Chapter 8

Popular Operating System

8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Operating System
8.3 Unix Operating System
8.4 MS-DOS-Disk Operating System
8.5 Windows XP
8.6 Windows Vista
8.7 Windows 8
8.8 Linux
8.9 Summary
8.10 Check your Progress –Answers
8.11 Questions for Self –Study
8.12 Suggested Reading’s

8.0 OBJECTIVES

Friends, this chapter gives a brief introduction of some popular operating

systems. After learning this chapter you will be able to discuss the following operating
systems
 UNIX
 MS-DOS
 Windows XP
 Windows Vista
 Windows 9
 Linux

8.1 INTRODUCTION
An operating system, which is a kind of system software and the programs of it
provides interaction between user and computer components. There are various
Operating systems available.

8.2 OPERATING SYSTEM

An operating system is a software component of a computer system that is responsible
for the management of various activities of the computer and the sharing of computer
resources. It hosts the several applications that run on a computer and handles the
operations of computer hardware. Users and application programs access the
services offered by the operating systems, by means of system calls and application
programming interfaces. Users interact with operating systems through Command Line
Interfaces (CLIs) or Graphical User Interfaces known as GUIs. In short, operating system
enables user interaction with computer systems by acting as an interface between users
or application programs and the computer hardware. Here is an overview of the different
types of operating systems.
Types of Operating System.

Real-time Operating System:

It is a multitasking operating system that aims at executing real-time
applications. Real-time operating systems often use specialized scheduling
algorithms so that they can achieve a deterministic nature of behavior. The main object
of real-time operating systems is their quick and predictable response to events. They
either have an event-driven or a time-sharing design. An event-driven system switches
between tasks based of their priorities while time-sharing operating systems switch
tasks based on clock interrupts.

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Multi-user and Single-user Operating Systems:
The operating systems of this type allow a multiple users to access a computer
system concurrently. Time-sharing system can be classified as multi-user systems as
they enable a multiple user access to a computer through the sharing of time. Single-
user operating systems, as opposed to a multi-user operating system, are usable by a
single user at a time. Being able to have multiple accounts on a W indows operating
system does not make it a multi-user system. Rather, only the network administrator is
the real user. But for a Unix-like operating system, it is possible for two users to login at a
time and this capability of the OS makes it a multi-user operating system

Multi-tasking and Single-tasking Operating Systems:

When a single program is allowed to run at a time, the system is grouped
under a single-tasking system, while in case the operating system allows the
execution of multiple tasks at one time, it is classified as a multi-tasking operating
system. Multi-tasking can be of two types namely, pre-emptive or co-operative. In
pre-emptiv e multitasking, the operating system slices the CPU time and dedicates
one slot to each of the programs. Unix-like operating systems such as Solaris and
Linux support pre-emptive multitasking.

Distributed Operating System:

An operating system that manages a group of independent computers and
makes them appear to be a single computer is known as a distributed operating
system. The development of networked computers that could be linked and
communicate with each other, gave rise to distributed computing. Distributed
computations are carried out on more than one machine. W hen computers in a group
work in cooperation, they make a distributed system.

Embedded System:
The operating systems designed for being used in embedded computer systems
are known as embedded operating systems. They are designed to operate on small
machines like PDAs with less autonomy. They are able to operate with a limited
number of resources. They are very compact and extremely efficient by design.
Windows CE, FreeBSD and Minix 3 are some examples of embedded operating
systems.

The operating systems thus contribute to the simplification of the human

interaction with the computer hardware. They are responsible for linking application
programs with the hardware, thus achieving an easy user access to the computers.

8.3 UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM

Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as UNIX with
small caps) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group
of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian
Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna. Today’s Unix systems are split into
various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors
and non-profit organizations.
UNIX operating systems are widely used in both servers and
workstations. The UNIX environment and the client-server program model were essential
elements in the development of the Internet and the reshaping of computing as centered in
networks rather than in individual computers. Both Unix and the C programming
language were developed by AT&T and distributed to government and academic
institutions, which led to both being ported to a wider variety of machine families than
any other operating system. As a result, UNIX became synonymous with “open
systems”.
UNIX was designed to be portable, multi-tasking and multi-user in a time-sharing
configuration. Unix systems are characterized by various concepts: the use of plain
text for storing data; a hierarchical file system; treating devices and certain types of
inter-process communication (IPC) as files; and the use of a large number of software
tools, small programs that can be strung together through a command line interpreter

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using pipes, as opposed to using a single monolithic program that includes all of the
same functionality. These concepts are known as the Unix philosophy.
Under Unix, the “operating system” consists of many of these utilities along with
the master control program, the kernel. The kernel provides services to start and stop
programs, handles the file system and other common “low level” tasks that most
programs share, and, perhaps most importantly, schedules access to hardware to
avoid conflicts if two programs try to access the same resource or dev ice
simultaneously. To mediate such access, the kernel was given special rights on the
system, leading to the division between user-space and kernel-space.

