Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a product line of proprietary graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and sub-families that cater to particular sectors of the computing industry -- Windows (unqualified) for a consumer or corporate workstation, Windows Server for a server and Windows IoT for an embedded system. Defunct families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, and Windows Embedded Compact.
"Windows" redirects here. For the part of a building, see Window. For other uses, see Windows (disambiguation).Developer
November 20, 1985
Personal computing
110 languages
Windows Installer (.msi, .msp),[7] App Installer (.msix,[8] .msixbundle[9][10]), Microsoft Store (.appx, .appxbundle),[11] Windows Package Manager
- Windows NT family: Hybrid
- Windows Embedded Compact/Windows CE: Hybrid
- Windows 9x and earlier: Monolithic (MS-DOS and VMM32)
The first version of Windows was released on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).[12]
Windows is the most popular desktop operating system in the world, with a 70% market share as of March 2023, according to StatCounter.[13] However, Windows is not the most used operating system when including both mobile and desktop OSes, due to Android's massive growth.[14]
As of 2024, the most recent version of Windows is Windows 11 for consumer PCs and tablets, Windows 11 Enterprise for corporations, and Windows Server 2022 for servers. Still supported are some editions of Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and later (and exceptionally with paid support down to Windows Server 2012 and Windows Embedded POSReady 7).
As of 2024, the only active top-level family is Windows NT. The first version, Windows NT 3.1, was intended for server computing and corporate workstations. It grew into a product line of its own and now consists of four sub-families that tend to be released almost simultaneously and share the same kernel.
These top-level Windows families are no longer actively developed:
Owing to the operating system's popularity, a number of applications have been released that aim to provide compatibility with Windows applications, either as a compatibility layer for another operating system, or as a standalone system that can run software written for Windows out of the box. These include: