This chapter introduces you to Windows 8.1 and Windows Store apps, starting with the history of Windows,
including a discussion on the evolution of user interfaces (UIs) from the textual interfaces up to modern gestures on
multitouch devices. After we’ve refreshed your memory and highlighted the concepts of modern UIs, you’ll be ready
to understand what’s under the hood of Windows 8.1. You will look at the Immersive apps and learn the philosophy
behind the Windows Store apps’ UI and how it has influenced the development of Windows 8.1 to give you the
knowledge to create user-centric applications. Obviously, having knowledge without the tools to implement it doesn’t
make much sense; so during this introduction, we’ll also show you the developer environment that you need to use to
develop applications for Windows 8.1.
Once Upon a Time in Windows
This section introduces you to the history of Windows versions, starting from version 1.0 up to Windows 8.1. We’ll list
improvements introduced by Microsoft version to version, and we’ll follow the upgrade path made to the concept of
the UI, starting from its introduction up to the new Windows 8.1 UI.
From Windows 1.0 to 3.1
Once upon a time, everything had a text interface; then along came the mouse and everything changed. Microsoft’s
first OS was MS-DOS, which was a simple command parser. This type of interface couldn’t be called a GUI and
certainly did not encourage less-technical users to use a computer. To compensate, in 1983 Microsoft announced the
Windows project (code name Interface Manager).
After 2 years, Microsoft released the first version of Windows (1.0), which many still think was simply a graphical
interface for MS-DOS, but the executables that ran under this release were significantly different by format. Instead,
Windows 1.0 was a complete system ready to work with multitasking, which offered the possibility to swap between
various applications without having to close them. This was different from MS-DOS because it was a monotasking
operating system (OS). Looking at Windows 1.0 as a real OS is still an error; more properly, it was a graphical
environment hosting applications that ran on it.
The use of hand-eye coordination in UIs was the real turning point in User Experience (UX) because users were
catapulted from pure text interfaces made of long sequences of key combinations to the ability to access software
commands—and into a world of menu bars, scrollbars, and “windows.”
Two years later, Microsoft released Windows 2.0, designed to support Intel 286 processors. Shortly afterward,
when Intel released the 386 processor, Windows/386 supported the functionality of extended memory that this
processor was offering. With this release, the first software companies began to produce software for Windows. These
apps were the first signs of the success of the Microsoft OS, supported by the fact that computers became “personal”
(becoming part of everyday office employees’ lives).
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