The History of Microsoft Windows Software
On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system that would provide a graphical user interface (GUI) and multitasking environment for IBM computers. Microsoft promised that the new program would be on the shelf by April 1984. It might have been released under the original name of Interface Manager if Microsoft's marketing whiz, Rowland Hanson, had not convinced Microsoft founder Bill Gates that Windows was the better name.
That same November, Bill Gates showed a beta version of Windows to IBM's head honchos. Their response was lackluster, perhaps because IBM was also working on its own product called Top View. They did not give Microsoft the same encouragement for Windows that they gave MS-DOS in 1981, the first highly successful operating system that Microsoft wrote for the IBM-PC.
Top View was released in February 1985, as a DOS-based multitasking program manager without any GUI features. IBM promised that future versions of Top View would have a GUI. The promise was never kept, and the program was discontinued barely two years later.
No doubt, Bill Gates realized how profitable a successful GUI for IBM computers would be. He had seen Apple's Lisa computer and later the more successful Macintosh computer. Both Apple computers came with a stunning graphical user interface.
Side Note: Early
MS-DOS diehards liked to refer to MacOS as 'WIMP' - the Windows, Icons, Mice
and Pointers interface.
Microsoft Windows faced potential competition from IBM's own Top View, and there
were others. VisiCorp's short-lived VisiOn, released in October 1983, was the
official first PC-based GUI. The second was GEM (Graphics Environment Manager),
released by Digital Research in early 1985. Both GEM and VisiOn lacked support
from the all-important third-party developers--and, if nobody wanted to write
software programs for an operating system, nobody would want to buy it.
Microsoft finally shipped Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985, almost two years
past the initially promised release date.
Windows 1.0 was considered buggy, crude and slow. This rough start was made worse by a threatened lawsuit from Apple Computer. In September 1985, Apple lawyers warned Bill Gates that they felt Windows 1.0 infringed on Apple copyrights and patents, and that his corporation might have stolen Apple trade secrets. (Windows had similar drop-down menus, tiled windows and mouse support.)
Bill Gates and his head counsel, Bill Neukom, decided to make an offer to license Apple's operating-system features. Apple agreed, and a contract was drawn up. Here's the clincher: Microsoft wrote the licensing agreement to include use of Apple features in Windows 1.0 and all future Microsoft software programs. As it turned out, this move by Bill Gates was as brilliant as his decision to buy QDOS from Seattle Computer Products and his convincing IBM to let Microsoft keep the licensing rights to MS-DOS. (You can read all about those smooth moves in our feature on MS-DOS.)
Windows 1.0 floundered on the market until January 1987, when a Windows-compatible program called Aldus PageMaker 1.0 was released. PageMaker was the first WYSIWYG desktop-publishing program for the PC. Later that year, Microsoft released a Windows-compatible spreadsheet called Excel. Other popular and useful software like Microsoft Word and Corel Draw helped promote Windows, but Microsoft realized the product still needed further development.
On December 9, 1987, Microsoft released a much-improved Windows 2.0 that made a PC look a bit more like a MacIntosh computer. Windows 2.0 had icons to represent programs and files, improved support for expanded-memory hardware and windows that could overlap. Apple Computer saw a resemblance and filed a 1988 lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that they had broken the 1985 licensing agreement.
In their defense, Microsoft claimed that the licensing agreement actually gave them the right to use Apple features. After a four-year court case, Microsoft won. Apple claimed that Microsoft had infringed on 170 of their copyrights. The courts said that the licensing agreement gave Microsoft the rights to use all but nine of the copyrights, and Microsoft later convinced the courts that the remaining copyrights should not be covered by copyright law. Bill Gates claimed that Apple had taken some of its ideas from the graphical user interface developed by Xerox for Xerox's Alto and Star computers.
On May 22, 1990, the critically accepted Windows 3.0 was released. Windows 3.0 had an improved program manager and icon system, a new file manager, support for sixteen colors, and improved speed and reliability. Most important, Windows 3.0 gained widespread third-party support. Programmers started writing Windows-compatible software, giving end users a reason to buy Windows 3.0. Three million copies were sold the first year, and Windows finally came of age.
On April 6, 1992, Windows 3.1 was released. Three million copies were sold in the first two months. TrueType scalable font support was added, along with multimedia capability, object linking and embedding (OLE), application reboot capability, and more. Windows 3.x became the number one operating system installed in PCs until 1997, when Windows 95 took over.
On August 24, 1995, Windows 95 was released in a buying fever so great that even consumers without home computers bought copies of the program. Code-named Chicago, Windows 95 was considered very user-friendly. It included an integrated TCP/IP stack, dial-up networking, and long filename support. It was also the first version of Windows that did not require MS-DOS to be installed beforehand.
On June 25, 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98. It was the last version of Windows based on the MS-DOS kernel. Windows 98 has Microsoft's Internet browser "Internet Explorer 4" built in and supports the new input devices like USB.
Windows 2000 was based on Microsoft's NT technology, and Microsoft offered automatic software updates over the Internet. We can expect to see a greater user of speech and facial recognition in future versions of Windows. Computer users will soon control their computers without even touching a keyboard or mouse.
Taken from about.com