Microsoft Windows Wikipedia. Microsoft Windows. Developer. Microsoft. Source model. Closed shared source. Initial release. November 2. Windows 1. 0. Latest release. October 1. 7, 2. 01. Latest preview. RS4 1. October 1. 3, 2. 01. Marketing target. Personal computing. Available in. 13. Update method. Package manager. Windows Installer. Windows Store. appx2Platforms. ARM, IA 3. 2, Itanium, x. DEC Alpha, MIPS, Power. PCKernel type. Default user interface. A full list of keyboard shortcuts for Windows 10, including shortcuts for copy, paste, and more. Microsoft Office 2016 Product Key full latest version is useful product keys that help to activate the office suite. Office 2016 Product Key. Heres what Windows 10 wont change Windows 8s plans to tie you to Microsoft services Live Tiles and fullscreen apps are gone, but Microsofts still try. Windows shell. License. Proprietarycommercial software. Official websitewindows. Microsoft Windows, or simply Windows, is a metafamily of graphicaloperating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of several families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. Recover-Windows-Prodcut-Key-Without-tools1.png' alt='Microsoft Window 8 Key' title='Microsoft Window 8 Key' />Active Windows families include Windows NT and Windows Embedded these may encompass subfamilies, e. Windows Embedded Compact Windows CE or Windows Server. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone. Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 2. MS DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces GUIs. Microsoft Windows came to dominate the worlds personal computer PC market with over 9. Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1. Apple came to see Windows as an unfair encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa and Macintosh eventually settled in court in Microsofts favor in 1. On PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system. However, in 2. 01. Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android,4 because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2. 01. 4, the number of Windows devices sold was less than 2. Android devices sold. This comparison however may not be fully relevant, as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms. Still, numbers for server use of Windows that are comparable to competitors show one third market share, similar to for end user use. As of September 2. Windows for PCs, tablets, smartphones and embedded devices is Windows 1. The most recent versions for server computers is Windows Server 2. A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox Onevideo game console. Genealogy. By marketing role. Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has registered several trademarks each of which denote a family of Windows operating systems that target a specific sector of the computing industry. As of 2. 01. 4, the following Windows families are being actively developed Windows NT Started as a family of operating system with Windows NT 3. It now consists of three operating system subfamilies that are released almost at the same time and share the same kernel. It is almost impossible for someone unfamiliar with the subject to identify the members of this family by name because they do not adhere to any specific rule e. Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 88. Windows RT are members of this family but Windows 3. Windows Embedded Initially, Microsoft developed Windows CE as a general purpose operating system for every device that was too resource limited to be called a full fledged computer. Eventually, however, Windows CE was renamed Windows Embedded Compact and was folded under Windows Compact trademark which also consists of Windows Embedded Industry, Windows Embedded Professional, Windows Embedded Standard, Windows Embedded Handheld and Windows Embedded Automotive. The following Windows families are no longer being developed Windows 9x An operating system that targeted consumers market. Discontinued because of suboptimal performance. PC World called its last version, Windows ME, one of the worst products of all times. Microsoft now caters to the consumers market with Windows NT. Windows Mobile The predecessor to Windows Phone, it was a mobile phone operating system. The first version was called Pocket PC 2. Windows Mobile 2. Windows Mobile trademark. The last version is Windows Mobile 6. Windows Phone An operating system sold only to manufacturers of smartphones. The first version was Windows Phone 7, followed by Windows Phone 8, and the last version Windows Phone 8. It was succeeded by Windows 1. Mobile however Microsoft has since discontinued active development of Windows 1. Mobile due to its low market share. Version history. The term Windows collectively describes any or all of several generations of Microsoftoperating system products. These products are generally categorized as follows Early versions. The history of Windows dates back to September 1. Chase Bishop, a computer scientist, designed the first model of an electronic device and project Interface Manager was started. It was announced in November 1. Apple Lisa, but before the Macintosh under the name Windows, but Windows 1. November 1. 98. 5. Windows 1. Apples operating system, but achieved little popularity. Great Planes Super Chipmunk Manual more. Windows 1. 0 is not a complete operating system rather, it extends MS DOS. The shell of Windows 1. MS DOS Executive. Components included Calculator, Calendar, Cardfile, Clipboard viewer, Clock, Control Panel, Notepad, Paint, Reversi, Terminal and Write. Windows 1. 0 does not allow overlapping windows. Instead all windows are tiled. Only modal dialog boxes may appear over other windows. Windows 2. 0 was released in December 1. It features several improvements to the user interface and memory management. Windows 2. OS from tiled windows to overlapping windows. The result of this change led to Apple Computer filing a suit against Microsoft alleging infringement on Apples copyrights. Windows 2. 0 also introduced more sophisticated keyboard shortcuts and could make use of expanded memory. Windows 2. 1 was released in two different versions Windows2. Windows3. 86. Windows3. Intel 8. 03. 86 to multitask several DOS programs and the paged memory model to emulate expanded memory using available extended memory. Windows2. 86, in spite of its name, runs on both Intel 8. Intel 8. 02. 86 processors. It runs in real mode but can make use of the high memory area. In addition to full Windows packages, there were runtime only versions that shipped with early Windows software from third parties and made it possible to run their Windows software on MS DOS and without the full Windows feature set. The early versions of Windows are often thought of as graphical shells, mostly because they ran on top of MS DOS and use it for file system services. However, even the earliest Windows versions already assumed many typical operating system functions notably, having their own executable file format and providing their own device drivers timer, graphics, printer, mouse, keyboard and sound. Unlike MS DOS, Windows allowed users to execute multiple graphical applications at the same time, through cooperative multitasking. Windows implemented an elaborate, segment based, software virtual memory scheme, which allows it to run applications larger than available memory code segments and resources are swapped in and thrown away when memory became scarce data segments moved in memory when a given application had relinquished processor control. Windows 3. x. Windows 3. Vx. Ds that allow Windows to share arbitrary devices between multi tasked DOS applications.