8.3.1 Components
List of Unix programs
The Unix system is composed of several components that are normally packaged
together. By including — in addition to the kernel of an operating system — the
dev elopement environment, libraries, documents, and the portable, modifiable source-
code for all of these components, Unix was a self-contained software system. This was
one of the key reasons it emerged as an important teaching and learning tool and has
had such a broad influence. The inclusion of these components did not make the system
large — the original V7 UNIX distribution, consisting of copies of all of the compiled
binaries plus all of the source code and documentation occupied less than 10MB, and
arrived on a single 9-track magnetic tape.
The names and file system locations of the Unix components have changed
substantially across the history of the system. Nonetheless, the V7 implementation is
considered by many to have the canonical early structure:
 Kernel — source code in /user/sys, composed of several sub-components:
 conf — configuration and machine-dependent parts, including boot code
 dev — device drivers for control of hardware (and some pseudo-hardware)
 Sys — operating system “kernel”, handling memory management, process
scheduling, system calls, etc.
 h — header files, defining key structures within the system and important system-
specific invariables
Development Environment — Early versions of Unix contained a development
environment sufficient to recreate the entire system from source code:
 cc — C language compiler (first appeared in V3 Unix)
 as — machine-language assembler for the machine
 ld — linker, for combining object files
 lib — object-code libraries (installed in /lib or /usr/lib) libc, the system library with C
run-time support, was the primary library, but there have always been additional
libraries for such things as mathematical functions (libm) or database access. V7
Unix introduced the first version of the modern “Standard I/O” library stdio as part of
the system library. Later implementations increased the number of libraries
significantly.
 make — build manager (introduced in PWB/UNIX), for effectively automating the
build process
 include — header files for software development, defining standard interfaces and
system invariants
 Other languages — V7 Unix contained a Fortran-77 compiler, a programmable
arbitrary- precision calculator (bc, dc), and the awk “scripting” language, and later
versions and implementations contain many other language compilers and toolsets.
Early BSD releases included Pascal tools, and many modern Unix systems also
include the GNU Compiler Collection as well as or instead of a proprietary compiler
system.
 Commands — Unix makes little distinction between commands (user-level
programs) for system operation and maintenance (e.g. cron), commands of general
utility (e.g. grep), and more general-purpose applications such as the text formatting
and typesetting package. Nonetheless, some major categories are:
 sh — The “shell” programmable command line interpreter, the primary user
interface on Unix before window systems appeared, and even afterward (within a

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 “command window”).
 Utilities — the core tool kit of the Unix command set, including cp, ls, grep, find
and many others. Subcategories include:

 System utilities — administrative tools such as mkfs, fsck, and many others
 User utilities — environment management tools such as passwd, kill, and
others.

 Document formatting — Unix systems were used from the outset for document
preparation and typesetting systems, and included many related programs such
as nroff, troff, tbl, eqn, refer, and pic. Some modern Unix systems also include
packages such as TeX and Ghostscript.
 Graphics — The plot subsystem provided facilities for producing simple vector
plots in a device-independent format, with device-specific interpreters to display
such files. Modern UNIX systems also generally include X11 as a standard
windowing system and GUI, and many support OpenGL.
 Communications — Early UNIX systems contained no inter-system
communication, but did include the inter-user communication programs mail and
write. V7 introduced the early inter-system communication system UUCP, and
systems beginning with BSD release 4.1c included TCP/IP utilities.

 The ‘man’ command can display a manual page for any command on the system,
including itself.
 Documentation — Unix was the first operating system to include all of its
documentation online in machine readable form. The documentation included:
 man — manual pages for each command, library component, system call, header
file, etc.
 doc — longer documents detailing major subsystems, such as the C language.

