Open education is an educational movement founded on openness, with connections to other educational movements such as critical pedagogy, and with an educational stance which favours widening participation and inclusiveness in society. Open education broadens access to the learning and training traditionally offered through formal education systems and is typically (but not necessarily) offered through online and distance education.
The qualifier "open" refers to the elimination of barriers that can
preclude both opportunities and recognition for participation in
institution-based learning. One aspect of openness or "opening up"
education is the development and adoption of open educational resources in support of open educational practices.
Open
education is part of a broader openness movement. It has origins,
particularly in higher education, to the 17th century in the thinking of
John Amos Comenius, who proposed open access to education as a core goal.
Some authors have noted scholarly discussion of open education
originating in the progressive pedagogy movements of early childhood
education, related to the openness of teaching methods and the promotion
of learner autonomy within and outside the classroom. Returning to
openness in higher education, the postwar era of the 1960s and 1970s
faced a "world-wide crisis in education"
as education systems responded slowly to the demand for higher
education in an era of scientific and economic prosperity requiring new
models to meet the needs of a much larger and diversified group of
lifelong learners.
These conditions led to the establishment of open and distance
education systems globally, which itself developed many innovative and
progressive ideas of how to meet the educational needs of large and
diverse learner populations. The establishment of open education today
as a growing part of mainstream education, particularly in higher
education, is directly linked to the development of open education
universities beginning in the 1970s.
The interconnectedness of open education and scientific and
economic progress is no coincidence. Openness in education is connected
to the changing needs of societies, cultures, and economies, and in
particular to the rapid evolution of digital and networked technologies.
Technology, pedagogy, and related socioeconomic developments have a
symbiotic relationship with open and distance education, including in
the intellectual and theoretical foundations which define its practice.
The most recent emergence of open education is related to the
ability to share resources on the web at little cost compared to the
distribution of copy righted material common within higher education.
Early examples of this are the OpenCourseWare program, established in 2002 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which was followed by more than 200 universities and organisations, and Connexions, established at Rice University in 1999, which transformed into OpenStax. Similar to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities from the Open Access movement, are the goals and intentions from open education specified in the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. MOOC
is a more recent form of online course based on principles of openness
which has gotten increasing attention since the early 2010's,
exemplified by online platforms such edX, Coursera and Udacity.
Open education is often considered an unequivocal good, part of a
larger movement of openness in society (i.e. open knowledge, open
government, open access, open data, open source, and open culture).
However, critical approaches to open education have also been developed
which underline differing perspectives and the need for a nuanced
examination of the contexts of openness, a focus on issues of
participation, power and social justice, a move beyond the binaries of
open and closed as well as examining relationships between formal,
non-formal and informal forms of open education and the relationships
between teachers and learners.
Openness in education is considered both a comprehensible and a
contested term with multiple layers and dimensions. It can be
characterised as an adaptive, flexible, and evolving concept.
Advocates of openness in education argue that to fully realise the
benefits of open education, there is a need to focus on open educational
practices (OEP).
By using OEP, open educators recognise the ubiquity of knowledge across
networks and orchestrate learning that aims to promote learner agency,
empowerment, and global civic participation. Likewise, there are other parallel movements in education which support openness, included networked learning, connected learning, and social technologies, among others.
Common features of open education in practice attempt to build opportunities for learners to:
access education, open educational resources, open textbooks, and open scholarship
collaborate with others, across the boundaries of institutions, institutional systems, and geographic locations
create and co-create knowledge openly
integrate formal and informal learning practices, networks, and identities
Theoretical foundations of open education
Open education and flexible learning
Open education is motivated by a belief that learners want to exercise agency in their studies, particularly from a lifelong learning
perspective. Throughout its history, open education has been associated
with multiple meanings: access, flexibility, equity, collaboration,
agency, democratisation, social justice, transparency, and removing
barriers. Researchers and practitioners in the field of open education have adopted generic educational theories such as social constructivism, behaviourism, and cognitivism, and then generated their own theoretical foundations following the emergence of open universities and the emergence of powerful and sophisticated digital technologies, such as networked learning or connectivism. Open education has also been influenced by the philosophy of openness, characterised by an emphasis on transparency and collaboration.
Initial conceptualisations of open education were characterised by
independent study, where learners are independent of time and space
through asynchronous learning, but also independent in developing their
own learning strategies and practices, focused on personalised learning
and learner autonomy and agency.
More recently, theories which support open education have
developed in line with the rapid evolution of networked digital
technologies and the sophistication of social software. The community of inquiry (CoI) model proposed by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) was developed to provide conceptual order and act as a heuristic tool for the use of computer-mediated communication
in support of educational experiences, particularly relevant for online
and open education. The CoI model argues that a meaningful online
learning experience is created through a combination of and interaction
between cognitive, social, and teaching presence.
