There was something we wanted to make sure we presented on our website. We have learned from the lessons of history in our short lived time here on our glorious planet. Operating systems are not an exception to this rule. If we understand the history of the Windows Operating System and all its market share intentions we can not only derive what has happened but more importantly what is happening RIGHT NOW and of course as good forecasting would ask for what will happen.
It started with DOS of course. We all know DOS. At least most of us want to forget it. It was useful for what it was. It was an operating system that allowed us control of our data. Remember though that our data was megabytes big at most in that era. It was a different world then. Windows NT and then Windows 95 were begot from DOS. Actually everything in Windows 95 had DOS right under the hood. Windows 95 then begot Windows 98. This was also a DOS based system. But it was a better more efficient one. It had support for larger disks. It could join a domain easily. It had drivers support that Windows 95 failed at. Yet we were still in DOS and antiquated we were getting fast.
Microsoft promised something “Later and Greater” in late 98 early 99. When the year 2000 rolled out, well Microsoft was just not plain ready for this “Later and Greater” system yet. Instead of telling the world it was coming soon, Microsoft released Millenium Edition. It was later but it sure wasn’t greater. Milennium was also DOS under the hood. In fact this was a fast scrapping together of an Operating System. They shipped it with new personal computers in early 2000 and the world jumped. Everyone purchased new computers. They all came with Millenium. Very quickly the world was faced with a problem. Millenium wasn’t the heralded system that was touted. It was DOS for the fourth time and this time sold with the implication it was something different. The world was stuck. It happened so fast and Microsoft handled it well by getting Windows 2000 pro together. That shipped in mid 2000. 2000 pro was the forerunner for XP and the heralded introduction into the NTFS file system. It was easier for everyone to upgrade or buy a new computer 6 months later than try to figure out what just happened. Very quickly after that Millenium was donned the worst Operating System ever to be promoted by Microsoft. Then in 6 more months in early 2001 came the most famous operating system to date…XP.
So as for XP it was here to stay. It was the glorious apex of creativity. So from 2001 until the advent of Vista (2007) Microsoft has had time to really clean up and fix what was an NTFS architecture. NTFS was the new “latest and greatest” Microsoft heralded in 98 early 99. So 2007 came to pass and the world did not have a new operating systems from Microsoft for the better part of a decade. What happened to our product life cycle? This is what the sales force at Microsoft was asking over and over. Ironically, while all this time went on without a new system, XP was perfected. It worked for everybody we knew and dealt with, business or otherwise, for EVERYTHING they did without flaw.
Enter Vista in 2007 or 2008ish. We at Fullyrealized, LLC called it being Vistafied. Microsoft didn’t like the long 7 year disparity between operating systems. We had worked with Vista right from the beginning. Vista was another Millenium. The difference here was that no new and stable operating system came out to save the consumers from the fallout. Then the idea to go back to XP became more like a race. So 7 years later following XP and Vista proved to be an unstable and faulty Operating System. Our company gave Vista several chances. Even with service pack two there were major and unfixable problems in the root of Vistas TCP/IP stack. Errors, problems and other major instabilities plagued Vista still. My advice (was) to make XP do everything that it does so well. Make it perfect and stable on fast hardware and ride out this storm. Clearly the problem with Vista is that it’s not better than XP. It’s all that was great about the underpinnings of XP exactly. That’s because it is the underpinnings of XP. The problem was in the process of building the tower of Vista on top they wrecked crucial elements of the operating system. Sadly, Vista failed right out of the box. Instead of Millenium on top of DOS again its Vista on top of NTFS with a bunch of processes and sales pitches loaded right out of the box. The pervasive thought was that we must STAY STABLE IN XP. Vista had bothered many people if but for a short time until they “DOWNGRADED” to XP. It’s an “updowngrade”. Unfortunately time and changes made the greatness of XP obsolete and with a changing architecture from 32 bit to 64 bit XP became a liability and a burden for many. After it lost its support and updates also became very vulnerable to ransom-ware attacks. It unfortunately became unwise to run xp any longer for anything that was not carefully defined behind a secure high end gateway protection system. It was certainly not safe to surf the internet on XP any longer. Windows 7 came along though and fixed many of the problems of Vista. We wanted something wonderful to come out and replace XP that was managable. Windows 7 was and still to this day is that relief.
What came after windows 7 was Windows 8. This was another minor disaster but Windows 8 was quickly replaced with Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 is/was very manageable if deployed correctly and offered some great new features. One of the issues that have preseented with this OS is the removal of the start menu. This seems to have been finally resolved in Windows 10…..that’s right, Microsoft has skipped Windows 9 altogether and replaced Windows 8.1 with Windows 10! We have seen some positive features that make this OS a potential winner. Time will tell.
The above has mentioned the history of Windows client operating systems, but there is more to discuss. The Windows Server based operating systems have been truly wonderful and granted many features and tools to businesses for many years. Exchange Server is a glorious mail server hosted on Windows Server OS and Sharepoint is a terrific content management suite also. Server 2008R2 (the Windows 7 Server counterpart) and Server 2012R2 (the Windows 8.1 counterpart) have given (still give) consumers a golden opportunity to organize and control their information. Ultimately Windows Server 2016 brought all the great features of Server 2012R2 into its system while further improving these features. Windows Server 2016 is highly promising and exciting to work with actually. Windows Servers are truly fabulous if deployed correctly. There is a lot to say about Windows Servers, but because there is so much to say about them…it is best to be discussed in person. We look forward to it!
Please contact us any time if you have questions about this. We would love to fill in any gaps or omissions here. A very important set of decisions can be made completely and correctly if the aforementioned is learned and understood. Hope this was helpful to all.