Microsoft Operating Systems
Most consumer computers use an operating system made by Microsoft. This is the reason, Bill Gates,
the owner of Microsoft is the worlds richest man.
Disk Operating System (DOS)
DOS was one of the very first operating systems. It was a command line based operating system (CLI), although it
did allow some primitive GUI's to run overtop of it. It was still widely used up to about a year ago,
with major game titles such a Tomb Raider, being programmed for it. For legacy support, Windows 3.1,
Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Millenium all operate out of DOS.
Windows 3.1
This was the first step of the GUI. It was horribly implimented, and still relied on console commands
to perform most major operations.
Windows 95
This was the king of it's day. It made the total conversion to the GUI, and made console commands
obsolete. These radical changes took there toll, and made this OS one of the most unstable and
frustrating OS ever made.
Windows98
This was built based on the Win95 OS, with major tweaks in customizability, user-friendliness, and
stability. It thrived to integrate a web browser into the core OS, which at first was not thought of
as a good idea. This is currently the most used OS, and for good reason. It is friendly, optimized for
gaming performance, and is compatible with almost every piece of hardware and software imaginable, plus it
is fairly stable.
WindowsNT
This was Microsoft's first attempt at a server OS. It was plagued with security flaws, and wasn't
capable of being the OS that was needed to be. This was also the first Microsoft OS
to remove DOS compatibility, which, while giving it a performance boost it also took away all of the
hardware and software compatibility that Windows98 had.
Windows2000
Windows2000 is currently the OS used by many high end computers. It has all of the compatibility of
Windows98, and all of the performance and stability of WindowsNT.
Windows Registry
The Windows registry is where all of the user settings for programs are stored. Did you ever wonder
how Windows remembers how you arranged your desktop icons yesterday, or what documents you
viewed? It is is all stored in the registry. The registry is broken up into 2 files, system.dat and user.dat
in the Windows folder. These files are editable with a program called Regedit.exe located in your
Windows folder. But editing the registry is not for the inexperienced, a single mistake could mean your
computer won't boot next time you power it on.
OS's like Windows98 or greater allow an automated registry backup every day, so if you do make a
mistake, at least you have something to fall back on. One thing to remember, all registry changes are
immediate, and there is no undo command.
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