Since its introduction in November 1985, Microsoft Windows has emerged as the most popular graphical user interface environment for MS-DOS. Several million copies of Windows have been shipped, and hundreds of Windows applications are currently available.
For the user, Windows provides a multitasking graphical-based windowing environment that runs programs especially designed for Windows. Such programs include Microsoft Excel (spreadsheet and business graphics), Microsoft Word for Windows (word processing), Aldus's PageMaker (desktop publishing), Samna's Ami (word processing), Micrografx's Designer (drawing), IBM's Current (a personal information manager), Asymetrix's ToolBook (a software construction kit), and many others. Programs written for Windows have a consistent appearance and command structure, and are thus often easier to learn and use than conventional MS-DOS programs. Users can easily switch among different Windows programs and exchange data between them. Windows also provides an easy-to-use icon-based Program Manager for running programs as well as a File Manager and Print Manager for file maintenance and printer-queue management.
Although Windows exists primarily to run applications especially written for the environment, Windows can also run many programs written for MS-DOS. Of course, these programs cannot take advantage of many Windows features, but in some cases they can be windowed and multitasked alongside Windows programs.
For the program developer, Windows provides a wealth of built-in routines that allow the use of menus, dialog boxes, scroll bars, and other components of a friendly user interface. Windows also contains an extensive graphics programming language that includes the use of formatted text in a variety of fonts. Programmers can treat the keyboard, mouse, video display, printer, system timer, and RS-232 communication ports in a device-independent manner. Windows programs run the same on a variety of hardware configurations.
The ”look and feel“ of Windows also shows up in the OS/2 Presentation Manager. OS/2 is the protected mode operating system developed by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and Microsoft Corporation as a successor to MS-DOS; the graphical user interface under OS/2 is called the Presentation Manager. While the application program interfaces of Windows and the OS/2 Presentation Manager are not the same, they have many similarities and common structural elements.