Development of Windows XP began in the late 1990s as "
Neptune", an operating system built on the
Windows NT kernel which was intended specifically for mainstream consumer use—an updated version of
Windows 2000 was also originally planned for the business market. However, in January 2000, both projects were shelved in favor of a single OS codenamed "Whistler", which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. Windows XP was a major advance from the
MS-DOS based versions of
Windows in security, stability and efficiency
[7]due to its use of Windows NT underpinnings. It introduced a significantly redesigned
graphical user interface and was the first version of Windows to use
product activation in an effort to reduce its
copyright infringement.
Windows 8 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Development of Windows 8 started before the release of its predecessor, Windows 7, in 2009. It was announced at CES 2011, and followed by the release of three pre-release versions from September 2011 to May 2012. The operating system was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, and was released for general availability on October 26, 2012.[6]
Windows 2000 is an operating system for use on both client and server computers. It was produced by Microsoft and released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999[5] and launched to retail on February 17, 2000.[6] It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the last version of Microsoft Windows to display the "Windows NT" designation.[7] It is succeeded by Windows XP (released in October 2001) and Windows Server 2003 (released in April 2003). During development, Windows 2000 was known as Windows NT 5.0.
