The origin of Windows can be traced back to the work done by Xerox.
1970, Xerox established the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), a famous research institution in the United States, to study LAN, laser printer, graphical user interface and object-oriented technology, and announced the world's first commercial GUI (graphical user interface) system Star 80 10 in1year.
However, like many later companies, due to various reasons, advanced technology did not bring it the expected commercial success.
At that time, Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Computer Company, realized the importance of graphical user interface and broad market prospects after visiting the PARC research center of Xerox Company, and began to develop his own GUI system, and successfully developed the first GUI system: Apple Lisa in 1983.
Soon after, Apple introduced the second GUI system, Apple Macintosh, which was the first successful commercial GUI system in the world.
At that time, when Apple was developing Macintosh, for the sake of market strategy, it only developed GUI system on Apple's own microcomputer. At this time, IBM compatible microcomputers based on Intel x86 microprocessor chips gradually appeared.
This provides development space and market for Microsoft to develop Windows.
Microsoft has long recognized the importance of establishing industry standards. 1in the spring of 983, it announced the development of Windows, hoping that it would become the standard GUI operating system on computers based on Intel x86 microprocessor chips.
It launched Windows 1985 and Windows2.0 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 memory management and graphical interface of Windows, making the graphical interface more beautiful and supporting virtual memory.
Microsoft launched Windows3.0 in May 1990, which was an instant hit.
The operating system of "However, we called a thousand times and urged her to come to us a thousand times" is an amazing commercial success: in less than six weeks, Microsoft sold 500,000 copies of Windows3.0, breaking the six-week sales record of any software product, thus establishing Microsoft's monopoly position in the operating system.
Windows3. 1, which was launched one year later, made some improvements on Windows 3.0, and introduced TrueType font technology, which is an extensible font technology and improved its performance. In order to improve the reliability of the system, a newly designed file management program is also introduced.
More importantly, support for object linking and embedding technology (OLE) and multimedia technology has been added.
Windows3.0 and Windows3. 1 must run on the MS DOS operating system.
Subsequently, Microsoft took advantage of Windows to launch a new generation of operating system Windows95 (also known as Chicago) at 1995, which can run independently without DOS support.
Windows95 is a landmark work in the history of operating system development. It has made many significant improvements to Windows3. 1, including: better object-oriented graphical user interface, thus reducing the learning burden of users; Full 32-bit high-performance preemptive multitasking and multithreading; Built-in support for interest; More advanced multimedia support (sound, graphics, images, etc. ), you can write the screen directly, which supports the game well; Plug and play simplifies the user's hardware configuration operation and avoids hardware conflict; 32-bit linear addressing memory management and good backward compatibility.
When we refer to Windows in the future, we generally refer to Windows95.
Windows operating system functions, and later Windows introduced 98, Me and 2000 versions, but windows2000 is divided into professional version and server version.
The success of Windows mainly lies in its following advantages:
Intuitive and efficient object-oriented graphical user interface, easy to learn and use;
In a sense, both the Windows user interface and the development environment are object-oriented.
Users work in the way of "selecting objects-manipulating objects".
For example, to open a document, we first select the document with the mouse or keyboard, and then select "Open" from the right-click menu to open the document.
This operation mode simulates the behavior of the real world and is easy to understand, learn and use.
The user interface is unified, friendly and beautiful;
Most Windows applications conform to the CUA (mon User Acess) standard proposed by IBM, and all programs have the same or similar basic appearance, including windows, menus, toolbars and so on.
As long as users master one of them, it is not difficult to learn other software, thus reducing the cost of user training and learning.
Rich graphical operations independent of devices:
Graphics device interface (GDI) of Windows provides rich graphic operation functions, which can draw geometric figures such as lines, circles and boxes, and supports various output devices.
Device independence means that graphics with the same effect can be displayed on stylus printers and high-resolution displays.
Multitasking:
Windows is a multitasking operating environment, which allows users to run multiple applications at the same time, or do several things in one program at the same time.
Each program occupies a rectangular area on the screen, which is called a window, and windows can overlap.
Users can move these windows or switch between different applications, and can exchange and communicate data between programs manually and automatically.
Although the computer can run multiple applications at the same time, only one is active and its title bar is highlighted.
An active program refers to a program that can currently receive user keyboard input.
Another milestone in the development of Windows-Windows XP
Windows XP is a new generation of Windows operating system launched by Microsoft after Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium.
Windows XP perfectly combines many advantages of Windows 2000 (such as standards-based security, manageability and reliability) with the best functions of Windows 98 and Windows Me (plug and play, easy-to-use user interface and innovative support services), thus creating the best Windows operating system products to date.
From the technical point of view, this paper summarizes the new functions of Windows XP.
This paper shows how new technologies and new functions can make it easier for users to finish their daily work, * * * enjoy information, manage their desktops, realize efficient mobile office, get help and support and perform other computing tasks.
Windows XP has made many improvements on the basis of the existing Windows 2000 code, and provided corresponding versions for the different needs of home users and enterprise users: Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional Edition.
Unless otherwise specified, the technologies and functions described in this paper are the functions of these two operating systems.