A range of other theories and conceptual frameworks relate to
open education, including connectivism which adopts a non-linear
approach to learning, influenced by complexity theory, where communities of knowledge are formed through connections forged in a networked learning environment.
Connectivism relates to openness through its emphasis on learner
autonomy and agency and its use of OER. The study of self-determined
learning, known as heutagogy also relates to open education, founded on
the principles of self-efficacy
and capability, meta-cognition and reflection, and non-linear learning.
Self determined learning is often viewed as part of a continuum
experience between pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy, reflecting a shift from teacher-centred to learner-determined environments and activities. A learning ecologies framework supports open education through both a lifelong and lifewide learning perspective, which is learning in different places simultaneously across the multiple contexts one inhabits.
A learning ecologies approach rests on the possibilities of new
technologies in facilitating self-sustaining, interest-driven and
boundary crossing learning, interrelated with the openness in education
movement. A rhizomatic learning
approach can also underlie forms of open education, characterised as an
organic process where the curriculum is connected to the community and
the learner navigates diversely connected learning environments by
making links, negotiating the learning process, and adapting to change.
In the most recent theoretical foundations of open education, including
connectivism, heutagogy, and rhizomatic learning, openness arises from
the learner-centred and non-linear design of learning contexts and
resources and the promotion of learner agency and autonomy.
Technology utilized
Available
technologies for open education are important in the overall efficiency
of the program. They promote an absolute openness in the dissemination
of education, eliminating barriers including, but not limited to, cost
and access to free and relevant resources.
After available technologies have been found, there need to be
appropriate applications on the technologies for the specific online
education program.
Since open education usually occurs at a different time and
different place for most individuals across the world, certain
technologies need to be utilized to enhance the program. These
technologies are primarily online and serve a variety of purposes.
Websites and other computer-based training may be used to provide
lecture notes, assessments, and other course materials. Videos are
provided and feature speakers, class events, topic discussions, and
faculty interviews. YouTube and iTunesU are often used for this purpose.
Students may interact through computer conferencing with Skype, e-mail,
online study groups, or annotations on social bookmarking sites. Other
course content may be provided through tapes, print, and CDs.
Governments, institutions, and people realize the importance of
education. Human knowledge is crucial to producing competent leaders,
innovators, and teachers. Educational systems must provide each
individual the chance in building a better life. Technology has made the
expansion of educational opportunities easier.
Through the Internet, students can easily find information practically
on any topic while mentors are capable of sharing their expertise with
any student within seconds. Educational materials are disseminated to a
global audience without additional costs. Evolving technology makes it
possible for learners to interact with the global community in the
comfort of their homes. Under distance learning, universities and
colleges expand their impact through online courses that people in any
country can take.
Open education includes resources such as practices and tools
that are not hampered by financial, technical, and legal impediments.
These resources are used and shared easily within the digital settings.
Technology revolutionized techniques in sending receiving information on
a daily basis particularly in education. Availability of web resources
has transformed everything. Open education is founded on Open Educational Resources (OER) comprised or learning, teaching, and research sources.
With Open Education, the costs of textbooks which surged over three
times the rate of inflation for many years must not hinder education.
Based on the NBC News review of the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor
Statistics data, prices of student books increased three times inflation
rates from January 1977 until June 2015 reflecting an increase of 1,041
percent.
OER can possibly address this problem since materials are free
online and economical in printed form. Resources intended for buying
textbooks can be rechanneled towards technology, enhancing the medium of
instructions, and lowering debt.
Research studies also showed many students learn more because of their
access to quality materials. Technology also has unlimited potentials in
raising teaching and learning to a higher level.
Critical approaches to open education
There
are a number of concerns regarding the implementation of open education
systems, specifically for use in developing countries. These include a
potential lack of administrative oversight and quality assurance systems
for educators/materials in some programs, infrastructure limitations in
developing countries, a lack of equal access to technologies required
for students' full participation in online education initiatives, and
questions regarding the use of copyrighted materials.
Open research is research
that is openly accessible by others. Those who publish research in this
way are often concerned with making research more transparent, more
collaborative, more wide-reaching, and more efficient. Open research
aims to make both research methods and the resulting data freely available, often via the internet, in order to support reproducibility and, potentially, massively distributed research collaboration. In this regard, it is related to both open source software and citizen science.
Especially for research that is scientific in nature, open research may be referred to as open science. However, the term can also implicate research done in fields as varied as the social sciences, the humanities, mathematics, engineering and medicine.
Types of open projects
Important distinctions exist between different types of open projects.
