Windows Operating System

Submitted by- Manish Malgaonkar

What is an Operating System

• An operating system is a software, consisting of programs and data, that runs on computers and manages the computer hardware and provides common services for efficient execution of various application software.

• For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between application programs and the computer hardware , although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware, but will frequently call the OS or be interrupted by it.

History Microsoft Windows operating system was developed by Microsoft to overcome the limitation of its own MS-DOS operating system.

First successful version were Windows 3.0, released in 1990.Subsequently released version were     Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000,etc.

 Microsoft initially announced the Windows product seven years earlier and released the first version in 1983.

Common Features of Windows OS

Program Execution

Providing Interfaces

Handling Input / Output Operations

Error Handling

Memory management

Process management

Program Execution

The Operating System is responsiblefor executing various programs whether user programs or system programs i.e. special programs required for the machine functioning.

Providing Interface

Interface means communication or medium between user and computerto perform any kind of work by the computer. It is used to instruct the computer.

The two main types to instruct the computer are: -

CUICharacter User

Interface

GUIGraphic User

Interface

Handling Input / Output Operations

• The OS is responsible for handling various type of inputs and various types of outputs in the appropriate manner.

• For instance if the input comes form mouse then it requires different type of handling as compared to input coming from keyboard.

Startup video for windows Seven

Error Handling

• The Operating System is also responsible for the detection any type of error that occurs and then properly handling it.

Memory Management

• Memory management is the act of managing computer memory. In its simpler forms, this involves providing ways to allocate portions of memory to programs at their request, and freeing it for reuse when no longer needed. The management of main memory is critical to the computer system.

Process Management

• Process management is an integral part of any modern day operating system. The OS must allocate resources to processes,enable processes to share and exchange information, protect the resources of each process from other processes and enablesynchronization among processes.To meet these requirements,the OS must maintain a data structure for eachprocess, which describes the state and resource Ownership of that process and which enables theOS to exert control over each process.

Windows Versions

Windows 1.0

Windows 2.0

Windows 3.0

Windows 3.1

Windows 3.1

Windows VersionsWindows 95

Windows 98

Windows 2000

Windows XP

Windows Vista

Windows  7

Windows 8

Multitasking

• Multitasking refers to the running of multiple independent computer programs on the same computer; giving the appearance that it is performing the tasks at the same time. Since most computers can do at most one or two things at one time, this is generally done via time-sharing, which means that each program uses a share of the computer's time to execute.

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