Windows Operating System
Microsoft Windows, commonly referred to as Windows, is a modern, proprietary operating system developed by Microsoft Corporation.
The modern versions of Windows are built in the top of Windows NT Kernel, as a layered design that consists of two main components: user mode and kernel mode.
Latest Release: Windows 11, as of 24 June 2021
License: Commercial, Microsoft Proprietary
Written in: C, C++, C#, Assembly language
First Release: July 1993 (the Windows NT family)
Licensing Model: Microsoft Proprietary
Developer: Microsoft Corporation
Platforms: Intel X86-64 and ARM64.
Windows downloads are not available directly.
Microsoft Windows operating system can be purchased on Microsoft Website.
Microsoft offers Desktop and Server versions of Windows operating system
At first glance Windows (Desktop) and Windows Server look similar, but each has different uses.
Both are based on the (windows) NT kernel family with the Desktop versions being locked down in various ways to discourage their use as a Server.
Also the Windows Server is locked down in certain functionalities depending on the license.
OpenSource Software ported to Windows: MinGW64
MinGW is a minimalist development environment for native Microsoft Windows applications. Mingw-w64 is an advancement of the original mingw.org project, created to support the GCC compiler on Windows. MinGW compilers provide access to the functionality of the Microsoft C runtime and some language-specific runtimes. MinGW, being Minimalist, does not, and never will, attempt to provide a POSIX runtime environment for POSIX application deployment on MS-Windows. If you want POSIX application deployment on this platform, you can consider Cygwin instead.
