the home user. for eXPerience. for Home, Business and Enterprise
USB devices, and could also use the new Windows 98. This was the last version of Windows XP is the first consumer-oriented segment. It incorporates features like
The ‘hybrid kernel’ architecture of
FAT32 filesystem, which let it access to be based on Windows 9x and to use operating system produced by Microsoft Aero experience, and is the most
Windows 2000 was quite robust, and it
drives larger than 2 GB. DOS for booting. to be built on the Windows NT kernel secure version of windows yet.
was undoubtedly the most stable
Internet explorer was for the first time and architecture.
version of Windows yet.
integrated into Windows, and brought in
Active Desktop.

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