Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a range of closed source commercial operating environments for personal computers and servers. The range was first introduced by Microsoft in 1985 and eventually has come to dominate the world personal computer market.

Microsoft’s Windows is the most popular microcomputer operating system with over 90 percent of the market. Because of this, a large number of application programs are developed to run under Windows. Windows comes in a variety of versions and is designed to run with Intel and Intel-compatible microprocessors such as the Pentium IV.

You can see details of the various Microsoft desktop operating systems in the displayed figure.

The most widely used versions of Windows, i.e. Windows XP, was introduced in 2001. The next major version, Windows Vista, which is the latest one, was released in 2007.

Some of the useful features of Windows are as follows:

You can see multiple programs running simultaneously on different areas of your screen.

The Windows interface is based on “Graphical User Interface” or GUI, which means that the interface uses graphics or pictures to help the user navigate and access programs. Right-clicking the mouse on any object displays a “context” menu which you can use to execute many useful commands easily.

You can use shortcuts to open a program without having to find the program on your hard disk.

Help is always near. Pressing the “F1” key in most situations either displays detailed instructions or brief descriptions of the controls. The help has a search feature, too, allowing you to find desired information by typing in a keyword.

Clipboard: The “Clipboard” is a temporary storage area for information that you have copied or moved from one place and plan to use somewhere else. For example, you might want to copy a section of text from a website, and then paste that text into an e mail message. The Clipboard is available in most Windows programs.