8.3.2 Features of Unix Operating System

1. The Unix system had significant impact on other operating systems. It was written
in high level language rather than assembly language
2. Unix had a drastically simplified file model compared to many contemporary
operating systems, treating all kinds of files as simple byte arrays. The file system
hierarchy contained machine services and devices (such as printers, terminals, or disk
drives.
3 Making the command interpreter an ordinary user-level program, with additional
commands provided as separate programs, was another Multics innovation popularized
by Unix. The Unix shell used the same language for interactive commands as for
scripting.
4.Over time, text-based applications have also proven popular in application areas, such
as printing languages (PostScript, ODF), and at the application layer of the Internet
protocols, e.g., Telnet, FTP, SSH, SMTP, HTTP, SOAP and SIP.
5.Unix popularized syntax for regular expressions that found widespread use. The Unix
programming interface became the basis for a widely implemented operating system
interface standard (POSIX, see above).
8. Unix provided the TCP/IP networking protocol on relatively inexpensive
computers, which contributed to the Internet explosion of worldwide real-time
connectivity, and which formed the basis for implementations on many other platforms.
This also exposed numerous security holes in the networking implementations.

8.3.3 Free Unix-like operating systems

In 1983, Richard Stallman announced the GNU project, an ambitious
effort to create a free software Unix-like system; “free” in that everyone who
received a copy would be free to use, study, modify, and redistribute it. The
GNU project’s own kernel development project, GNU Hurd, had not produced
a working kernel, but in 1992 Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel as
free software under the GNU General Public License. In addition to their use in
the Linux operating system, many GNU packages — such as the GNU

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Compiler Collection (and the rest of the GNU toolchain), the GNU C library
and the GNU core utilities — have gone on to play central roles in other free
Unix systems as well.
Linux distributions, comprising Linux and large collections of compatible
software have become popular both with individual users and in business. Popular
distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, SUSE Linux Enterprise,
openSUSE, Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, Mandriva Linux, Slackware Linux and Gentoo.

8.4 DOS [DISK OPERATING SYSTEM]

In July 1980 IBM assigned Microsoft to develop a 18-bit operating system for
the personal computer for the fee of 188,000 dollars. Although the company Digital
Research of Gary Kildall already had with CP/M 88 such a 18-bit version, but by
circumstances no contract has been established with IBM. Microsoft did not have yet
any operating system; Microsoft licensed CP/M from Digital Research in November
1977 for 50,000 dollars.
The command interpreter is integrated in the file command.com with the internal
commands for MS-DOS. Together with the file io.sys for simple device routines like the
access to the monitor, keyboard, fixed storage disks and interfaces as well as the
booting code these form the base operating system. DOS works very hardware near.
1988 was MS-DOS established and had reached measured on the market share
a monopoly in the DOS market. The number of the MS-DOS installations grew
worldwide to about 80 million and surpassed all other systems with that amount. Almost
every software company offered standard applications like word processing, calculation
or also special solutions like measurement tools, CAD (Computer Aided Design) or
image processing for MS-DOS. The PC manufacturers designed her systems compatible
to MS-DOS except for few manufacturers.

8.4.1 Small reference of internal DOS commands

del, erase - delete files
rd, rmdir - delete directories
dir - show content of directories
cd, chdir - change current directory cls - clear the screen
md, mkdir - create a directory copy - copy of one or several files
ren, rename - rename of files or directories type - shows the content of text files
set - shows the DOS environment variables or defines a new one ver - shows the DOS
version number
vol - shows the name of the storage drive

8.4.2 Small reference of external DOS commands

attrib - shows the attributes of files or set one of those
fdisk - partitioning or modify of the hard disk
move - move of files
mem - shows the occupancy of working memory tree - shows the directory structure
format - format of storage drives

Check Your Progress - 8.4

I. Fill in the blanks

1. Users interact with operating systems through
..........................or..........................
2. ..........................often use specialized scheduling algorithms so
that they can achieve a deterministic nature of behavior.
3. MS DOS 1.0 consists of about ..........................lines assembler code.
4. ..........................command shows the directory structure in DOS
5. ..........................Command shows the content of text file.
II Abbreviate the following
8. Personal Digital Assistant. : ..........................
7. International Business Machine. : ..........................
8. Business All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. : ..........................

