Windows Desktop Definition

The Windows desktop is that software interface that was originally created with the objective of creating a space with comfortable and easy access to the programs and operations available from a computer. It is an interface graph in which numerous icons, accesses, folders, files, toolbars and programs can be arranged differently. All of them may have been previously selected and organized by the user according to their specific needs.

Over the years, Windows has developed numerous desktop styles that have evolved in complexity over time. The Windows desktop gives users the ability to rearrange windows via drag and drop. With it, the mouse or the keyboard They are used to move, rearrange and order the visible elements. If we take into account that the Windows desktop is the basis of any operation that we want to perform on the computer, we will understand its importance and at the same time the need for it to be a simple, accessible and efficient system that allows us to obtain the best results. We analyze in detail these aspects that we summarize.

Although nowadays they already speak a "language of their own", the first graphical environments of the systems computer operatives sought to be a metaphor for what we found on an office table, in the desk. Hence, we talk about "computer desktop" (desktop), and that the one that has become the most famous is Windows.

It acts as the main point of user activity.

It is on the desktop that the application windows are displayed, with all their elements corresponding, and in which we can manage and order them, with operations such as minimizing, maximizing or resize them.

In addition to containing the application windows, the desktop also contains other elements that help with the daily work with the operating system.

This is the case of the taskbar, an element that allows you to manage the windows open in the system, in addition to containing other Items such as the Start button (starting with Windows 95), the clock, quick access icons, and icons for drivers and programs residents.

On the desktop we can also place icons, corresponding to shortcuts to programs, files, folders, or drives. storage, in addition to files and folders themselves, that is, not direct accesses, but the content directly.

More modern are elements such as widgets, which are small applications that display content on the same desktop, so that we can have information without having to open the app.

The most visible and most customizable element on the desktop is the background wallpaper, the famous "desktop background", which we can change color and personalize with a photograph.

There are entire libraries dedicated to images of all kinds and that embrace all genres, and that we can use desktop background, even customizing it with an image made by ourselves, be it a photograph or a He drew made freehand and then digitized.

This element, the background image, is the most conspicuous, visible and denotes the most customization of the desktop, although we can play with more elements in this aspect of customization, such as the set of colors of the windows and their elements, the typography and the size of the lyrics.

Historically, the Windows desktop has been sourced from the classic Mac OS, which Microsoft "copied" to.

Although, in fact, the term "copy", in terms of computingIt is a diffuse concept, because one never knows where the inspiration ends and the hard copy begins.

From Windows 1.0 to 3.1 / 3.11, the desktop did not offer much functionality, something that changed with the arrival of Windows 95.

The difference is that until Windows 3.1 / 3.11, this was not a operating systemIt was a windows environment mounted on a 16-bit operating system, which was MS-DOS. Windows 95 became an operating system with all of the law, in addition to moving to 32 bits (although in the initial versions there were still code 16-bit).

The graphical environment made a qualitative leap between these two versions, gaining functionality on the desktop in Windows 95 and greater customization capabilities.

In Windows 98, Microsoft tried an interesting but unsuccessful concept: the active desktop.

This consisted of being able to include, in the desktop background (and regardless of the image or color that it looked like) one or more inserted web pages, so that they were updated.

Thus, we could configure news pages so that we could see the latest ones just when we entered the system.

Microsoft also tested, with better luck, the integration of its Internet Explorer web browser in the graphical interface of the operating system and, with it, its integration also on the desktop.

But what he had of technical success and good luck for the acceptance of the users, he lost in the courts.

All modern operating systems with a graphical interface for computers have, one way or another, another, of a desk, regardless of its specific functionalities, way of working and appearance. Those that escape using this metaphor are its versions for mobile devices, including Windows 10 in its version for smartphones and tablets.

However, when we connect one of these mobile devices to an external monitor, if we have the Continuum functionality, the graphical interface becomes the same desktop as the operating system of desktop.

Similarly, some Android devices are also looking to transform their interface into a desktop metaphor. And it is that, for many years since Xerox invented it, Steve Jobs “stole” it (with permission of the previous ones) for Apple, and Microsoft was “inspired” by it (or, for many, copied it), the desktop metaphor is still with us and with great vitality.

Themes on Windows Desktop