Projects that provide open data but don't offer open collaboration are referred to as "open access" rather than open research. Providing open data is a necessary but not sufficient condition for open research, because although the data may be used by anyone, there is no requirement for subsequent research to take place openly. For example, though there have been many calls for more open collaborative research in drug discovery and the open deposition of large amounts of data, there are very few active, openly collaborative projects in this area.
Crowdsourcing
projects that recruit large numbers of participants to carry out small
tasks which are then assembled into a larger project outcome have
delivered significant research outcomes,
but these projects are distinct from those in which participants are
able to influence the overall direction of the research, or in which
participants are expected to have creative input into the science behind
the project.
Most open research is conducted within existing research groups.
Primary research data are posted which can be added to, or interpreted
by, anyone who has the necessary expertise and who can therefore join
the collaborative effort. Thus the "end product" of the project (which
may still be subject to future expansion or modification) arises from
many contributions across multiple research groups, rather than the
effort of one group or individual. Open research is therefore distinct
from open access in that the output of open research is prone to change
with time.
Unlike open access, true open research must demonstrate live,
online collaboration. Project websites that demonstrate this capability
have started to become available.
In 2005, several examples arose in the area of the search for new/improved medical treatments of Neglected Diseases.
Science and engineering research to support the creation of open-source appropriate technology for sustainable development has long used open research principles.
Open source research for sustainable development is now becoming
formalized with open access for literature reviews, research methods,
data, results and summaries for laypeople.
While first attempts towards opening research were primarily
aimed at opening areas such as scientific data, methodologies, software
and publications, now increasingly other artifacts of the scientific
workflow are also tackled, such as scientific meta-data and funding ideas.
In 2013, open research became more mainstream with web based platforms such as figshare continuing to grow in terms of users and publicly available outputs.
The Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Committee met in
2014 to address one key element of the incentive systems: journals'
procedures and policies for publication. The committee consisted of
disciplinary leaders, journal editors, funding agency representatives,
and disciplinary experts largely from the social and behavioral
sciences. By developing shared standards for open practices across
journals, the committee said it hopes to translate scientific norms and
values into concrete actions and change the current incentive structures
to drive researchers' behavior toward more openness.
The committee said it sought to produce guidelines that (a) focus on
the commonalities across disciplines, and that (b) define what aspects
of the research process should be made available to the community to
evaluate, critique, reuse, and extend. The committee added that the
guidelines aim to help improve journal policies in order to help
transparency, openness, and reproducibility "become more evident in
daily practice and ultimately improve the public trust in science, and
science itself."
Windows is the most popular desktop operating system in the world, with a 70% market share as of March 2023, according to StatCounter. However, Windows is not the most used operating system when including both mobile and desktop OSes, due to Android's massive growth.
Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has registered several
trademarks, each of which denotes a family of Windows operating systems
that target a specific sector of the computing industry. As of 2014, the following Windows families were being actively developed:
Windows NT: Started as a family of operating systems with Windows NT 3.1, an operating system for server computers and workstations. It consists of three operating system subfamilies that are released almost simultaneously and share the same kernel:
Windows PE: A lightweight version of its Windows sibling, meant to operate as a live operating system,
used for installing Windows on bare-metal computers (especially on many
computers at once), recovery or troubleshooting purposes. The latest
version is Windows PE 10.
These Windows families are no longer being developed:
Windows 9x: An operating system that targeted the consumer market. Discontinued because of suboptimal performance. (PC World called its last version, Windows Me, one of the worst products of all time.) Microsoft still caters to the consumer market with Windows NT.
Windows Mobile: The predecessor to Windows Phone, it was a mobile phone operating system. The first version was called Pocket PC 2000; the third version, Windows Mobile 2003 is the first version to adopt the Windows Mobile trademark. The last version was Windows Mobile 6.5.
The term Windows collectively describes any or all of several generations of Microsoftoperating system products. These products are generally categorized as follows:
The history of Windows dates back to 1981 when Microsoft started work
on a program called "Interface Manager". It was announced in November
1983 (after the Apple Lisa, but before the Macintosh) under the name "Windows", but Windows 1.0 was not released until November 1985. Windows 1.0 was to compete with Apple's operating system, but achieved little popularity. Windows 1.0 is not a complete operating system; rather, it extends MS-DOS. The shell of Windows 1.0 is a program known as the MS-DOS Executive. Components included Calculator, Calendar, Cardfile, Clipboard Viewer, Clock, Control Panel, Notepad, Paint, Reversi, Terminal and Write. Windows 1.0 does not allow overlapping windows. Instead, all windows are tiled.
