Was windows 3.1 an "operating system"?

I've seen lots of people saying they used windows 3.1 as their first OS, this irritates me as windows 3.1 was not an "operating system" but more of a GUI for DOS, windows back in the day used to be a program launched from dos, so dos was the operating system and then you opened a program called windows. The first windows operating system I believe was windows 2000, correct me if I'm wrong, but windows 3.1, 95, 98, were all just GUI's for the dos operating system, so if you wanted you could exit windows and enter dos, then from dos, type win.exe and launch winndows...

asked Jun 13 '10 at 10:41

Headwards
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edited Jun 13 '10 at 11:43

refrwfrwgrfd
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2 Answers:

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I think I see your logic.

Your basically saying that dos was the OS and win 3.1 was the graphical interface that was 'thrown' on top of it.

So basically combining dos with a gui is making an os. The gui just makes it easier to interact with the code.

In linux you can do everything through the terminal and the gnome or kde interface is just a pretty way of interacting with the os.

In one way you are right in saying win 3.1 was not an operating system because it used dos and yet windows + dos = the operating system.

So many users are so used to using a gui that they never have to think of the code. To most users a gui is an operating system. The gui just allows the user to control the operating system in an easier and more aesthetically pleasing way.

So really for this case you should be saying that:

I used Windows 3.1 for my gui and dos as my os or I used the Windows 98 gui with dos.

But for many users this is too much of a mouthful so it's easier to say that I used the Windows 3.1 os

answered Jun 13 '10 at 12:29

SignOff
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Yes that is what I was trying to say, so was 3.1 an os then? I still think it wasn't!

(Jun 13 '10 at 12:59) Headwards

DOS was the operating system because you could use DOS without the graphical interface to do most tasks if you wished.

Windows was essentially bolted on top to make interacting with DOS a lot easier and to provide a simple point and click interface.

(Jun 13 '10 at 13:35) SignOff

Good answer, here, have some karma... Click...

(Jun 13 '10 at 13:53) Headwards

Well if you use that logic, then Windows 7 isn't an operating system, because it is built on top of NT, just like Windows 3.1 is built on top of DOS.

YES, Windows 3.1 IS an operating system!

Also, from DOS you just had to type "win" and hit enter. You didn't have to type "win.exe"

answered Jun 13 '10 at 11:34

refrwfrwgrfd
(suspended)

edited Jun 13 '10 at 11:35

No I think your wrong, because an old windows 3.1 system booted to dos first making dos the operating system, then you can launch windows. Windows 7 boots straight to the windows 7 kernel first nothing else. You can not "exit" windows 7 into dos or anything else you can just open a command line interface from within windows. Yes windows 7 is built on windows NT, windows 3.1, 95 ,98 were not built on NT windows 2000 was the first to be built on NT. making windows 2000 the first windows operating system, all previous versions were GUI's for dos!

(Jun 13 '10 at 11:44) Headwards

True, however I remember a configuration setting that made it possible to boot directly into Windows. They used to have Windows 3.1 computers at my school, and the ones configured for it would boot directly into Windows 3.1. The ones that weren't booted DOS then you had to do "win + enter" to boot into Windows 3.1

(Jun 13 '10 at 11:56) refrwfrwgrfd

Tricky tricky!!! Perhaps we'll never know, when I googled it, pre windows NT operating systems are always referred to as operating systems, it's just I don't think they were "true" operating systems...

(Jun 13 '10 at 12:07) Headwards

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