Windows 2.0 Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Windows 2.0, released in 1987, was a version of the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface that was said to look similar to the Mac OS and more closely matched Microsoft's pre-release publicity for Windows 1.0, but was somewhat more primitive than Apple's interface. Version 2.0 allowed for windows to overlap each other, as contrasted with Windows 1.0, which could only display multiple windows on screen by tiling them. The window-manipulation terminology of "Minimize" and "Maximize" was introduced with this version, as was a more sophisticated keyboard-shortcut mechanism in which shortcut keys were identified by underlining the character which - in conjunction with the "Alt" key - would select that item. File management tasks were still managed by use of the MS-DOS Executive program introduced in Windows 1.0, which was more list-driven than icon-oriented.The first Windows versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel ran on Windows 2.0. Third-party developer support for Windows increased substantially with this version (some shipping the Windows Runtime software with their applications, for customers who had not purchased the full version of Windows), but most developers still maintained DOS versions of their applications, as Windows users were still a distinct minority of their market.
A year later, Windows/286 2.1 and Windows/386 2.1 were released, which could take advantage of the protected mode of the Intel 80286 and Intel 80386 processors.
Windows/286 took advantage of the HMA to increase the memory available to Windows programs. It also included support for several EMS boards for this same purpose. The segmented nature of Windows programs was quite suited to the usage of EMS, as portions of code and data could be made visible in the first megabyte of memory accessible to real-mode programs only when a program was given control. Microsoft encouraged users to configure their computers with only 256KB of main memory, leaving the address space from 256-640KB available for dynamic mapping of EMS memory.
Windows/386 allowed several MS-DOS programs to run in parallel, rather than background applications always being suspended. (Windows applications could already run in parallel through cooperative multitasking.) Each DOS application could use as much memory as was available before Windows was started, minus a few kilo-bytes of overhead. It also provided EMS emulation, using the memory management features of the Intel 80386 processor to make RAM beyond the first megabyte behave like the banked memory supplied by add-in cards and used by popular DOS applications. (By overwriting the WIN200.BIN file with COMMAND.COM, it was possible to use the EMS emulation in DOS without starting the Windows GUI.) There was no disk-based virtual memory, so multiple DOS programs had to fit inside the available physical memory; Microsoft suggested buying additional memory (and cards) if necessary.
The various Windows 2.x versions were superceded by Windows 3.0 in May 1990.
See also: Apple v. Microsoft
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