Only modal dialog boxes may appear over other windows. Microsoft sold
as included Windows Development libraries with the C development
environment, which included numerous windows samples.
Windows 2.0
was released in December 1987, and was more popular than its
predecessor. It features several improvements to the user interface and
memory management. Windows 2.03 changed the OS from tiled windows to overlapping windows. The result of this change led to Apple Computer filing a suit against Microsoft alleging infringement on Apple's copyrights (eventually settled in court in Microsoft's favor in 1993). Windows 2.0 also introduced more sophisticated keyboard shortcuts and could make use of expanded memory.
In addition to full Windows packages, there were runtime-only
versions that shipped with early Windows software from third parties and
made it possible to run their Windows software on MS-DOS and without
the full Windows feature set.
The early versions of Windows are often thought of as graphical
shells, mostly because they ran on top of MS-DOS and used it for file system services. However, even the earliest Windows versions already assumed many typical operating system functions; notably, having their own executable file format and providing their own device drivers
(timer, graphics, printer, mouse, keyboard and sound). Unlike MS-DOS,
Windows allowed users to execute multiple graphical applications at the
same time, through cooperative multitasking.
Windows implemented an elaborate, segment-based, software virtual
memory scheme, which allows it to run applications larger than available
memory: code segments and resources
are swapped in and thrown away when memory became scarce; data segments
moved in memory when a given application had relinquished processor
control.
Windows 3.0, released in 1990, improved the design, mostly because of virtual memory and loadable virtual device drivers (VxDs) that allow Windows to share arbitrary devices between multi-tasked DOS applications. Windows 3.0 applications can run in protected mode,
which gives them access to several megabytes of memory without the
obligation to participate in the software virtual memory scheme. They
run inside the same address space, where the segmented memory provides a
degree of protection. Windows 3.0 also featured improvements to the
user interface. Microsoft rewrote critical operations from C into assembly.
Windows 3.0 was the first version of Windows to achieve broad
commercial success, selling 2 million copies in the first six months.
Versions before Windows 95 had to be installed from floppy disks
by end users (or in professional environments with a network
installation); here Windows for Workgroups with nine 3.5-inch-disks to
be inserted sequentially.
Windows 3.1, made generally available on March 1, 1992, featured a facelift. In August 1993, Windows for Workgroups, a special version with integrated peer-to-peer networking
features and a version number of 3.11, was released. It was sold along
with Windows 3.1. Support for Windows 3.1 ended on December 31, 2001.
Windows 3.2, released in 1994, is an updated version of the Chinese version of Windows 3.1.
The update was limited to this language version, as it fixed only
issues related to the complex writing system of the Chinese language. Windows 3.2 was generally sold by computer manufacturers with a ten-disk version of MS-DOS that also had Simplified Chinese characters in basic output and some translated utilities.
The next major consumer-oriented release of Windows, Windows 95, was released on August 24, 1995. While still remaining MS-DOS-based, Windows 95 introduced support for native 32-bit applications, plug and play hardware, preemptive multitasking, long file names of up to 255 characters, and provided increased stability over its predecessors. Windows 95 also introduced a redesigned, object oriented user interface, replacing the previous Program Manager with the Start menu, taskbar, and Windows Explorershell. Windows 95 was a major commercial success for Microsoft; Ina Fried of CNET
remarked that "by the time Windows 95 was finally ushered off the
market in 2001, it had become a fixture on computer desktops around the
world." Microsoft published four OEM Service Releases (OSR) of Windows 95, each of which was roughly equivalent to a service pack. The first OSR of Windows 95 was also the first version of Windows to be bundled with Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer. Mainstream support for Windows 95 ended on December 31, 2000, and extended support for Windows 95 ended on December 31, 2001.
On September 14, 2000, Microsoft released Windows Me
(Millennium Edition), the last DOS-based version of Windows. Windows Me
incorporated visual interface enhancements from its Windows NT-based
counterpart Windows 2000, had faster boot times than previous versions (which however, required the removal of the ability to access a real mode DOS environment, removing compatibility with some older programs), expanded multimedia functionality (including Windows Media Player 7, Windows Movie Maker, and the Windows Image Acquisition framework for retrieving images from scanners and digital cameras), additional system utilities such as System File Protection and System Restore, and updated home networking tools.
However, Windows Me was faced with criticism for its speed and
instability, along with hardware compatibility issues and its removal of
real mode DOS support. PC World
considered Windows Me to be one of the worst operating systems
Microsoft had ever released, and the fourth worst tech product of all
time.