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 8.5 WINDOWS XP

Windows XP is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use

on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, and media
centers. The name “XP” is short for “experience”. Windows XP is the successor to
both Windows 2000

8.5.1 Editions of Windows

XP
The two major editions are Windows XP Home Edition, designed for home
users, and Windows XP Professional, designed for business and power-users. XP
Professional contains advanced features that the average home user would not
use. However, these features are not necessarily missing from XP Home. They are
simply disabled, but are there and can become functional. These releases were
made available at retail outlets that sell computer software, and were preinstalled
on computers sold by major computer manufacturers.
Microsoft also released Windows XP Embedded, an edition for specific
consumer electronics, set-top boxes, kiosks/ATMs, medical devices, arcade video
games, point-of-sale terminals, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
components. In July 2008, Microsoft released Windows Fundamentals for Legacy
PCs, a thin client version of Windows XP Embedded which targets older machines
(as early as the original Pentium). It is only available to Software Assurance
customers. It is intended for corporate customers who would like to upgrade to
Windows XP to take advantage of its security and management capabilities, but
can’t afford to purchase new hardware.

Languages
Windows XP is available in many languages. In addition, MUI packs and Language
Interface Packs translating the user interface are also available for certain
languages.

ATMs
Automated teller machine (ATM) vendors NCR Corporation and Diebold
Incorporated have both adopted Microsoft Windows XP as their migration path from
OS/2. Diebold initially shipped XP Home Edition exclusively, but, following extensive
pressure from customer banks to support a common operating system, switched to
support XP Professional to match their primary competitor, NCR Corporation

8.5.2 New and updated features Features new to Windows XP

Windows XP introduced several new features to the Windows line, including:

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 Faster start-up and hibernation
sequences
 The ability to discard a newer device driver in favor of the previous one (known
as driver rollback), should a driver upgrade not produce desirable results
 A new, arguably more user-friendly interface, including the framework for
developing themes for the desktop environment
 Fast user switching, which allows a user to save the current state and open
applications of their desktop and allow another user to log on without losing that
information
 The ClearType font rendering mechanism, which is designed to improve text
readability on Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and similar monitorsU
 Remote Desktop functionality, which allows users to connect to a computer
running Windows XP Pro from across a network or the Internet and access their
applications, files, printers, and devices.
 Support for most DSL modems and IEEE 802.11 connections, as well as
networking over FireW ire, and Bluetooth.

8.5.3 User interface

Windows XP features a new task-based graphical user interface. The Start
menu and
Windows indexing service were redesigned and many visual effects were added,
including:
 A translucent blue selection rectangle in
Explorer
 Drop shadows for icon labels on the

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 desktop
 Task-based sidebars in Explorer windows (“common
tasks”)
 The ability to group the taskbar buttons of the windows of one application into
one button
 The ability to lock the taskbar and other toolbars to prevent accidental
changes
 The highlighting of recently added programs on the Start
menu
 Shadows under menus (Windows 2000 had shadows under mouse pointers,
but not menus)
The Windows 2000 “classic” interface can be used instead if preferred.
Several third party utilities exist that provide hundreds of different visual styles.
Microsoft licensed technology from Window Blinds creator Star dock to create its
visual styles in XP.

8.5.4 System requirements

Fig 8.2
Designed for Windows XP computer hardware logo

System requirements for Windows XP Home and Professional editions

as follows:
For many workloads that involve Web browsing, e-mail, and
other activities, 84 MB of RAM will provide [the] user experience
equivalent or superior to that of Windows Me running on the same
hardware.”

8.5.5 Service packs

Microsoft occasionally releases service packs for its Windows operating
systems to fix problems and add features. Each service pack is a superset of all
previous service packs and patches so that only the latest service pack needs to be
installed, and also includes new revisions. Older service packs need not be removed
before application of the most recent one. The service pack details below only apply
to the 32-bit editions. Windows XP Professional x84 Edition was based on Windows
Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and claimed to be “SP1” in system properties from the
initial release. It is updated by the same service packs and hot fixes as the x84
edition of Windows Server 2003.

Service Pack 1

Set Program Access and Defaults was added in Service Pack 1.

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows XP was released on September 9, 2002.

It contains post-RTM security fixes and hot-fixes, compatibility updates, optional
.NET Framework support, enabling technologies for new devices such as Tablet
PCs, and a new Windows Messenger 4.7 version. The most notable new features
were USB 2.0 support and a Set Program Access and Defaults utility that aimed at
hiding various middleware products. Users can control the default application for
activities such as web browsing and instant messaging, as well as hide access to
some of Microsoft’s bundled programs. This utility was first brought into the older

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Windows 2000 operating system with its Service Pack 3. This Service Pack
supported SATA and hard drives that were larger than 137GB (48-bit LBA support)
by default.

