Friday, February 19, 2010

EMULATION SOFTWARE

Emulation software

Emulation allows the use of some Windows applications without using Microsoft Windows. These include:

* Wine — a free and open source software implementation of the Windows API, allowing one to run many Windows applications on x86-based platforms, including Linux and Mac OS X. Wine developers refer to it as a "compatibility layer";[35] and make use of Windows-style APIs to emulate the Windows environment.
o CrossOver — A Wine package with licensed fonts. Its developers are regular contributors to Wine, and focus on Wine running officially supported applications.
o Cedega — TransGaming Technologies' proprietary fork of Wine, designed specifically for running games written for Microsoft Windows under Linux. A version of Cedega known as Cider is used by some video game publishers to allow Windows games to run on Mac OS X. Since wine was licensed under the LGPL Cedega has been unable to port the improvements made to wine to their proprietary codebase.
o Darwine — A bundling of Wine to the PowerPC Macs running OS X by running wine on top of QEMU. Intel Macs use the same Wine as other *NIX x86 systems.
* ReactOS — An open-source OS that is intended to run the same software as Windows, originally designed to simulate Windows NT 4.0, now aiming at Windows XP compatibility. It has been in the development stage since 1996.

WINDOWS CE

Windows CE
Main article: Windows CE

Windows CE (officially known as Windows Embedded), is an edition of Windows that runs on minimalistic computers, like satellite navigation systems and, uncommonly, mobile phones. Windows Embedded runs as CE, rather than NT, which is why it should not be mistaken for Windows XP Embedded, which is NT. Windows CE was used in the Dreamcast along with Sega's own proprietary OS for the console. Windows CE is the core from which Windows Mobile is derived.

WINDOWS CE

Windows CE
Main article: Windows CE

Windows CE (officially known as Windows Embedded), is an edition of Windows that runs on minimalistic computers, like satellite navigation systems and, uncommonly, mobile phones. Windows Embedded runs as CE, rather than NT, which is why it should not be mistaken for Windows XP Embedded, which is NT. Windows CE was used in the Dreamcast along with Sega's own proprietary OS for the console. Windows CE is the core from which Windows Mobile is derived.

WINDOWS NT FAMILY

Windows NT family
Main article: Windows NT

The NT family of Windows systems was fashioned and marketed for higher reliability business use. The first release was MS Windows NT 3.1 (1993), numbered "3.1" to match the consumer Windows version, which was followed by NT 3.5 (1994), NT 3.51 (1995), NT 4.0 (1996), and Windows 2000 (2000). 2000 is the last NT-based Windows release which does not include Microsoft Product Activation. NT 4.0 was the first in this line to implement the "Windows 95" user interface (and the first to include Windows 95’s built-in 32-bit runtimes). Microsoft then moved to combine their consumer and business operating systems with Windows XP, coming in both home and professional versions (and later niche market versions for tablet PCs and media centers); they also diverged release schedules for server operating systems. Windows Server 2003, released a year and a half after Windows XP, brought Windows Server up to date with MS Windows XP. After a lengthy development process, Windows Vista was released toward the end of 2006, and its server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 was released in early 2008. On July 22, 2009, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 were released as RTM (release to manufacturing). Windows 7 was released on October 22, 2009.

WINDOWS 95

Windows 95, 98, and Me
Main articles: Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me

Windows 95 was released in 1995, featuring a new user interface, support for long file names of up to 250 characters, and the ability to automatically detect and configure installed hardware (plug and play). It could natively run 32-bit applications, and featured several technological improvements that increased its stability over Windows 3.1. There were several OEM Service Releases (OSR) of Windows 95, each of which was roughly equivalent to a service pack.

Microsoft's next release was Windows 98 in 1998. Microsoft released a second version of Windows 98 in 1999, named Windows 98 Second Edition (often shortened to Windows 98 SE).

In 2000, Microsoft released Windows Me (Me standing for Millennium Edition), which updated the core from Windows 98 but adopted some aspects of Windows 2000 and removed the "boot in DOS mode" option. It also added a new feature called System Restore, allowing the user to set the computer's settings back to an earlier date.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

microsoft windows

Microsoft Windows
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Windows" redirects here. For the part of a building, see Window. For other uses, see Windows (disambiguation).
This article is semi-protected.
Microsoft Windows Windows logo
Windows 7 desktop
Windows 7 desktop
Company / developer Microsoft
OS family MS-DOS/Windows 9x-based, Windows CE, Windows NT
Working state Publicly released
Source model Closed source / Shared source
Latest stable release Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2
NT 6.1 Build 7600 (7600.16385.090713-1255) (October 22, 2009; 3 month(s) ago (2009-10-22)) [+/−]
Latest unstable release [+/−]
License MS-EULA
Official Website Official website

Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).[1] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced previously. As of October 2009, Windows had approximately 91% of the market share of the client operating systems for usage on the Internet.[2][3][4] The most recent client version of Windows is Windows 7; the most recent server version is Windows Server 2008 R2; the most recent mobile device version is Windows Mobile

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

UNITED STATES VERSUS MICROSOFT

United States v. Microsoft
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United States v. Microsoft was a set of consolidated civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation pursuant to the Sherman Antitrust Act on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor. The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system sales and web browser sales. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Microsoft Windows operating system. Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer. It was further alleged that this unfairly restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera) that were slow to download over a modem or had to be purchased at a store. Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers, Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturer (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct.

Microsoft stated that the merging of Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer was the result of innovation and competition, that the two were now the same product and were inextricably linked together and that consumers were now getting all the benefits of IE for free. Those who opposed Microsoft's position countered that the browser was still a distinct and separate product which did not need to be tied to the operating system, since a separate version of Internet Explorer was available for Mac OS. They also asserted that IE was not really free because its development and marketing costs may have kept the price of Windows higher than it might otherwise have been. The case was tried before Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The DOJ was initially represented by David Boies.

MICROSOFT

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKEX: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices.[9] Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, its most profitable products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software.

The company was founded in 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Windows line of operating systems. Many of its products have achieved near-ubiquity in the desktop computer market. One commentator notes that Microsoft's original mission was "a computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software."[10] Microsoft possesses footholds in other markets, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network and the MSN Internet portal. The company also markets both computer hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse and the Microsoft Natural keyboard, as well as home entertainment products such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune and MSN TV.[9] The company's initial public stock offering (IPO) was in 1986; the ensuing rise of the company's stock price has made four billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.[11][12][13]

Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism, including monopolistic business practices and anti-competitive strategies including refusal to deal and tying. The U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission, among others, have ruled against Microsoft for antitrust violations.[14][15] (See also United States v. Microsoft, European Union Microsoft competition case.)