Windows Operating Systems

built on top of DOS
- 16 bit
  - Windows 1.x - (1985)
  - Windows 2.x - (1987)
  - Windows 3.x - (1990)
- 32 bit (Objection -- these OSes were not built on top of MS-DOS, PC-DOS, or any other form of single user OS. They were built as multiple user, multiple thread OSes from the get-go. The fact that they incorporated large portions of MS-DOS set to run as singleton does not make them "DOS-based" any more than OS/2 is.)
  - Windows 95 - (1995)
  - Windows 98 - (1998)
  - Windows ME - (2000)
not built on top of DOS (32 bit & 64 bit)
- WindowsNt 3.x - (1993)
- WindowsNt 4 - (1995)
- WindowsTwoThousand - (2000)
- WindowsXp - (2001)
- WindowsVista - (2007)
- WindowsSeven - (2009 - consumer release slated for October 22nd; already in production use by some enterprise customers)
- WindowsEight - (late 2012)
not for desktops or servers
- WinCe/PocketPc/WindowsMobile

Discussion

Would Windows for Workgroups also be counted as a different version? I have the impression that it is, but I don't know enough about it to be sure.

I believe Windows 3.11 == Windows for Workgroups. I remember hearing that there is no Windows 3.1 for workgroups, or 3.11 without. Don't know for sure, this is from back in my help desk days.

Windows for Workgroups was Windows3.11 and was used in connection with MsDos6.22. There were several versions in each of the iterations, Windows95 was developed after Windows3.11 and (Microsoft claims to the contrary) was still based on MsDos, but more or less hid the fact. Dates and additional info will be added later.

Windows 95 had MsDos integrated; in early versions of 95, 'restarting in ms-dos mode' simply exited win95... you could restart it by running 'win' from the console. Later versions made the computer reset, disguising it somewhat, but you could still start windows from a boot disk by typing 'win'. As is now clearly outlined at the top of this page, Windows XP was the first consumer version of Windows that was truly and fully based on NT rather than on DOS.
(Although it's worth noting that every version of NT had bigger and bigger pieces of Windows 3.x/9x backported into it, so that the two OSes grew closer together - it's not the case that NT just went its own way while the consumer version of Windows gradually became more NT-like.)

Windows 1.0 -- had tiled windows rather than overlapped windows, as in all later versions. Ran on top of MS DOS.

Windows 2.0 -- had overlapped windows and conformed to IBM's CUA guidelines. Basically, the look-and-feel was an imitation of Motif, but without the 3D effects. We were told that in time, we would all move to OS/2 or some UNIX running Motif.

Windows 3.0 -- when Microsoft and IBM got angry with each other. This version introduced "protected" and "386 enhanced" mode, which made use of the memory management capabilities of the 386 (especially to have protected address spaces and access more than 1 MB of memory).

And after WindowsXP?

The next desktop Windows OS is WindowsVista. Info available at http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/longhorn.asp.

Quote:"Expect to be pleasantly surprised - dare I say "blown away" - when the Longhorn UI is revealed in October." Hmm... It is October...

Which year? Which year?

Longhorn public developer preview (build 4051) released: October 27, 2003

Ha ha, that page was pretty amusing. "Today, Windows XP and its task-based interface are far superior to anything in Mac OS X."

Longhorn is now WindowsVista.

Rescue data from PC with OS problems

See testimonial in KnoppixLinux, which is the first LiveCdOs.

Burning ISO9660 CDs

See a listing at http://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#record-windows.

Claiming that Windows 2.0 was an imitation of CDE is rather a case of putting the cart before the horse, as it were. Windows 2.0 was released in (November) 1987, the same year IBM announced the CUA GUI standard (in March). CUA was adopted by the OS/2 Presentation Manager (released by Microsoft and IBM in 1988), the OSF Motif GUI standard (1989) and Windows 3.0 (released by Microsoft in 1990).

Given that there was only an 8-month gap between the announcement of CUA and the release of the very similar Windows 2.0 GUI, it seems rather unlikely that Windows 2.0 (in the works since after the release of Windows 1.0 in 1985) was based on CUA. It may have been, but it seems more likely that CUA was based on the Presentation Manager GUI Microsoft and IBM had jointly been designing for OS/2, and which undoubtedly borrowed heavily from Microsoft's earlier Windows GUI.

CategoryOperatingSystem, CategoryMicrosoft