Service Pack 2

Windows Security Center was added in Service Pack 2.

Windows XP, including a firewall, improved Wi-Fi support, such as W PA

encryption compatibility, with a wizard utility, a pop-up ad blocker for Internet
Explorer 8, and Bluetooth support. The new welcome screen during the kernel boot
removes the subtitles “Professional”, “Home Edition” and “Embedded” since
Microsoft introduced new Windows XP editions prior to the release of SP2. The
green loading bar in Home Edition and the yellow one in Embedded were replaced
with the blue bar, seen in Professional and other versions of Windows XP, making
the boot-screen of operating systems resemble each other. Colors in other areas,
such as Control Panel and the Help and Support tool, remained as before. Service
Pack 2 also added new security enhancements, which included a major revision to
the included firewall that was renamed to Windows Firewall and is enabled by
default, additionally; security- related improvements were made to e-mail and web
browsing. Windows XP Service Pack 2 includes the Windows Security Center,
which provides a general overview of security on the system, including the state of
antivirus software, Windows Update, and the new Windows Firewall. Third-party
anti-virus and firewall applications can interface with the new Security Center.

Service Pack 3

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) was released to manufacturing on April

21, 2008 and to the public via both the Microsoft Download Center and Windows
Update on May 8, 2008. It began being automatically pushed out to Automatic
Update users on July 10, 2008. A feature set overview which details new features
available separately as standalone updates to Windows XP, as well as back ported
features from Windows Vista has been posted by Microsoft. A total of 1,174 fixes
have been included in SP3. Service Pack 3 can be installed on systems with
Internet Explorer versions 8 or 7.

Check Your Progress - 8.5

Fill in the blanks
1. The two major editions of W indows XP are .....................and .....................
2. W indows XP’s .....................edition are used in laptops and notebooks.
3. Service Pack 1 (SP1) for W indows XP was released on .....................
4. Service Pack 3 can be installed on systems with Internet Explorer .....................
5. .....................GB Hard disk or higher is required for loading Windows XP.

8.6 WINDOWS VISTA

8.6.1 New or changed features
Windows Vista revised and incorporated new features and functionalities not
present in its predecessors, especially those from W indows XP.

Windows Aero:
The new hardware-based graphical user interface is named Windows Aero,
which Jim Allchin stated is an acronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and
Open. The new interface is intended to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing
than those of previous Windows versions, including new transparencies, live
thumbnails, live icons, and animations, thus providing a new level of eye candy.

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Laptop users report, however, that battery life is shortened with the feature enabled.
 Windows Shell:
The new Windows shell is significantly different from Windows XP, offering a
new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities. Windows
Explorer’s task pane has been removed, integrating the relevant task options into
the toolbar. A “Favorite links” pane has been added, enabling one-click access to
common directories. The address bar has been replaced with a breadcrumb
navigation system. The preview pane allows users to see thumbnails of various
files and view the contents of documents. The details pane shows information
such as file size and type, and allows viewing and editing of embedded tags in
supported file formats. The Start menu has changed as well; it no longer uses
ever-expanding boxes when navigating through Programs. The word “Start” itself
has been removed in favor of a blue Windows Pearl.

 Instant Search:
Windows Vista features a new way of searching called Instant Search, which is
significantly faster and more in-depth (content-based) than the search features
found in any of the previous versions of Windows.

 Windows Sidebar:
A transparent panel anchored to the side of the screen where a user can place
Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose
(such as displaying the weather or sports scores). Gadgets can also be placed on
other parts of the desktop.

 Windows Internet Explorer 7:

New user interface, tabbed browsing, RSS, a search box, improved printing,
Page Zoom, Quick Tabs (thumbnails of all open tabs), Anti- Phishing filter, a
number of new security protection features, Internationalized Domain Name
support (IDN), and improved web standards support. IE7 in Windows Vista runs
in isolation from other applications in the operating system (protected mode);
exploits and malicious software are restricted from writing to any location beyond
Temporary Internet Files without explicit user consent.

