Windows History

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A History of Windows

Windows promised an easy-to-use graphical interface, device-independent graphics and multitasking support. The development was delayed several times, however, and the Windows 1.0 hit the store shelves in November 1985. The selection of applications was sparse, however, and Windows sales were modest.

Windows 1.0 package, included

MS-DOS Executive, Calendar, Cardfile, Notepad, Terminal, Calculator, Clock, Reversi, Control Panel, PIF (Program Information File) Editor, Print Spooler, Clipboard, RAMDrive, Windows Write, Windows Paint.

On November 10, 1983, Microsoft announced Microsoft Windows, an extension of the MS-DOS operating system that would provide a graphical operating environment for PC users. Microsoft called Windows 1.0 a new software environment for developing and running applications that use bitmap displays and mouse pointing devices. With Windows, the graphical user interface (GUI) era at Microsoft had begun.

The release of Windows XP in 2001 marked a major milestone in the Windows desktop operating system family, by bringing together the two previously separate lines of Windows desktop operating systems.

With the upcoming release of Windows .NET Server, Microsoft will complete a cycle of server operating system upgrades it began nearly a decade ago in 1993, with the release of the first version of Microsoft Windows NT Server. To understand the progression of Windows server operating systems you have to look back earlier than 1993, however, to the even longer line of Windows desktop operating systems stretching back to the early 1980s.

To explain the many advances since Windows 1.0, the following pages summarize milestones in the development of Windows desktop operating systems at Microsoft.

Many longtime PC users trace Windows to the 1990 release of Windows 3.0, the first widely popular version of Windows and the first version of Windows many PC users ever tried. But Microsoft actually released the first version of Windows six years earlier, in 1985. To understand the roots of today's Windows operating systems, we must journey back nearly 20 years.