Windows 3.x Windows 3.0 Windows 3.1 And Later Full OS Or MS DOS

Windows 3.0 was released on May 22, 1990 and included a significantly revamped user interface as well as technical improvements to make better use of the memory management capabilities of Intel's 80286 and 80386 processors. Text-mode programs written for MS-DOS could be run within a window (a feature previously available in a more limited form with Windows/386 2.1), making the system usable as a crude multitasking base for legacy programs, though this was of limited use for the home market, where most games and entertainment programs continued to require raw DOS access.

The MS-DOS Executive file manager/program launcher was replaced with an icon-based Program ManagerThe Program Manager in the Microsoft Windows 3. x series operating systems gave users a way to configure their desktop computers through a Graphical user interface. The user-friendly GUI replaced the text-based shells of previous operating systems and ena and a list-based File Manager (called Winfile), thereby simplifying the launching of applications. The MS-DOS Executive was still included as an alternative user interface program. The Control Panel, previously available as a standard-looking appletAn applet is a small program that runs in the context of a larger program on a client computer. Nowadays this usually refers to Java applets, which run in a browser, though it is possible the introduction of the term in AppleScript in 1993 slightly predat has been re-modeled after the one in MacOS. It centralized system settings, including limited control over the color scheme of the interface. A number of simple applications were included, such as the text editor NotepadNotepad is a simple text editor included with Microsoft Windows. Notepad makes use of a built-in window class named "EDIT". It is one of the most common text-only editors. The resulting files—typically saved with the. txt extension—have no format tags or and the word processor Write (both inherited from earlier versions of Windows), a macro recorder (new; later dropped), and a calculator (also inherited). The earlier ReversiThe strategic board games Reversi or Othello involve play by two parties on an eight-by-eight square grid with pieces that have two distinct sides. Pieces typically appear coin-like, with a light and a dark face. Mattel produces reversi equipment under th game has been complemented with a nice-looking card puzzle named Solitaire. Windows 3.0 was the last version of Windows that had the ability to run in real mode, and was the last version to have 100% compatability with older Windows applications.

2 Windows 3.1 and later

Windows 3.1 (originally codenamed Janus), released on March 18March 18 is the 77th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (78th in leap years). There are 288 days remaining. Events 37 The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius' will and proclaims Caligula emperor. 1229 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor declares himself King, 19921992 is a leap year starting on Wednesday. Events January January The Internet Society is formed. January 1 Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General January 1 George H. Bush becomes the fi, added basic multimedia support for audio input and output and a CD audio player application, as well as a TrueType font system (and a set of highly legible fonts already installed) which effectively made Windows a serious desktop publishing platform for the first time.

Windows 3.1 was designed to have a certain degree of backwards compatibility with older Windows platforms, although forward compatibilty verges on non-existent. 3.1 and 3.11 would not support many new file formats, such as the GIF and JPEG image formats, relying instead wholly on bitmap images. All windows programs (except for Idlewild, the screensaver manager) existed in a larger program/folder called Program Manager. It had a few analogs to the much more successful Windows 95, such as an options bar that ran across the top of the screen (similar to the now-famous taskbar) and had a program called File Manager, which acted as My Computer and the Run command rolled into one. Windows 3.1 was also the last Windows OS not to use the right click or to have a ready 'copy and paste' method. To copy something to a disk (some machines came with B drives, also a Windows last), the user had to insert the disk and copy something into it with the File Manager.

A very similar in functionality Adobe Type Manager (ATM) font system was previously available for Windows 3.0 from Adobe. A popular software package for DTP at the time was CorelDraw.

A special version named Windows 3.1 for Central and Eastern Europe was released (when?) that allowed the use of Cyrillic and had fonts with diacritical marks, characteristic for the Central and Eastern European languages.

Windows 3.x was eventually and totally superseded by Windows 95, Windows 98, and later versions which integrated the MS-DOS and Windows components into a single product.

3 Full OS or MS-DOS shell?

Pre-NT Windows systems, not only 3.x and earlier but also 95, 98 and ME, have a complex, original, hybrid and not officially documented internal structure. As a consequence, it can be difficult to decide whether they are operating systems or MS-DOS extension shells. Many users consider them to be operating systems, because they simply behave like ones, while some other people, often primarily using other environments, refuse this label, on grounds sometimes more religious than technical.

Indeed, Windows 3.x requires pre-installation of MS-DOS, which must be booted into on PC startup. Windows is started as an application program, and can be terminated at any time, giving back the MS-DOS prompt. MS-DOS also provides device drivers for certain tasks like CD-ROM or Network access. On the other side, Windows requires specifically written applications, having a specific on-disk file format, which is much more complicated than the format of MS-DOS executables. It has many own device drivers and for the most part its own memory management system.

The first part of the answer lies in the fact that MS-DOS does not isolate applications from the hardware and does not protect itself from applications. The memory-resident part of MS-DOS, as opposed to utilities on disk, is little more than a library of routines for dealing with disk-type peripherals and loading applications from them. Therefore, an MS-DOS program is free to do whatever it desires, notably replacing or bypassing part or all of MS-DOS code, temporarily or permanently. And this is what happens when Windows starts. How much is bypassed depends on the version. With Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and the so-called 32-bit File Access even the role of accessing files is taken over by native Windows code. Note that bypassing much predates Windows. DOS programs could bypass pretty much everything if they wanted to achieve maximum performance or functionality.

The second part of the answer lies in the specific architecture of the Intel 80286 and 80386 family of microprocessors. They have several modes of operation: Real mode, 16-bit and 32-bit protected modes and the VM86 mode. By using more or less documented machine instructions, it is possible to switch between modes at will. Switching modes does not destroy memory content, so in effect it is possible to keep different types of code in memory in parallel. It is also possible for a code of a certain type to invoke code of a different type.

So, starting with Windows/386 2.0, the Windows kernel ran in protected mode (except if the user asked to run Windows in Real mode), but was still able to invoke MS-DOS code for specific tasks, to a large extent in the same way as one can invoke a network server.

Windows also leveraged certain undocumented multitasking features present in MS-DOS, and allowing several programs to access MS-DOS functionality at once.

Therefore, Windows did not really run on MS-DOS but instead used MS-DOS in specific circumstances.

The third part of the answer is again related to the features of the Intel processors. An MS-DOS program running in the Windows environment and performing system calls or traps does not necessarily enter MS-DOS immediately, as it would outside of Windows. Windows is able to catch these calls and execute anything else instead. For example, an MS-DOS program running on Windows for Workgroups 3.11 will automatically use the 32-bit File Access rather than the MS-DOS file and disk access routines, which are hence completely bypassed. Similarly, a specially written MS-DOS program running on Windows 95 can access long file names.

This complex collaboration between Windows and MS-DOS was certainly the source of many stability problems.

The same argument applied, although to a lesser extent, to Windows 95 and Windows 98, which still used the same principle and mixed 16-bit with 32-bit code, although DOS was less visible. Windows NT and derivatives, are however stand-alone, fully 32-bit operating systems.

History of Microsoft Windows

Windows: 1.0 | 2.0 | 3.x | NT | 95 | 98 | Me | 2000 | XP | Server 2003 | CE | Pocket PC | Mobile | Longhorn | Blackcomb

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1 Windows 3.0

2 Windows 3.1 and later

3 Full OS or MS-DOS shell?

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