The most widely used operating system for desktop and laptop computers. Developed by Microsoft, Windows primarily runs on x86-based computers (the ubiquitous PC), although previous versions ran on Intel Itanium CPUs. Windows also used to run on ARM CPUs (see
Windows RT), and Windows on ARM is making a comeback (see
Windows 10 on ARM). According to Microsoft, as of 2020, there are 1.5 billion Windows 10, Windows 7 and Windows Server machines in use worldwide. While Windows is the dominant desktop operating system, Linux is widely used on servers (see
Linux).
Although the Mac popularized the graphical user interface (GUI) and desktop environment, Windows followed suit while making dramatic changes over the years (see
GUI). Windows comes in both client and server versions, all of which support networking, the difference being that the server architecture is designed for dedicated servers and not desktop use. See
Linux,
operating system,
smartphone operating system and
embedded OS.
Thin Windows Clients
In many organizations, Windows runs in a thin client environment, whereby the user's PC functions like a terminal to a central server. For more details, see
Remote Desktop Services.
Windows Versions
Starting with Windows 1.0 in 1985, the OS evolved into numerous incarnations. It originally was a graphical extension to the DOS operating system but was integrated with DOS as of Windows 95. For version history, see
Windows versions. See
Microsoft Bob.
Windows How to's
All the Windows "how to's" in this encyclopedia have a "Win" prefix in front of their name in order to group them together; for example,
Win Change Windows appearance and
Win Desktop search. For fundamentals on how to work with Windows, see
Win abc's and
Win10 abc's.