In November 1988, a new development team within Microsoft (which included former Digital Equipment Corporation developers Dave Cutler and Mark Lucovsky) began work on a revamped version of IBM and Microsoft's OS/2 operating system known as "NT OS/2". NT OS/2 was intended to be a secure, multi-user operating system with POSIX compatibility and a modular, portable kernel with preemptive multitasking and support for multiple processor architectures. However, following the successful release of Windows 3.0, the NT development team decided to rework the project to use an extended 32-bit port of the Windows API known as Win32 instead of those of OS/2. Win32 maintained a similar structure to the Windows APIs (allowing existing Windows applications to easily be ported to the platform), but also supported the capabilities of the existing NT kernel.
Following its approval by Microsoft's staff, development continued on
what was now Windows NT, the first 32-bit version of Windows. However,
IBM objected to the changes, and ultimately continued OS/2 development
on its own.
Windows NT was the first Windows operating system based on a hybrid kernel. The hybrid kernel was designed as a modified microkernel, influenced by the Mach microkernel developed by Richard Rashid at Carnegie Mellon University, but without meeting all of the criteria of a pure microkernel.
The first release of the resulting operating system, Windows NT 3.1 (named to associate it with Windows 3.1) was released in July 1993, with versions for desktop workstations and servers. Windows NT 3.5 was released in September 1994, focusing on performance improvements and support for Novell's NetWare, and was followed up by Windows NT 3.51 in May 1995, which included additional improvements and support for the PowerPC architecture. Windows NT 4.0 was released in June 1996, introducing the redesigned interface of Windows 95 to the NT series. On February 17, 2000, Microsoft released Windows 2000, a successor to NT 4.0. The Windows NT name was dropped at this point in order to put a greater focus on the Windows brand.
The next major version of Windows NT, Windows XP,
was released to manufacturing (RTM) on August 24, 2001 and to the
general public on October 25, 2001. The introduction of Windows XP aimed
to unify the consumer-oriented Windows 9x
series with the architecture introduced by Windows NT, a change which
Microsoft promised would provide better performance over its DOS-based
predecessors. Windows XP would also introduce a redesigned user
interface (including an updated Start menu and a "task-oriented" Windows Explorer), streamlined multimedia and networking features, Internet Explorer 6, integration with Microsoft's .NET Passport services, a "compatibility mode" to help provide backwards compatibility with software designed for previous versions of Windows, and Remote Assistance functionality.
At retail, Windows XP was marketed in two main editions:
the "Home" edition was targeted towards consumers, while the
"Professional" edition was targeted towards business environments and power users,
and included additional security and networking features. Home and
Professional were later accompanied by the "Media Center" edition
(designed for home theater PCs, with an emphasis on support for DVD playback, TV tuner cards, DVR functionality, and remote controls), and the "Tablet PC" edition (designed for mobile devices meeting its specifications for a tablet computer, with support for stylus pen input and additional pen-enabled applications). Mainstream support for Windows XP ended on April 14, 2009. Extended support ended on April 8, 2014.
After Windows 2000, Microsoft also changed its release schedules
for server operating systems; the server counterpart of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, was released in April 2003. It was followed in December 2005, by Windows Server 2003 R2.
After a lengthy development process, Windows Vista was released on November 30, 2006, for volume licensing and January 30, 2007, for consumers. It contained a number of new features, from a redesigned shell and user interface to significant technical changes, with a particular focus on security features. It was available in a number of different editions, and has been subject to some criticism,
such as drop of performance, longer boot time, criticism of new UAC,
and stricter license agreement. Vista's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 was released in early 2008.
On July 22, 2009, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
were released to manufacturing (RTM) and released to the public 3
months later on October 22, 2009. Unlike its predecessor, Windows Vista,
which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 was intended
to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the
goal of being compatible with applications and hardware with which
Windows Vista was already compatible. Windows 7 has multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows shell with an updated taskbar with revealable jump lists that contain shortcuts to files frequently used with specific applications and shortcuts to tasks within the application, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements.
Windows 8,
the successor to Windows 7, was released generally on October 26, 2012.
A number of significant changes were made on Windows 8, including the
introduction of a user interface based around Microsoft's Metro design language with optimizations for touch-based devices such as tablets and all-in-one PCs. These changes include the Start screen,
which uses large tiles that are more convenient for touch interactions
and allow for the display of continually updated information, and a new
class of apps
which are designed primarily for use on touch-based devices. The new
Windows version required a minimum resolution of 1024×768 pixels, effectively making it unfit for netbooks with 800×600-pixel screens.
Other changes include increased integration with cloud services and other online platforms (such as social networks and Microsoft's own OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) and Xbox Live services), the Windows Store service for software distribution, and a new variant known as Windows RT for use on devices that utilize the ARM architecture, and a new keyboard shortcut for screenshots. An update to Windows 8, called Windows 8.1, was released on October 17, 2013, and includes features such as new live tile sizes, deeper OneDrive integration, and many other revisions. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have been subject to some criticism, such as the removal of the Start menu.
