Windows - a timeline of Microsoft's OS

I posted this here earlier 23 years of Windows Launch oddities

chuckr said:

Windows back then was a GUI, as far as I ever knew, until NT arrived.
Everything prior to NT, was the GUI stuff over DOS.
So you hit it, right on the head, aFAIK.

I installed 3.0, but never actually used it for anything.
Just a Solitaire game or 2, (or 10) after I got my 'real work' done with DOS, OS/2, or Linux...

Windows as a real 'operating system', started with David Cutler and NT, after MS kissed off their OS/2 responsibilities...
Then IBM made OS/2 work right. But... didn't want to advertise it, sell it, or promote it in any way.
(Sort of: it was there, if you wanted it for some reason...)

Like today, all computers were pre-loaded with Windows and there were no other options. Period.
If you used something different, that "voided your warranty"....

The 1.0, 2.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98 even ME was an application run from dos while any past 3.1 saw an automatic batch file to load the main gui when the system was first started. ME saw the removal there of the shutdown to dos option simply running dos apps through a dos window.

For pre 95 version you manually typed the command(win for Windows 3.1, 3.11) in at the dos prompt to then see the gui load into the early Windows there. NT 3.1 instead of dos saw the Network Technology File System first there simply being an apllication loaded into memory from a different file system.