 Windows Media Player 11, a major rev amp of Microsoft’s program for playing
and organizing music and video. New features in this version include word
wheeling (or “search as you type”), a new GUI for the media library, photo display
and organization, the ability to share music libraries over a network with other
Windows Vista machines, Xbox 380 integration, and support for other Media
Center Extenders.
 Backup and Restore Center: Includes a backup and restore application that
gives users the ability to schedule periodic backups of files on their computer, as
well as recovery from previous backups. Backups are incremental, storing only
the changes each time, minimizing disk usage. It also features Complete PC
Backup (available only in Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise versions) which
backs up an entire computer as an image onto a hard disk or DVD. Complete PC
Backup can automatically recreate a machine setup onto new hardware or hard
disk in case of any hardware failures. Complete PC Restore can be initiated from
within Windows Vista or from the Windows Vista installation CD in the event the
PC is so corrupt that it cannot start up normally from the hard disk.
 Windows Mail: A replacement for Outlook Express that includes a new mail
store that improves stability, and features integrated Instant Search. It has the
Phishing Filter like IE7 and Junk mail filtering that is enhanced through regular
updates via Windows Update.

Windows Mobility Center:

 Windows Mobility Center is a control panel that centralizes the most relev ant

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 information related to mobile computing (brightness, sound, battery level / power
scheme selection, wireless network, screen orientation, presentation settings,
etc.).
 Windows Meeting Space replaces NetMeeting. Users can share applications
(or their entire desktop) with other users on the local network, or over the
Internet using peer-to-peer technology (higher versions than Starter and Home
Basic can take advantage of hosting capabilities, Starter and Home Basic
editions are limited to “join” mode only)

 Shadow Copy automatically creates daily backup copies of files and folders.
Users can also create “shadow copies” by setting a System Protection Point
using the System Protection tab in the System control panel. The user can be
presented multiple versions of a file throughout a limited history and be
allowed to restore, delete, or copy those versions. This feature is available
only in the Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista and is
inherited from Windows Server 2003.
Windows Update with Windows Ultimate Extras
 Windows Update: Software and security updates have been simplified, now
operating solely v ia a control panel instead of as a web application. Windows
Mail’s spam filter and Windows Defender’s definitions are updated
automatically via Windows Update. Users who choose the recommended
setting for Automatic Updates will have the latest drivers installed and
available when they add a new device.
 Parental controls: Allows administrators to control which websites, programs
and games each Limited user can use and install. This feature is not included
in the Business or Enterprise editions of Vista.
 Windows SideShow: Enables the auxiliary displays on newer laptops or on
supported Windows Mobile devices. It is meant to be used to display device
gadgets while the computer is on or off.
 Speech recognition is integrated into Vista. It features a redesigned user
interface and configurable command-and-control commands. Unlike the
Office 2003 version, which works only in Office and WordPad, Speech
Recognition in Windows Vista works for any accessible application. In
addition, it currently supports several languages: British and American
English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) and
Japanese.
 New fonts, including several designed for screen reading, and improved
Chinese (Yahei, JhengHei), Japanese (Meiryo) and Korean (Malgun) fonts.
ClearType has also been enhanced and enabled by default.
 Improved audio controls allow the system-wide volume or volume of
individual audio dev ices and even indiv idual applications to be controlled
separately. New audio functionalities such as Room Correction, Bass
Management, Speaker Fill and Headphone virtualization have also been
incorporated.
 Problem Reports and Solutions, a control panel which allows users to view
previously sent problems and any solutions or additional information that is
available.
 Windows System Assessment Tool is a tool used to benchmark system
performance. Software such as games can retrieve this rating and modify its
own behavior at runtime to improve performance. The benchmark tests CPU,
RAM, 2-D and 3-D graphics acceleration, graphics memory and hard disk
space.
 Windows Ultimate Extras: The Ultimate edition of Windows Vista provides, via
Windows Update, access to some additional features. These are a collection of

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 additional MUI language packs, Texas Hold ‘Em (a Poker game) and Microsoft
Tinker (a strategy game where the character is a robot), BitLocker and EFS
enhancements which allow users to back up their encryption key online in a
Digital Locker, and Windows Dream scene, which enables the use of videos in
MPEG and W MV formats as the desktop background. On April 21, 2008,
Microsoft launched two more Ultimate Extras; three new Windows sound
schemes, and a content pack for Dream scene. Various Dream Scene Content
Packs have been released since the final version of Dream Scene was
released.

