Windows Vista in a Nutshell

The Big Picture

The first few releases of Microsoft Windows in the early 1980s were little more than clunky graphical application launchers that ran on top of the Disk Operating System (DOS) (see Chapter 14 for details). Version 3.x, released in the late 1980s, gained popularity due to its improved interface (awful by today’s standards) and capability to access all of a computer’s memory. Being based on DOS, however, it was not terribly stable, crashed frequently, and had very limited support for networking and no support for multiple user accounts.

Soon thereafter, Windows NT 3.1 (“NT” for New Technology) was released. Although it shared the same interface as Windows 3.1, it was based on a more robust and more secure kernel, the underlying code on which the interface and all of the applications run. Among other things, it didn’t rely on DOS and was capable of running 32-bit applications (Windows 3.1 could run only more feeble 16-bit applications).^[*] Unfortunately, it was a white elephant of sorts, enjoying limited commercial appeal due to its stiff hardware requirements and scant industry support.

In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95. Although based on DOS, like Windows 3.x (it was known internally as Windows 4.0), it was a 32-bit operating system with a new interface. It was the first step toward bringing the enhanced capability of the Windows NT architecture to the more commercially accepted, albeit less capable, DOS-based Windows line. Soon thereafter, Windows NT 4.0 was released, ...