On September 30, 2014, Microsoft announced Windows 10
as the successor to Windows 8.1. It was released on July 29, 2015, and
addresses shortcomings in the user interface first introduced with
Windows 8. Changes on PC include the return of the Start Menu, a virtual desktop system, and the ability to run Windows Store apps within windows on the desktop rather than in full-screen mode. Windows 10 is said to be available to update from qualified Windows 7 with SP1, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices from the Get Windows 10 Application (for Windows 7, Windows 8.1) or Windows Update (Windows 7).
In February 2017, Microsoft announced the migration of its Windows source code repository from Perforce to Git. This migration involved 3.5 million separate files in a 300-gigabyte repository. By May 2017, 90 percent of its engineering team was using Git, in about 8500 commits and 1760 Windows builds per day.
In June 2021, shortly before Microsoft's announcement of Windows
11, Microsoft updated their lifecycle policy pages for Windows 10,
revealing that support for their last release of Windows 10 will end on
October 14, 2025. On April 27, 2023, Microsoft announced that version 22H2 would be the last of Windows 10.
On June 24, 2021, Windows 11
was announced as the successor to Windows 10 during a livestream. The
new operating system was designed to be more user-friendly and
understandable. It was released on October 5, 2021. As of May 2022, Windows 11 is a free upgrade to Windows 10 users who meet the system requirements.
In July 2021, Microsoft announced it will start selling subscriptions to virtualized Windows desktops as part of a new Windows 365 service in the following month. The new service will allow for cross-platform usage,
aiming to make the operating system available for both Apple and
Android users. It is a separate service and offers several variations
including Windows 365 Frontline, Windows 365 Boot, and the Windows 365
app. The subscription service will be accessible through any operating system with a web browser. The new service is an attempt at capitalizing on the growing trend, fostered during the COVID-19 pandemic, for businesses to adopt a hybrid remote work
environment, in which "employees split their time between the office
and home". As the service will be accessible through web browsers,
Microsoft will be able to bypass the need to publish the service through
Google Play or the Apple App Store.
Microsoft announced Windows 365 availability to business and enterprise customers on August 2, 2021.
Multilingual support
Multilingual support has been built into Windows since Windows 3.0.
The language for both the keyboard and the interface can be changed
through the Region and Language Control Panel. Components for all
supported input languages, such as Input Method Editors,
are automatically installed during Windows installation (in Windows XP
and earlier, files for East Asian languages, such as Chinese, and files
for right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic, may need to be installed
separately, also from the said Control Panel). Third-party IMEs may also
be installed if a user feels that the provided one is insufficient for
their needs. Since Windows 2000, English editions of Windows NT have
East Asian IMEs (such as Microsoft Pinyin IME and Microsoft Japanese IME) bundled, but files for East Asian languages may be manually installed on Control Panel.
Interface languages for the operating system are free for
download, but some languages are limited to certain editions of Windows.
Language Interface Packs
(LIPs) are redistributable and may be downloaded from Microsoft's
Download Center and installed for any edition of Windows (XP or later) –
they translate most, but not all, of the Windows interface, and
require a certain base language (the language which Windows originally
shipped with). This is used for most languages in emerging markets. Full
Language Packs, which translate the complete operating system, are only
available for specific editions of Windows (Ultimate and Enterprise
editions of Windows Vista and 7, and all editions of Windows 8, 8.1 and
RT except Single Language). They do not require a specific base language
and are commonly used for more popular languages such as French or
Chinese. These languages cannot be downloaded through the Download
Center, but are available as optional updates through the Windows Update service (except Windows 8).
The interface language of installed applications is not affected
by changes in the Windows interface language. The availability of
languages depends on the application developers themselves.
Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
introduce a new Language Control Panel where both the interface and
input languages can be simultaneously changed, and language packs,
regardless of type, can be downloaded from a central location. The PC
Settings app in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 also includes a counterpart settings page for this. Changing the interface language also changes the language of preinstalled Windows Store
apps (such as Mail, Maps and News) and certain other
Microsoft-developed apps (such as Remote Desktop). The above limitations
for language packs are however still in effect, except that full
language packs can be installed for any edition except Single Language,
which caters to emerging markets.
Platform support
Windows NT included support for several platforms before the x86-based personal computer became dominant in the professional world. Windows NT 4.0 and its predecessors supported PowerPC, DEC Alpha and MIPS R4000 (although some of the platforms implement 64-bit computing, the OS treated them as 32-bit). Windows 2000 dropped support for all platforms, except the third generation x86 (known as IA-32) or newer in 32-bit mode. The client line of the Windows NT family still runs on IA-32 but the Windows Server line ceased supporting this platform with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2.