 Reliability and Performance Monitor includes various tools for tuning and
monitoring system performance and resources activities of CPU, disks,
network, memory and other resources. It shows the operations on files, the
opened connections, etc.
 Removed Features
Some notable Windows XP features and components have been replaced or
removed in Windows Vista, including Windows Messenger, NTBackup, the
network Messenger Service, HyperTerminal, MSN Explorer, Active Desktop,
and the replacement of NetMeeting with Windows Meeting Space. Windows
Vista also does not include the Windows XP “Luna” visual theme, or most of
the classic color schemes which have been part of Windows since the
Windows 3.x era. The “Hardware profiles” startup feature has also been
removed, along with support for older motherboard technologies like the EISA
bus, APM and Game port support (though on the 32-bit version game port
support can be enabled by applying an older driver). IP over FireWire (TCP/IP
over IEEE 1394) has been removed as well. The IPX/ SPX Protocol has also
been removed, although it can be enabled by a third-party plug-in.

Check Your Progress - 8.6

State whether the following statements true or false
1. Windows Vista includes version 3.0
of the .NET Framework,
2. W indows Vista features a new way of
searching called Quick Search.
3. Parental controls allows administrators to control
which websites, programs and games each Limited
user can use and install.
4. Speech recognition system is
not integrated into Vista.
5. W indows vista has provided, a companion program
to Windows Movie Maker that provides the ability to
create video DVDs based on a user’s content.

8.7 WINDOWS 8
Windows 8 is a version of Microsoft Windows (an operating
system developed by Microsoft) for use on personal computers, including home and
business desktops, laptops, tablets, and home theater PCs. Development of Windows 8
started before the release of its predecessor, Windows 7, in 2009.
Windows Explorer, which has been renamed File Explorer, now
includes a ribbon in place of the command bar. File operation dialog boxes have
been updated to provide more detailed statistics, the ability to pause file transfers,
and improvements in the ability to manage conflicts when copying files. A new "File
History" function allows incremental revisions of files to be backed up to and
restored from a secondary storage device, while Storage Spaces allows users to
combine different sized hard disks into virtual drives and specify mirroring,
parity, or no redundancy on a folder-by-folder basis.

Computer Fundamentals/104
 Task Manager has also been redesigned, including a new processes tab
with the option to display fewer or more details of running applications and
background processes, a heat map using different colors indicating the level of
resource usage, network and disk counters, grouping by process type (e.g.
applications, background processes and Windows processes), friendly names for
processes and a new option which allows users to search the web to find information
about obscure processes. Additionally, the Blue Screen of Death has been updated
with a simpler and modern design with less technical information displayed

Removed Features

Several notable features have been removed in Windows 8, beginning with

the traditional Start menu. Support for playing DVDs has been removed
from Windows Media Player due to the cost of licensing the necessary decoders
(especially for devices which do not include optical disc drives at all) and the
prevalence of streaming services such as Netflix. For the same reasons, Windows
Media Center will no longer be included by default on Windows 8, but the software
(which also includes support for DVD playback) can be purchased in the "Pro Pack"
(for the base version of Windows 8, which also upgrades the system to Windows 8
Pro) or "Media Center Pack" (for Windows 8 Pro) add-ons. Windows 8 will still
support third-party DVD playback software.

Backup and Restore, the former backup app of Windows, is deprecated. It

still ships with Windows 8 and continues to work on preset schedules, but is pushed
to the background and can only be accessed through a Control Panel applet called
"Windows 7 File Recovery”. Shadow, a component of Windows Explorer that
once saved previous versions of changed files, no longer protects local files
and folders. It can only access previous versions of shared files stored on
a Windows Server computer. The subsystem, on which these components
worked, however, is still available for other software to use.

8.8 LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM

Linux (commonly pronounced) is a generic term referring to Unix-like

computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development
is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software
collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely
modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL and
other free software licenses.
Linux is predominantly known for its use in servers, although it is installed
on a wide variety of computer hardware, ranging from embedded devices
and mobile phones to supercomputers. Linux distributions, installed on both
desktop and laptop computers, have become increasingly commonplace in
recent years, partly owing to the popular Ubuntu distribution and the
emergence of net books. The name “Linux” ( listen (help·info)) comes from
the Linux kernel, originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds

8.8.1 User interface

Users can control a Linux-based system through a command line
interface (or CLI), a graphical user interface (or GUI), or through controls
attached to the associated hardware (this is common for embedded

Popular Operating System/105

systems). For desktop systems, the default mode is usually graphical user
interface.
A Linux system typically provides a CLI through a shell, which is the
traditional way of interacting with a Unix system. A Linux distribution
specialized for servers may use the CLI as its only interface. A “headless
system” run without even a monitor can be controlled by the command line
via a remote-control protocol such as SSH or telnet.
Most low-level Linux components, including the GNU user land, use
the CLI exclusively. The CLI is particularly suited for automation of repetitive
or delayed tasks, and provides v ery simple inter-process communication. A
graphical terminal emulator program is often used to access the CLI from a
Linux desktop.

