The History of Windows Operating Systems - Part 2

In the previous blog post, we've covered just about all the important things happen before the rise of MS as a company that actually creates operating systems.
here we will discuss about the rise (and evolution) of windows, and after that, and thats a promise - I'll really start with getting more technical.
Quick versions overview - MS-DOS
As said before, MS-DOS started out based on QDos, and change its name on 1981.
since 1982, the release of MS-DOS 1.1, which was  a simple operating system, till the release of MS-DOS 3.3, the most "thrilling" improvement it had to offer was the support of floppy disks (it was actually a great thing, but I can't see anyone falls down from his chair over support in digital media of 720KB now that 16GB flash memories are wide spread)
MS-DOS 4 had a great improvement, and you could see the beginning of the future there, a GUI and mouse support on june 1988
version 5 wasn't thrilling, a full screen editor was finaly inserted, and the major improvement was the birth of QBasic, the succesor of GW-Basic.
DOS 6.1 introduced a new functionality, doublespace disk compression, the ability to double any disk space you had (well, thats how they introduced it, it was actually an on-the-fly disk compression), but this new functionality wasn't welcomed in open arms, many complaind on data loss due to the usage of the feature (and some of the complains were right)
Dos 6.22, the final MS-DOS release, although MS-DOS went up to version 8, the name "MS-DOS" as an operating system ceased to exist at version 6.22
So what about windows? 
 Windows 1.01 (windows 1.0 was never released) was introduced around the year of 1985 and was supported by DOS 3.1, it offered limited multi-tasking and graphic interface for users (it supported mouse as well) and had the folowing programs in it (count how many of them are still with us today): Calculator, Calendar, Cardfile, Clipboard viewer, Clock, Control Panel, Notepad, Paint, Reversi, Terminal, and Write.

Windows 2.0 was introduced 2 years later, it offered overlapping windows (unlike tilted windows view only), the ability to minimize/maximize windows and keyboard shortcuts, the real improvement came with windows 2.1 which supported extended memory (EMS) and kernel protected mode
 Windows 3.0 (1990) was remembered by the great improvement of memory usage and user interface (sounds like XP's annoucement, no? :) ), file manager was finally introduced and saved the trouble of going into DOS and find files there and offered, it was also the first version of windows sold preinstalled on Harddisks (much like OEM nodays)
Windows 3.1 and later 3.11, was the final version of windows not as an operating system (not so true, more details along the way), that was major upgrade to windows 3.0, in included workgroup support, true-type fonts, a 32 bit support (anyone remember we once used 8 and 16 bit computers?) and the introduction of internet explorer
 Couple of years past, and windows 95 was introduced, the first Windows to come as a stand alone OS... or is it? windows 95 was actually a major improvement of windows 3.11, it did boot the computer streight to it, giving the feeling as if its the OS, but "under the hood" it was actually MS-DOS version 7, the other new things in this version (and there were a lot) were standardization of windows creations (the title, close/maximize/minimize buttons etc.) that are still in use even until today, long filenames, the introduction of PlugnPlay and the registry, and as usual - major GUI improvement

