History of Microsoft Windows

On November 10, 1983, Microsoft announced Windows, a graphical user interface (GUI) for MS-DOS and a competitor to the Macintosh operating system. The product line eventually changed from a mere GUI for DOS into a fully complete, modern operating system over two lines of development, each with their own separate codebase.

The first versions of Windows (1.0 through to 3.11) were actually just programs run from MS-DOS which then took over the screen and launched an application called Program Manager; later on, Windows 95, though still being based on MS-DOS, was its own operating system, using a 16-bit DOS-based kernel and a 32-bit user space. Windows 95 introduced many staple features that remain in current versions of Windows today, including the Start menu, the taskbar, and Windows Explorer (renamed File Explorer in Windows 8). In 1997, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4 which included the (at the time) controversial Windows Desktop Update, which aimed to integrate Internet Explorer and the world wide web into the user interface and also brought many new features into Windows, such as the ability to display JPEG images as the desktop wallpaper and single window navigation in Windows Explorer, all of which still exist in Windows today. In 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98, which also included the Windows Desktop Update and Internet Explorer 4 by default. The inclusion of Internet Explorer 4 and the Desktop Update led to an infamous anti-trust case. Windows 98 also included plug and play, which allowed devices to simply work when plugged in instead of requiring a system reboot, and USB support out of the box, which was previously only available in specially updated versions of Windows 95 which were only shipped to computer manufacturers and not available to the general public. Windows ME, the last DOS-based version of Windows, was aimed at consumers and released in 2000. It introduced the Help and Support Center, System Restore, and updated user-friendly versions of the Disk Defragmenter and other system tools.

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