Microsoft Windows

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Revision as of 10:13, 8 January 2015 by Neozeed (talk | contribs) (fleshed it out a little.)
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Microsoft Windows is the popular Operating Enviroments of the late 1980's, and 1990's and the name also given to the NT project.

16bit real mode versions include 1.0 and 2.0. Windows/386 included the 386 VMM mode, effectively a type 2 hypervisor on top of MS-DOS for running 8086 virtual machines via the v86 mode feature of the 386 processor. Windows itself was still a 16bit real mode program, even running on the 386 VMM.

16bit protected mode versions of Windows include 3.0 and 3.1. While capable of running on the 386, windows itself was a 16bit program, unable itself to exploit any 386 features.

32bit hybrid protected/real mode versions include 95, 98 and Me.

Pure 32bit versions are the NT based versions of Windows NT, including NT 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003, 2003r2, 2008, Vista, 2008r2, 7, 2012, 8, 2012r2, 8.1