1. Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft. Microsoft introduced Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces. Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984. The most recent client version of Windows is Windows 7.

2. Subject: English I Teacher: Student: Eliud Juárez Bautista UNIVERSIDAD TECNOLOGICA DE TAMAULIPAS

3. The history of Windows dates back to September 1981, when Chase Bishop, a computer scientist, designed the first model of an electronic device and project "Interface Manager" was started. It was announced in November 1983 (after the Apple Lisa, but before the Macintosh) under the name "Windows", but Windows 1.0 was not released until November 1985.

4. Windows 2.0 was released in October 1987 and featured several improvements to the user interface and memory management.Windows 2.0 allowed application windows to overlap each other and also introduced more sophisticated keyboard shortcuts. It could also make use of expanded memory.

5. Windows 3.0 (1990) and Windows 3.1 (1992) improved the design, mostly because of virtual memory and loadable virtual device drivers that allowed them to share arbitrary devices between multitasked DOS windows. Also, Windows applications could now run in protected mode (when Windows was running in Standard or 386 Enhanced Mode), which gave them access to several megabytes of memory and removed the obligation to participate in the software virtual memory scheme. They still ran inside the same address space, where the segmented memory provided a degree of protection, and multi-tasked cooperatively. For Windows 3.0, Microsoft also rewrote critical operations from C into assembly

6. Windows 95 was released in August 1995, featuring a new user interface, support for long file names of up to 255 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.

7. Microsoft's next release was Windows 98 in June 1998. Microsoft released a second version of Windows 98 in May 1999, named Windows 98 Second Edition (often shortened to Windows 98 SE). In February 2000, Windows 2000 (in the NT family) was released, followed by Windows Me in September 2000 Windows Me updated the core from Windows 98, but adopted some aspects of Windows 2000. It added a new feature called System Restore, allowing the user to set the computer's settings back to an earlier date. Windows Millennium Edition is often confused with Windows 2000 (because of its name), and has been said to be one of the worst operating systems Microsoft ever released.

8. Windows XP, the successor to Windows 2000 and Windows Me, was the first consumer- oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel. Windows XP was released worldwide for retail sale on October 25, 2001.

9. Windows Vista was completed on November 8, 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide and was made available for purchase and download from Microsoft's website. The release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor, Windows XP, the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems.

10. Windows Vista contains many changes and new features, including an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Aero, a redesigned search function, multimedia tools including Windows DVD Maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems.

11. Windows 7 is the current release of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009. Windows 7 includes a number of new features, such as advances in touch and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-core processors.

12. The taskbar has seen the biggest visual changes, where the Quick Launch toolbar has been replaced with the ability to pin applications to the taskbar. Buttons for pinned applications are integrated with the task buttons. These buttons also enable the Jump Lists feature to allow easy access to common tasks.

13. Windows 8 is the upcoming version of Microsoft Windows that follows Windows 7. It features a new Metro-style interface that is designed for touchscreen input. Windows 8 will employ a new user interface based on Microsoft's Metro design language. The Metro environment will feature a new tile-based Start screen similar to the Windows Phone operating system. Each tile will represent an application, and will be able to display relevant information such as the number of unread messages on the tile for an e-mail app or the current temperature on a weather application.

14. Metro-style apps are developed with the new Windows Runtime platform using various programming languages, including C++, Visual Basic, C#, and HTML/JavaScript.