Windows Family

[Panic Button]

So Windows 7 is number 7.

Vista must be 6,
XP would have been 5

What was the sequence before that?

I know there was an ME (Millennium Edition) but wasn't that a glorified 98?

Before 95 and 98 I remember using Winows 3.1 and Windows 3.1.1

[TTG]

Windows 1.0 and 3.0 were big releases and can be counted.

Windows 1.0, 3.0, 95, 98, XP, Vista and finally 7.

Possibly replace 3.0 with 3.1?

[Panic Button]

OK, what happened to Windows 2 then?

[another-view]

This is what I couldn't understand either

1 - windows 3.1
2 - windows 95
3 - windows 98
4 - windows ME
5 - windows 2000
6 - windows xp
7 - windows vista

It's going to be fun searching for drivers for "windows 7". At least with XP and Vista you had a good keyword to search on. Imagine the results if you search on 7...

[TTG]

I am just counting the big releases where there were major changes to the previous version. There was probably a Windows 2 but maybe 3 was a bigger leap from 1.0

[VHG]

The windows family history is VERY complex, and there have been far more "versions" than seven.

The list above does not cover Windows NT, of Media Center edition, the Tablet edition, or any of the Windows Server products.

This is a fairly decent timeline.

http://en.wikipedia.o..._of_Microsoft_Windows

[VHG]

The thing that makes the Windows timeline complex is that Windows has been developled from two totally different code bases.

The first versions of Windows (for home use) were really based on top of DOS and were 16 bit. These versions are Windows 1, 2, 3, 95, 98 and ME. This code base stopped at Windows ME in about 2000.

But at around the 1993 time frame Microsoft released a 32 bit operating system called Windows NT (New Technology) that was a totally new code base (not based on previous versions of Windows). At the time this was mainly for businesses use not home use.

Confusingly the first release of this was NT version 3.1, then it evolved into NT version 4, then Windows 2000.

Then Windows 2000 (merged with parts of Windows ME) was released as Windows XP (for Home AND business use), this then became Vista (after a major rewrite) and now Windows 7.

But I still dont know where they got "Windows 7" from, maybe they thought it just sounded good.

Now hopefully the chart on the web site below is a bit clearer

http://en.wikipedia.o..._of_Microsoft_Windows

[rojash]

"But at around the 1993 time frame Microsoft released a 32 bit operating system called Windows NT (New Technology) that was a totally new code base " Not quite correct VHG. As you say, it wasn't based on any previous version of Windows, but it was also not an entirely new codebase. It was in fact Microsoft's new name for OS/2 which it had been developing for many years in co-operation with IBM.

[VHG]

>It was in fact Microsoft's new name for OS/2 which it had been developing for many years in co-operation with IBM.

I know because I was working for IBM at the time (I was there 29 years). I believe some of Windows NT was also based on a DEC project run by Dave Cutler (see here)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

I was in a huge software development lab in IBM Warwick where we were developing software for OS/2 and I got all the early versions as they came out (I was working on the huge OfficeVision project at IBM).

I was also very close to the whole OS/2, Windows NT, IBM, Microsoft battle as it had a big effect on my job at IBM so followed it closely.

[Panic Button]

Wow. It's more complex than I realised.

Thanks, experts.

7 is a bit of a boring name though.

[VHG]

>7 is a bit of a boring name though

I think this was a deliberate attempt by Microsoft to make it "boring".

It is important for Microsoft that large companies move their thousands of computers across to Windows 7.

"Vista" was a snazzy name, and when it came out there was a snazzy marketing campaign, but most large companies have stuck with XP and not moved to Vista (partly because of Vista's problems).

Windows 7 has had MUCH more testing than Vista, and the marketing campaign has been more low key.

Microsoft are hoping companies take it much more seriously, and the boring name is part of that process.

[TTG]

Wonder if everyone will immediately switch to "Classic mode" when starting up Windows 7 for the first time?

:-)