Windows 2005

Windows 2005 is an operating system that was produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on November 8, 2006, and became generally available on September 21 that year, and is the operating system for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs. It is the successor to Windows 5.1, released six years prior. Windows 2005's server counterpart, Windows Server 2005 R3, was released at the same time. The last supported version of Windows 2005 was released on January 5, 2007. Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2005 R3 both at the same time, and extended support ended on April 30, 2007. It is most known for being the shortest lived Microsoft product.

Windows 2005 was primarily intended to be an incremental upgrade to Microsoft Windows, trying to become a successor to Windows XP and Windows 5.1, while also maintaining hardware and software compatibility. It was also the beta version of Windows 5.2, however this idea was dropped and Windows 2005 became it’s own operating system. Windows 2005 saw the first instance of Windows Aero, added a redesigned taskbar that allows applications to be "pinned" to it, and new window management features. Other new features were added to the operating system, including libraries, the new file sharing system HomeGroup, and support for multitouch input. A new "Action Center" interface was also added to provide an overview of system security and maintenance information, and tweaks were made to the User Account Control system to make it less intrusive. Windows 2005 also shipped with updated versions of several stock applications, including Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player, and Windows Media Center.

In contrast to Windows XP, Windows 2005 was generally critiqued due to it’s lack of safety features and easily bypass-able ones. Windows 2005 was a major failure for Microsoft; even prior to its official release, pre-order sales for the operating system had hit an all time low for Microsoft pre-orders. In just six months, just 10 thousand copies had been sold worldwide, not increasing even after a year of Windows 2005’s release. As of July 2020, 1.23% of traditional PCs running Windows are running Windows 2005 (and thus 1.8% of all traditional PCs or of all devices across platforms), and the OS has very low market share in some countries.

As Windows 5.2
Development of “Windows 2005“ began in the early 2000’s as Codename Five-Two, an operating system (OS) built on the Windows NT kernel which was intended specifically to be a successor to Windows 5.1. An updated version of Windows 5.2 was also originally planned for the business market; however, in January 2003, both projects were scrapped in favor of a single OS which would be what Windows 2005 is, which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. As such, Windows 2005 was the second consumer edition of Windows not to be based on MS-DOS. In the late 2000’s to early 2001, initial development of what would become Windows 2005 was halted due to the release of Windows XP. Because Microsoft did not want to release OS’s in such a quick time, Windows 2005 was delayed to 2002. (Windows 2005 was still Windows 5.2, keep in mind. Windows 2005 was becoming a side project before becoming Windows 5.2 itself.)

As Windows 2003
Windows 5.2 proved to be too ambitious. In January 2001, shortly prior to the official release of Windows XP, technology writer Paul Thurrott reported that Microsoft had shelved Windows 5.2 in favor of a new product codenamed "Ice”. The goal of Ice was to unify both the consumer and business-oriented Windows lines under a single, Windows NT platform: Thurrott stated that Windows 5.2 had become "a black hole when all the features that were cut from Windows 5.1 were simply re-tagged as Windows 5.2 features. And since that other project we’re working on would be based on the same code-base anyway, it made sense to combine them into a single project". Later, Windows 5.2 and what was Windows 2005 (under the name Ice) we’re merged into one system, thus creating Windows 2005. However, Windows planned to get Windows 2005 done in 2002, however it was once again delayed because Microsoft was planning very early development of Windows Vista. Windows Codename Ice was known as Windows 2003.


 * 1) Windows 2005