Software Development
The Microsoft Operating Systems
 The initial operating systems were
all MS-DOS based – Windows 1.0 to Windows 3.1. Windows 95 was released in
1995 (funny that) by Microsoft in competition with IBM's OS/2 operating system.
Microsoft quickly took over the OS and GUI markets from the IBM PC.
Windows 95 was a major improvement from the MS-DOS based operating systems and soon
become the most successful operating system. It was followed by the equally successful
Windows 98.
Windows XP
Windows XP, released in 2001, was the successor to Windows 2000. Windows XP is still
the mainstay of many businesses today. It is fully functional and efficient –
perhaps not with the gloss of Vista, but it is solid and reliable.
Despite the advertisements, the migration of Windows XP to Vista has been limited.
Sales of Windows XP ceased in 2008, but it is still possible to get a copy of Windows
XP on a new computer, by downgrading Vista.
Windows Vista
Vista was released in 2007, but was badly conceived. The need for a new operating
system was evident – the Windows internals were showing their age. All the
bits'n'pieces that has been cobbled together over the years needed a complete revamp.
Frequent restarts were needed to reorganise fragmented memory, and to free chunks
of unused memory.
Instead of concentrating on modernising the internals of Windows, Microsoft decided
to revamp many features as well. The result was an operating system that took forever
to arrive, was badly tuned, error prone, incompatible with previous code, had missing
drivers – and worse of all, alienated the users.
After a few years, some of the problems have been resolved, but Vista was never
fully accepted by the public or the corporate world.
Windows 7
Released in 2010, the latest Version from Microsoft has proven remarkably stable,
with minimal problems. Most companies that avoided Windows Vista are likely to migrate
to Windows 7 – as soon as the first Service Pack becomes available. Windows
7 is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
The best features are:
- Installation and Setup is relatively pain free
- The boot process is fast
- The system requires fewer resources to run than Windows Vista
- Large displays are easier to setup and use
- The Start button search is easier to use
- External USB devices can be easily encrypted
- Document Libraries can be used to locate files
- The UAC is now completely under user control
- Taskbar Icons can be combined
- Better power management for notebooks
Windows 8
Windows 8 is scheduled to be released sometime around 2012 .
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