The development history of Windows
The origin of Windows can be traced back to the research and development work carried out by Xerox many years ago. 65438-0970 Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), a famous research institution, was established by American Xerox Company, mainly engaged in the research of local area network, laser printer, graphical user interface and object-oriented technology. 198 1 year, Xerox announced the launch of the world's first commercial graphical user interface system Star 80 10 workstation. However, due to various reasons, this technology has not been valued by the public, nor has it assisted commercial applications.
At this time, Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Computer Company, realized the importance and broad market prospect of graphical user interface after visiting the PARC research center of Xerox Company, and began to develop his own graphical user interface system. Then the first graphical user interface system Lisa is developed in 1983. Soon, Apple introduced the second graphical user interface system Macintosh (now called Macintosh, Apple Computer and Mac), which became the first successful commercial graphical user interface system in the world. When Apple developed Macintosh, based on the consideration of market strategy, it deliberately only developed a graphical user interface system that could run on Apple's own computer. But at that time, IBM compatible computers with Intel x86 microprocessor chips had gradually appeared, which gave Microsoft Windows living space and market.
Microsoft also realized the importance of establishing industry standards, so it announced the development of Windows in the spring of 1983, hoping that it would become the standard graphical user interface operating system on computers based on Intel x86 microprocessor chips. It launched Windows 1985 and Windows 2.0 at 1987 respectively. However, due to the limitation of hardware and DOS operating system at that time, these two versions did not achieve great success. Since then, Microsoft has greatly improved the RAM management and graphical user interface of Windows, making the graphical user interface more beautiful and supporting the virtual memory function. This breakthrough came from Murray Sargent, a physics professor at the University of Arizona. He went to Microsoft for summer research in 1989 and found that Windows operating system could not handle a large amount of memory and multiple programs at the same time. This problem can be solved by a program he invented. He helped Microsoft solve this major problem and returned to school to teach. Later, he joined Microsoft and became a Microsoft employee (depressed giant IBM, page 235). Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 in May 1990, which was an instant hit. This kind of operating system, "but we shouted for a thousand times before she started coming to us", has achieved amazing success in business as soon as it came out; Less than six weeks after its launch, Microsoft has sold 500,000 copies of Windows 3.0, breaking the sales record of any software product within six weeks, thus starting Microsoft's monopoly position in the operating system. However, in 1994, Apple sued for infringement and launched a famous "perception" lawsuit.
Starting from Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, the most obvious feature of this system is the "desktop". The desktop designed by Microsoft has greatly improved the interface of human-computer communication, and more simple tasks can be completed with a little computer knowledge. However, the Windows interface also separates the user from the internal operation of the calculator, which makes it more difficult for the user to control or set the options inside the computer (this is also due to the increasing function and complexity of the modern operating system and the difficulties brought by the growth of a large number of low-level computer personnel).
Windows has achieved great market success. It is estimated that 90% of personal computers now use this system. On the other hand, it is difficult for users to choose other operating systems, because many computers have built-in Windows systems, and other systems can only be installed after removing Windows. Moreover, drivers of many popular software and hardware manufacturers on the market are written for Windows. If users install other operating systems, they will have to face the embarrassment of hard work to adapt to the new operating system and find drivers and third-party software for the new system, so they will give up the possible technical support and accumulated usage habits all the year round. After all, it is difficult to popularize an operating system without the support of most driver software and application software. Therefore, its market share or activities to maintain market dominance are highly controversial. But at present, some Linux systems choose to be compatible with Windows software as much as possible, so they have developed corresponding technologies, and even some institutions have tried to write a non-Windows system that is completely compatible with Windows XP in C language, but these technologies are still too difficult for ordinary users.
The seventh generation operating system Windows 7
At present, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are the latest Windows versions. There are four versions of Windows Server 2008 R2: Windows Server 2008 R2 Web Server Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition and Windows Server 2008 R2 Data Center Edition. Web Edition is mainly designed for web hosting, while Datacenter is used for very high-end systems. The standard edition and the enterprise edition are somewhere in between.
There are six versions of Windows 7, namely, basic version, basic version, advanced version, professional version, flagship version and enterprise version. Only companies buy them in large quantities. Among them, Ultimate has the most functions, and Starter has the least, and many functions have been removed or restricted, but this version is only sold in a few emerging regions, such as Southeast Asia and South Asia (Thailand, India, etc.). ), and found in notebooks, netbooks, nettop and other notebook computers.
What is an operating system?
Operating system (OS) is a program that manages computer hardware and software resources, and it is also the kernel and cornerstone of computer system. Operating system is responsible for managing and configuring memory, determining the priority of supply and demand of system resources, controlling input and output devices, operating network, managing file system and other basic affairs. The operating system also provides users with an operating interface to interact with the system (please refer to Shell and graphical user interface).
The types of operating systems are very diverse, and the OS installed on different machines can range from simple to complex, from the embedded system of mobile phones to the large operating system of supercomputers. Many operating system manufacturers have different definitions of OS. For example, some operating systems integrate a graphical user interface, while others only use a text interface and regard the graphical interface as an unnecessary application.
Operating system theory is an active branch of computer science with a long history, and the design and implementation of operating system is the foundation and core of software industry.