Windows OS - What Is ?

Windows OS, computer operating system (OS) developed by Microsoft Corporation to run personal computers (PCs).

Featuring the first graphical user interface (GUI) for IBM-compatible PCs, the Windows OS soon dominated the PC market. Approximately 90 percent of PCs run some version of Windows.

Personal opinion - Windows is peculiar for been very annoying for people coming other OS background specially Unix/Linux users - simples because of this following behavior..

Read More on This Topic https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/sysinfo/operating-system-version 

In 1985 Microsoft came out with its Windows operating system, which gave PC compatibles some of the same capabilities as the Macintosh. Year after year, Microsoft refined and improved Windows so that Apple, which failed to come up with a significant new…

The first version of Windows, released in 1985, was simply a GUI offered as an extension of Microsoft’s existing disk operating system, or MS-DOS. Based in part on licensed concepts that Apple Inc. had used for its Macintosh System Software, Windows for the first time allowed DOS users to visually navigate a virtual desktop, opening graphical “windows” displaying the contents of electronic folders and files with the click of a mouse button, rather than typing commands and directory paths at a text prompt.


Subsequent versions introduced greater functionality, including native Windows File Manager, Program Manager, and Print Manager programs, and a more dynamic interface. 

Microsoft also developed specialized Windows packages, including the networkable Windows for Workgroups and the high-powered Windows NT, aimed at businesses. The 1995 consumer release Windows 95 fully integrated Windows and DOS and offered built-in Internet support, including the World Wide Web browser Internet Explorer.

Well it’s an operating system - Wikipedia (OS) that happens to use windows - Wikipedia (note, lower case) as a metaphor - Wikipedia. I.e. it uses a graphical user interface - Wikipedia (while optional in later versions). This GUI is a "windows, icons, menus, pointer", WIMP (computing) - Wikipedia desktop metaphor - Wikipedia that is now standard in all modern operating systems (but was not a given before, needed or wanted, nor still in some cases).

What more can I say? It also is a Proprietary software - Wikipedia (as opposed to e.g. Linux OS) as is Apple’s macOS—and some people will tell you all proprietary software (and patents on) is evil for all, especially an OS—that commercialized this desktop metaphor (leaving the trash on the table… and Apple later claiming it as an important invention) in its original Macintosh 128K - Wikipedia and Microsoft company copied Apple, just as Apple had taken the idea from Xerox PARC (company) - Wikipedia where Alan Kay - Wikipedia invented this idea.

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With the “Windows”/WIMP/GUI part out of the way, all operating systems have a Application programming interface - Wikipedia (and Application binary interface - Wikipedia) that famously gives the company, here Microsoft, Vendor lock-in - Wikipedia, that all proprietary software (not just operating systems) get their Monopoly - Wikipedia from, why proprietary is said to be evil.

Lower level of the Windows OS (current generations/family) where designed by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler coming from Digital Equipment Corporation - Wikipedia, where he also designed other operating systems, e.g. VMS - Wikipedia, now misleadingly called OpenVMS.

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Windows shares most or many design features with most other modern operating systems, while at least older generation of Microsoft Windows - Wikipedia has for sure a bad design.

While I’m not too familiar with VMS and it’s similarities with Windows, nor really its similarity with CP/M, only some superficial ones, people will tell you that Unix and Linux are a better design than Windows, and others claiming the opposite. Same for Mac vs. Windows, while now they are much more similar than before, really all of these systems, except they natively run different applications.

Windows being worse may or may not be correct (why ReactOS - Wikipedia is copying Windows to be a non-proprietary version, as those developers believe Windows design is better than Unix, and Windows application and driver compatibility important), and I now see more high-level similarities. I.e. all of them (and the mainstream “mobile operating systems) now with Preemptive multitasking - Wikipedia as opposed to Cooperative multitasking - Wikipedia that Windows had in previous generation. E.g. RISC OS - Wikipedia has only that, but there are pros and cons to both.

On September 30, 2014, Microsoft announced Windows 10 as the successor to Windows 8.1. It was released on July 29, 2015, and addresses shortcomings in the user interface first introduced with Windows 8. 

Changes include the return of the Start Menu, a virtual desktop system, and the ability to run Windows Store apps within windows on the desktop rather than in full-screen mode. 

Windows 10 is said to be available to update from qualified Windows 7 with SP1 and Windows 8.1 computers from the Get Windows 10 Application (for Windows 7, Windows 8.1) or Windows Update (Windows 7).

On November 12, 2015, an update to Windows 10, version 1511, was released. This update can be activated with a Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 product key as well as Windows 10 product keys. Features include new icons and right-click context menus, default printer management, four times as many tiles allowed in the Start menu, Find My Device, and Edge updates.

In February 2017, Microsoft announced the migration of its Windows source code repository from Perforce to Git. This migration involved 3.5 million separate files in a 300 gigabyte repository. By May 2017, 90 percent of its engineering team now uses Git, in about 8500 commits and 1760 Windows builds per day