Hardware Why is windows called "PC"?

CMDreamer

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That way of assuming a PC uses Windows is from the era where no better OS existed on Personal Computers. Or when it was the only option, but not anymore.

Nowadays there's Linux (all x86 distro's), Solaris (x86), MacOS (x86), and a plethora of great alternatives to Windows.

Myself had never ever related a PC with Windows, as they are totally two different subjects. One related to hardware and the other with software, and they are not "married" by no means. Even though Microsoft would be happy if that was law.
 

kuwanger

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Myria nailed it except for one small quibble. Windows NT wasn't a rewrite of Windows. It was an off-shoot of MS's work on developing OS/2--itself IBM's attempt to supplant MS-DOS with PS/2. Once it was clear that Microsoft was more interested in developing their Windows line than working with IBM--which should have been obvious to IBM from the start--, they parted ways (mostly) and license reasons is why OS/2 3.x and 4.x have the Windows 3.x compatibility. In any case, Windows NT was built on the NT kernel (with ideas from VMS as the lead developer/architect for NT 3.1 worked on it) and as a result has a Win32 subsystem (not sure if they still call it that for 64-bit programs) and funny enough an OS/2 subsystem (for the OS/2 1.x compatible days).
 

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