8.8.2 Servers and supercomputers

Fig 8.3

Linux distributions have mainly been used as server operating

systems, and have risen to prominence in that area.
Components of IBM Roadrunner, the world’s fastest supercomputer
2008, which runs Linux. Linux distributions are the cornerstone of the LAMP
server-software combination (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python)
which has achieved popularity among developers, and which is one of the
more common platforms for website hosting.
Linux distributions are also commonly used as operating systems
for supercomputers: as of June 2009, out of the top 500 systems, 443
(88.8%) run a Linux distribution.

8.9 SUMMARY

An operating system is a software component of a computer system

that is responsible for the management of various activities of the computer
and the sharing of computer resources. There are meagerly 5 types of
Operating System Real-time Operating System, Multi-user and Single-user
Operating Systems, Multi-tasking and Single-tasking Operating Systems
Distributed Operating System, Embedded System.
1. Unix was designed to be portable, multi-tasking and multi-user in a time-
sharing configuration. Unix systems are characterized by various concepts:
the use of plain text for storing data; a hierarchical file system; treating
devices and certain types of inter-process communication (IPC) as files; and
the use of a large number of software tools, small programs that can be
strung together through a command line interpreter using pipes, as opposed
to using a single monolithic program that includes all of the same
functionality.

2. Disk Operating System works very hardware near, The command

interpreter is integrated in the file command.com with the internal commands
for MS-DOS. MS- DOS established and had reached measured on the

Computer Fundamentals/106
market share a monopoly in the DOS market. The number of the MS-DOS
installations grew worldwide to about 80 million and surpassed all other
systems with that amount. Almost every software company offered standard
applications like word processing, calculation or also special solutions like
measurement tools, CAD (Computer Aided Design) or image processing for
MS-DOS.
3. Windows XP is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for
use on personal computers, including home and business desktops,
laptops, and media centers. The two major editions are Windows XP Home
Edition, designed for home users, and Windows XP Professional, designed
for business and power-users. Microsoft occasionally releases service
packs for its Windows operating systems to fix problems and add features.
Each service pack is a superset of all previous service packs and patches
so that only the latest service pack needs to be installed, and also includes
new revisions. Older service packs need not be removed before application
of the most recent one.
4. Windows Vista is a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for
use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops,
tablet PCs, and media center PCs. W indows XP, the longest time span
between successive releases of Microsoft Windows desktop operating
systems.
5. Linux (commonly pronounced) is a generic term referring to Unix-like
computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Linux distributions,
installed on both desktop and laptop computers, have become increasingly
commonplace in recent years, partly owing to the popular Ubuntu distribution
and the emergence of notebooks.

8.10 QUESTIONS FOR SELF - STUDY

8.3
1. True 2. False 3. False 4. True 5. True 8. True
8.4
I
1. Command Line Interfaces (CLIs) or Graphical User Interfaces
2. Real-time Operating system.
3. 1000
4. Mem
5. Type
II. 1. PDA 2. IBM 3. BASIC

8.5 1. Home Edition and W indows XP Professional.

2. Table PC Edition.
3. September 9,2002
4. Versions 8 or 7
5. 1.5 GBs

8.6
1. True
2. False
3. True
4. False
5. True
8.10 QUESTIONS FOR SELF - STUDY

I. Answer the following Questions

Popular Operating System/107

 1. W hat is an operating system ? Explain types of operating systems.
2. W rite a note on Unix operating system.
3. Briefly explain W indows XP operating system.
4. Explain editions of W indows XP operating System.
5. W hat is DOS? Explain some Dos Internal and External Commands
6. Discuss features of W indows Vista.
7. W rite a note on desktop versions of Linux.
8. Explain the System Requirements for loading W indows Vista.
II. Write Short Notes on the following:
1. Service Packs
2. Embedded Device Operating System
3. Components of Unix OS
4. 2038 year problem in Linux.

8.11 SUGGESTED READING’S

 Computer Fundamentals Concepts, Systems & Applications – P.K

Sinha
REFERENCES
 http://en.wikipedia.org,
 http://learning-unix.blogspot.in,
 http://www.mywikibiz.com (Links)

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