What is Microsoft Windows?

If you are new to computing, one of the first questions you might have is what is Microsoft Windows? While Microsoft gets a bum rap from time to time for being a huge force and sometimes negative force in the computing universe, without Microsoft Windows computing today would be incredibly different.


Microsoft Windows is a computer software operating system. Throughout the years, there have been many products with the Window's name. Just some of the more popular Windows operating systems sold are Windows 3.0, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP and the current version of Microsoft Windows- Windows Vista.

In the early days of computing, a graphical user interface was extremely rare, most computers offered visual output in the form of monochrome monitors that typically showed text (usually the color green). However, as more and more powerful computers emerged (during the early 1990's) a graphical user interface with a color monitor was the norm. Microsoft Windows ran on PC computers giving it a huge market share. So for most people that bought a PC computer, their operating system of choice was Microsoft Windows.

An operating system can be said to be the main software component that is responsible for managing activities, coordinating activities and assigning computer resources. Microsoft Windows is what most computers today come with for these tasks. The term "windows" comes from the ability to have open and control a number of software programs simultaneously. Using a graphical user interface, on Microsoft Windows you can easily see which programs are open and running and multi-task (work on several programs at the same time).

Microsoft Windows is the leading operating system today, however other operating systems are popular including Apple's OSX which only runs on Apple computers and Linux which is a free, open source software that is popular with tech enthusiasts.