Microsoft Windows

"Windows" redirects here. For the part of a building, see window. For other uses, see Windows (disambiguation).

Microsoft Windows

Screenshot of Windows 10 (Anniversary Update), showing the Action Center and Start Menu
Developer	Microsoft
Written in	C, C++, Assembly[1]
Working state	Publicly released
Source model	Closed / shared source
Initial release	November 20, 1985; 31 years ago, as Windows 1.0
Latest release	1607 (10.0.14393.222) (September 29, 2016; 59 days ago)[±]
Latest preview	1607 (10.0.14971.1000) (November 17, 2016; 10 days ago)[±]
Marketing target	Personal computing
Available in	137 languages[2]
Update method	Windows Update Windows Anytime Upgrade Windows Store WSUS
Package manager	Windows Installer (.msi), Windows Store (.appx)[3]
Platforms	ARM, IA-32, Itanium, x86-64, DEC Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC
Kernel type	Windows NT family: Hybrid Windows 9x and earlier: Monolithic (MS-DOS)
Default user interface	Windows shell
License	Proprietary commercial software
Official website	windows.microsoft.com

Microsoft Windows (or simply Windows) is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of several families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. Active Windows families include Windows NT, Windows Embedded and Windows Phone; these may encompass subfamilies, e.g. Windows Embedded Compact (Windows CE) or Windows Server. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x; Windows 10 Mobile is an active product, unrelated to the defunct family Windows Mobile.

Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).^[4]Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer (PC) market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984. Apple came to see Windows as an unfair encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa and Macintosh (eventually settled in court in Microsoft's favor in 1993). On PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system. However, in 2014, Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android,^[5] because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2014, the number of Windows devices sold were less than 25% of Android devices sold. This comparisons, however, may not be fully relevant as the two operating systems traditionally targeted different platforms.

As of September 2016, the most recent version of Windows for PCs, tablets, smartphones and embedded devices is Windows 10. The most recent versions for server computers is Windows Server 2016. A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console.^[6]