With the introduction of the Intel Itanium architecture (IA-64), Microsoft released new versions of Windows to support it. Itanium versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
were released at the same time as their mainstream x86 counterparts.
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, released in 2005, is the last Windows client
operating system to support Itanium. Windows Server line continues to
support this platform until Windows Server 2012; Windows Server 2008 R2 is the last Windows operating system to support Itanium architecture.
On April 25, 2005, Microsoft released Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions to support x86-64 (or simply x64), the 64-bit version of x86 architecture. Windows Vista was the first client version of Windows NT to be released simultaneously in IA-32 and x64 editions. x64 is still supported.
An edition of Windows 8 known as Windows RT was specifically created for computers with ARM architecture,
and while ARM is still used for Windows smartphones with Windows 10,
tablets with Windows RT will not be updated. Starting from Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) and later includes support for ARM-based PCs.
Windows 11 is the first version to drop support for 32-bit hardware.
Windows CE (officially known as Windows Embedded Compact), is an edition of Windows that runs on minimalistic computers,
like satellite navigation systems and some mobile phones. Windows
Embedded Compact is based on its own dedicated kernel, dubbed Windows CE
kernel. Microsoft licenses Windows CE to OEMs
and device makers. The OEMs and device makers can modify and create
their own user interfaces and experiences, while Windows CE provides the
technical foundation to do so.
Xbox OS is an unofficial name given to the version of Windows that runs on Xbox consoles. From Xbox One onwards it is an implementation with an emphasis on virtualization (using Hyper-V) as it is three operating systems running at once, consisting of the core operating system, a second implemented for games and a more Windows-like environment for applications.
Microsoft updates Xbox One's OS every month, and these updates can be
downloaded from the Xbox Live service to the Xbox and subsequently
installed, or by using offline recovery images downloaded via a PC.
It was originally based on NT 6.2 (Windows 8) kernel, and the latest
version runs on an NT 10.0 base. This system is sometimes referred to as
"Windows 10 on Xbox One".
Xbox One and Xbox Series
operating systems also allow limited (due to licensing restrictions and
testing resources) backward compatibility with previous generation
hardware, and the Xbox 360's system is backwards compatible with the original Xbox.
Version control system
Up to and including every version before Windows 2000,
Microsoft used an in-house version control system named Source Library
Manager (SLM). Shortly after Windows 2000 was released, Microsoft
switched to a fork of Perforce named Source Depot. This system was used up until 2017 once the system could not keep up with the size of Windows. Microsoft had begun to integrate Git into Team Foundation Server in 2013, but Windows (and Office) continued to rely on Source Depot.
The Windows code was divided among 65 different repositories with a
kind of virtualization layer to produce unified view of all of the code.
In 2017 Microsoft announced that it would start using Git, an open source version control system created by Linus Torvalds and in May 2017 they reported that the migration into a new Git repository was complete.
VFSForGit
Because of its large, decades-long history, however, the Windows
codebase is not especially well suited to the decentralized nature of Linux development that Git was originally created to manage. Each Git repository contains a complete history of all the files, which proved unworkable for Windows developers because cloning the whole repository takes several hours. Microsoft has been working on a new project called the Virtual File System for Git (VFSForGit) to address these challenges.
In 2021 the VFS for Git has been superseded by Scalar.
Use of Windows 10 has exceeded Windows 7 globally since early 2018.
For desktop and laptop computers, according to Net Applications and StatCounter
(which track the use of operating systems in devices that are active on
the Web), Windows was the most used operating-system family in August
2021, with around 91% usage share according to Net Applications and around 76% usage share according to StatCounter.
Including personal computers of all kinds (e.g., desktops,
laptops, mobile devices, and game consoles), Windows OSes accounted for
32.67% of usage share in August 2021, compared to Android (highest, at
46.03%), iOS's 13.76%, iPadOS's 2.81%, and macOS's 2.51%, according to Net Applications
and 30.73% of usage share in August 2021, compared to Android (highest,
at 42.56%), iOS/iPadOS's 16.53%, and macOS's 6.51%, according to
StatCounter.
Those statistics do not include servers (including so-called cloud computing,
where Microsoft is known not to be a leader, with Linux used more than
Windows) as Net Applications and StatCounter use web browsing as a proxy
for all use.
Security
Early versions of Windows were designed at a time where malware
and networking were less common, and had few built-in security
features; they did not provide access privileges to allow a user to
prevent other users from accessing their files, and they did not provide
memory protection
to prevent one process from reading or writing another process's
address space or to prevent a process from code or data used by
privileged-mode code.
