What is “Windows?”

Microsoft Windows is an operating system, which means that it is a set of programs which control other programs. Several versions are in use. Windows 3.1 is covered in the following chapter. Windows NT and IBM OS/2 are mentioned at the end of this chapter.

Windows is a task-switching system, which means that several application programs can be loaded at once, and you can switch between them. It launches these programs, which do your job, and which generate the information which is displayed on the screen. Windows 95 XE "Windows 95" actually works together with MS DOS 7, but DOS is kept out of sight. “Operating system” means that Windows is actually a consortium of programs, the user generally not knowing which program is doing the work at any one time. The focus is on what you see, and what to do with it.