For those of you whose heads have been in the dirt for the past ten years (or are non-geeks, I suppose), we are at war. The Operating System War. The slugfest has been long and arduous, and I can guarantee you it will last for quite some time longer.
The main contestant is Microsoft, with its flagship product (Windows). Holding approximately 89% of the market, Windows has dominated the computer world for as far as most people know. Now, this post is not going to be a "bash-Microsoft" campaign journal, so if you're looking for ammunition to use against Windows I suggest you look elsewhere.
The other major players include Apple (putting out OSX) and the various distributors of Linux (Red Hat, Canonical, Novell, etc). Other operating systems exist, such as BSD, the various forks of UNIX such as AIX, Solaris and IRIX, and Minix; however, they do not contribute significantly to the OS war as they are targeted towards a very specific audience. I will be focusing primarily on Windows, Linux and OSX. Part 1 will focus on Windows and its iterations, Part 2 on UNIX derivatives, and Part 3 on OSX.
The very first iteration of Windows, Windows 1.01 (what happened to Windows 1.0? Who knows?), was released in 1985. It was a 16-bit operating environment, the first Microsoft OS to implement multitasking. However, all Windows at that point was, was an overlay for DOS. The user still had to have DOS installed in order to run this environment (I hesitate to call it an OS). It was superseded by Windows 2.0 and 2.1x, which introduced the ability to "drag" windows across the screen and overlap windows. Next came the wildly successful Windows 3.1, released in 1992 (3.0 was released in 1990). Windows 3.1 included 32-bit disk support, high contrast coloring schemes, and the separation of real mode and user mode.
"Windows" as most people know it began its life as the little-known network operating system OS/2. Through a partnership with IBM, Microsoft helped develop one of the most stable operating systems at the time, devoid of the clunky DOS architecture. Once IBM and Microsoft fell out, Microsoft took the code it had created, expanded upon it, and created Windows NT. This created three families of Windows: the consumer level (95, 98, Me), the enterprise level (NT, NT for Workgroups, 2000 Professional), and the server level (NT Server, 2000 Server).
For home users, three operating systems emerged, all of which used a 16/32-bit hybrid kernel. Windows 95 was the first consumer-level Windows OS to be able to boot without an existing DOS install. It introduced concepts like the Start menu, the taskbar, Safe Mode, the system tray and the Task Manager. Three years later, it was succeeded by Windows 98. Along with Windows 98 came a new driver standard, enabling device manufacturers to make improvements to the driver architecture. System tools, such as ScanDisk, Disk Defragmenter, MSConfig and RegEdit, were released with 98. In 2000, Windows Me (Millennium Edition, though why the e is lowercase I'll never know) was released. As an operating system, it was a flop. However, it incorporated many new components now considered vital Microsoft products. These include Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Player (v7 at the time), Windows DVD Player (Now merged into WMP), Image and Thumbnail Preview, Windows Networking Wizard, Universal Plug and Play, Automatic Updates, and generic USB Mass Storage Device drivers.
On the professional level, Windows NT 1 was released in 1993. It had a GUI adapted from Windows 3.1, and was the first true 32-bit platform released by Microsoft. By the time Windows NT 3.0 rolled around, Windows 95 had hooked consumer audiences and Microsoft redesigned NT to look and feel more similar to the Windows 9x series (while still remaining unencumbered by MS-DOS. Until Windows 2000, the NT family used the NT Driver Model, which was incompatible with the Windows Driver Model introduced in Windows 98. However, Windows 2000 Professional and Server included support for the WDM, nearly merging the two OS lines' compatibility charts.
On October 25, 2001, a Windows revolution was released. The newly-named Windows XP was driven out to the masses, marking the end to the Windows 9x line forever. XP was based around the same 32-bit kernel used in Windows 2000, and was hailed as the greatest Microsoft product to date. Simultaneously, Microsoft shipped copies of XP capable of running on Intel's Itanium architecture (IA-64), while in 2005, Microsoft released a version of XP Professional compatible with the x86-64 architecture(AMD's Athlon/Sempron/Phenom 64 and Intel's Core 2/i7/Atom lines). Windows XP was in use for nearly six years before the next release, Vista, was published.
Windows Vista brought a very wide range of improvements to the Windows family. The now-iconic Aero interface was introduced (much to chipset manufacturers' chagrin), Windows DVD Maker, a much-improved and simplified Windows Update, improved audio functionality and control, the Reliability and Performance Monitor, and the Logical Disk Manager. Under the hood, a new Windows display model, the Desktop Window Manager, was introduced. DWM runs best on dedicated graphics chips, as it is based on the DirectX 10 technology. As such, much of the hatred of Vista has spawned from simply not having a powerful enough GPU. Inside the kernel, the memory manager has been improved greatly, along with introducing the Heap Manager (preventing buffer overflow exploits).
Windows 7, the next release of Windows, is currently in beta. As such, I do not feel it is ready to be included in this article. Suffice it to say that I believe 7 is what Vista should have been two years ago.
Now, on to the meat of the issue.
The primary reason most people use Windows is simple: Most prebuilt (OEM) computers come with Windows. Recently, manufacturers such as Dell and Asus have been releasing Linux computers, but they still have a long way to go before they catch on. In addition, compared to other OSs (yes, even OSX), Windows is very user-friendly. It has one of the largest hardware compatibility charts I've ever seen, and the recent addition of 64-bit support in the standard install is phenominal (no pun intended). Vista, particularly, is extremely stable, and I've yet to receive a BSoD that wasn't caused by a faulty device driver (or deliberatly trying to make it crash). If you have hardware that can support it, Vista is incredible.
Now for the bad side. Vista has a large overhead, making it very clunky on older systems. Any less than a dual-core CPU clocked at at least 1.5 GHz will not be able to run Vista efficiently. In addition, running Aero on anything lower than an nVidia GeForce 8600 (or ATi Radeon 3450) will not go over so well. Microsoft seems to have lost the concept 32-bit audio support, opting for 24-bit instead (wut?). After that, all the major problems I've seen come down to support and drivers (ie, not Mifrosofts fault).
Security has always been a problem on Windows, which is alleviated slightly by the introduction of User Account Control (UAC). This nifty little thing asks you whenever a program tries to make changes to important system files. However, it is extremely overbearing. I had to answer "Are you sure?" dialog boxes every time I wanted to delete a Start Menu shortcut. Ugh. UAC has been much improved in Windows 7, and I'm hopeful to see what comes next.
Microsoft licensing is where it gets iffy. After reading through the End User License Agreement (EULA) for Windows Vista, I was slightly put off. The problem that stuck out to me was Section Eight: "This software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights." Scary.
Up next: Linux, Minix and BSD -- The bastard children of UNIX
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