While the Windows 9x series offered the option of having profiles for multiple users, it had no concept of access privileges,
allowing any user to edit others' files, however, Windows 98 included
each profile to have their own My folders (My Documents, My Pictures, My
Music, etc) separate from other profiles. In addition, while it ran
separate 32-bit applications in separate address spaces, protecting an
application's code and data from being read or written by another
application, it did not protect the first megabyte of memory from userland
applications for compatibility reasons. This area of memory contains
code critical to the functioning of the operating system, and by writing
into this area of memory an application can crash or freeze
the operating system. This was a source of instability as faulty
applications could accidentally write into this region, potentially
corrupting important operating system memory, which usually resulted in
some form of system error and halt.
Windows NT
was far more secure, implementing access privileges and full memory
protection, and, while 32-bit programs meeting the DoD's C2 security
rating, yet these advantages were nullified by the fact that, prior to Windows Vista, the default user account created during the setup process was an administrator account; the user, and any program the user launched, had full access to the machine. Though Windows XP
did offer an option of turning administrator accounts into limited
accounts, the majority of home users did not do so, partially due to the
number of programs which required administrator rights to function
properly. As a result, most home users still ran as administrator all
the time. These architectural flaws, combined with Windows's very high
popularity, made Windows a frequent target of computer worm and virus writers.
Furthermore, although Windows NT and its successors are designed
for security (including on a network) and multi-user PCs, they were not
initially designed with Internet security in mind as much, since, when
it was first developed in the early 1990s, Internet use was less
prevalent.
In a 2002 strategy memo entitled "Trustworthy computing" sent to
every Microsoft employee, Bill Gates declared that security should
become Microsoft's highest priority.
Windows Vista introduced a privilege elevation system called User Account Control. When logging in as a standard user, a logon session is created and a token
containing only the most basic privileges is assigned. In this way, the
new logon session is incapable of making changes that would affect the
entire system. When logging in as a user in the Administrators group,
two separate tokens are assigned. The first token contains all
privileges typically awarded to an administrator, and the second is a
restricted token similar to what a standard user would receive. User
applications, including the Windows shell,
are then started with the restricted token, resulting in a reduced
privilege environment even under an Administrator account. When an
application requests higher privileges or "Run as administrator" is
clicked, UAC will prompt for confirmation and, if consent is given
(including administrator credentials if the account requesting the
elevation is not a member of the administrators group), start the
process using the unrestricted token.
Leaked documents published by WikiLeaks, codenamed Vault 7 and dated from 2013 to 2016, detail the capabilities of the CIA to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare, such as the ability to compromise operating systems such as Windows.
Microsoft releases security patches through its Windows Update service approximately once a month (usually the second Tuesday of the month), although critical updates are made available at shorter intervals when necessary.
Versions subsequent to Windows 2000 SP3 and Windows XP implemented
automatic download and installation of updates, substantially increasing
the number of users installing security updates.
Windows integrates the Windows Defender antivirus, which is seen as one of the best available. Windows also implements Secure Boot, Control Flow Guard, ransomware protection, BitLocker disk encryption, a firewall, and Windows SmartScreen.
File permissions
All Windows versions from Windows NT 3 have been based on a file system permission system referred to as AGDLP
(Accounts, Global, Domain Local, Permissions) in which file permissions
are applied to the file/folder in the form of a 'local group' which
then has other 'global groups' as members. These global groups then hold
other groups or users depending on different Windows versions used.
This system varies from other vendor products such as Linux and NetWare
due to the 'static' allocation of permission being applied directly to
the file or folder. However using this process of AGLP/AGDLP/AGUDLP
allows a small number of static permissions to be applied and allows for
easy changes to the account groups without reapplying the file
permissions on the files and folders.
Alternative implementations
Owing to the operating system's popularity, a number of applications
have been released that aim to provide compatibility with Windows
applications, either as a compatibility layer
for another operating system, or as a standalone system that can run
software written for Windows out of the box. These include:
Wine – a free and open-source implementation of the Windows API, allowing one to run many Windows applications on x86-based platforms, including UNIX, Linux and macOS. Wine developers refer to it as a "compatibility layer" and use Windows-style APIs to emulate Windows environment.
CrossOver – a Wine package with licensed fonts. Its developers are regular contributors to Wine.
Proton – A fork of Wine by Steam to run Windows games on Linux and other Unix-like OS.
ReactOS
– an open-source OS intended to run the same software as Windows,
originally designed to simulate Windows NT 4.0, later aiming at Windows 7
compatibility. It has been in the development stage since 1996.
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