Windows
More info
- Released
- Owner
- Microsoft
- Type
- Operating system
- License
- Proprietary
Microsoft's operating system and still the desktop's dominant player at roughly 70% share.
Two lineages. The consumer line (1985–2000) was a graphical shell over MS-DOS. The NT line, led by Dave Cutler from 1988 with VMS heritage, had a real kernel, memory protection and multi-user support; Windows XP (2001) merged the tracks.
Backwards compatibility is close to fanatical — binaries from 1995 still run — which is both its greatest strength and the explanation for the registry and Win32's quirks. WSL2 today runs an actual Linux kernel inside a lightweight VM.