1 year has past, 1996, windows NT family comes to the world, this version of windows had the greatest stability jump between 2 version of windows, but it was achieved with great flexibility loss, all direct access to hardware were dissallowed and any process causing problems now was shutdown without taking the entire system with it, no PlugnPlay support was available, USB weren't supported as well and practically every program that used graphics (DOS games, and even DirectX!) couldn't work on this system... true, no future at all to the NT family... :)
however, some good freebies were given with this operating system, such as IIS, frontpage extensions and terminal services we all know and love (was added at 1998)
 another 2 years past - and another version of windows shows up, this time its the windows 98's turn, this was the first windows version to use WDM (Windows Driver Module), basically its a unified driver module that standardizing requirements and reducing the amount of code that needed to be written for hardware drivers across different windows versions (98 and up, and 2000 and up), lots of stability fixes (which made 98, and later on 98SE the most favorable windows version of its time).
by the way, this version of windows was based on the truely final version of dos - MS-DOS 8
 2 years have past, and its time for a new-born-windows OS of the NT family, windows 2000 came to set things streight after the bad impression NT4 left.
it brought us several nice things such as symmetric multi-processor support, 64bit support (for itanium servers) the wonderful MMC (Microsoft Management Console), the new NTFS file system along with encryption options (EFS), the unattendant installation, network shares&replications (DFS), the user mode and kernel mode options (=more stability more then anything else), basic and dynamic disk storage(have windows creating RAID without needed hardware), recovery console and ofcorse - the Active Directory, this was definatlly fixing the bad impression of NT4, this, and the "great success" of windows ME that came shortly after this one, basically killed the win9x family and left the NT family as the sole successor of the windows haritage
 cover your ears, duck and run, as the most disputed (probably even more the Vista) Operating systemis here!
Windows ME (millennium) was introduced in parallel with windows 2000 professional as an OS for home users, it brought us the oh-so-great windows movie maker and was the first(disregarding NT4) to disable DOS real mode (shutdown windows and boot in DOS mode), which got planty of costumers extremly annoyed, since DOS never really died at that point and was still widely spread, however, some good points were shown in that OS, the system restore, system file protection, uPnP (universal PnP) support, automatic updates, compressed folders (build-in support of zip), System monitor, built-in support for USB Mass storage device.
however, with all those impressive features list, Windows ME suffered a very short life span of about a year due to its instability and unreliability issues, users would come up with frequent freezes and crashes that didn't add to its popularity and it was evetually "chosen" as the fourth "Worst Tech Product of All Time"
 Windows XP was published on 2001 to save the name of microsoft, it is the successor of windows 2000 and windows ME (killing the 9x family in the process, as it still build on NT), it initially came out in 2 versions, for home and for office, later on had more versions of it such as tablet pc and media center editions, among its features you may find improved user interface (yes, its was one of their main concerns), plus the usage of product activation instead of serial for registered users, later on support for 64 bit computers was introduced and some security features were inserted, enhancing the controll of active directory over client computers.
some more minor changes were introduced such as faster boot process (able to boot before network interface initialized), fast user switching (able to have multiple users logged on at the same time), internal support at RDP and DSL support
 The server edition of windows family during the time of XP, windows 2003 was introduced, it contained significant improvement for old functions (AD improvement such as ADAM, IIS6, new version of MSMQ, internet explorer enhanced security etc.) the only new functionality was Support for a hardware-based "watchdog timer", which can restart the server if the operating system does not respond within a certain amount of time.
this lack of "umph" (as good as 2003 is) created the R2 expension pack, its actually called windows 2003 R2, but it really is an expension pack, new functions MS wanted to put in 2003 but didn't due to lack of time, the list included Identity and Access Management (Singal Sign On support for example), unix file system support and many more
 Finally we got to the present, windows Vista, the successor of windows XP as a client OS contains long list of changes, and for a good reason.. it took 5 years to develope, thats the longest time between 2 windows OS have ever been, among them you can find GUI update, Aero interface, superfetch, better indexing, directX10 (which'll be available for vista only), language support, and probably some other things I missed.
Although it actually lhave smooth looks and feel, and although everybody love a change every now and then, Vista have been severly criticized due to its hardware requirements, extremly slow file operation (mainly copy), the high price tag, DRM rpotection support, and ofcorse - the very annoying UAC that asks you every second if you are certain that you want to live
 and we are finally at the latest release of microsoft - windows server 2008. as you may have guessed, this is the server edition of windows vista, it includes all of vista's new features, such as BitLocker and IPv6, it also includes a major update to terminal services, allowing many important features such as running in application mode rather then in desktop mode and support in RDP via HTTPS, PowerShell is integrated into this version, it can "self heal" some NTFS corruption in can find, support virtualization (without 3rd paty software) and some other features
phew, that was a long one
next time we better start talking about administrating windows, because if there'll be any more history lessons I'll explode!
oh yah,  leave a comment :)

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