May 21st, 2009 | 
Author: Operating system is an interface between hardware and user and is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer. The operating system acts as a host for applications that are run on the machine.
Almost all computers, including handheld computers, desktop computers, supercomputers, and even video game consoles, use an operating system of some type. Some of the oldest models may however use an embedded operating system that may be contained on a compact disk or other data storage device.
Now let’s reflect on the bad old days of operating systems as there are still some wretched operating systems out there.
MS-DOS 4.0
MS-DOS (Microsoft – Disk Operating System) is an operating system commercialized by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s.
MS-DOS 4.0 was introduced in 1988 and it was really annoying. Programs broke on it as regularly as clockwork. You had been in the middle of a task, and your program would just freeze up completely.
The earlier versions of the operating system really weren’t bad for their day; MS-DOS 3.3 was actually quite good.
It was gradually replaced on consumer desktop computers by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in particular by various generations of the Microsoft Windows operating system and Linux.
JavaOS, 1996
Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones on the low end, to enterprise servers and supercomputers on the high end. Java is nearly ubiquitous in mobile phones, Web servers and enterprise applications, and while less common on desktop computers.
In 1996, Sun, with some help from IBM, tried JavaOS, which was designed to run on network computers and embedded systems. It was very slow, unstable and insecure. Even people did not ever heard of JavaOS.
By 2006, Sun had dumped it into the “legacy system” junkyard, and that was the end of the Java-based operating system.
Windows Me, 2000
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me is a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit graphical operating system released on 14 September 2000 by Microsoft. It was originally codenamed Millennium.
It was the successor to Windows 98 and was targeted specifically at home PC users. It included Internet Explorer 5.5, Windows Media Player 7, and the new Windows Movie Maker software, which provided basic video editing and was designed to be easy for home users. But it was also slow, unstable and insecure due to frequent freezes and crashes. Microsoft had sold it for only a little more than a year.
Lindows, 2001
Lindows Inc, San Diego, California based company was founded in August 2001 by Michael Robertson with the goal of developing a Linux-based operating system capable of running major Microsoft Windows applications.
Even with WINE, which provides a software library known as Winelib against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like systems, the company could not get enough Windows programs running on Lindows to sell it as a Windows replacement.
Lindows Inc. gave up the bad idea within a few months.
Windows Vista, 2006
Windows Vista was known by its codename “Longhorn”. It offers new features an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems.
But it is criticized on various parameters like protracted development time, more restrictive licensing terms, and the inclusion of a number of technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, its hardware requirements, high pricing and the usability of the new User Account Control security technology.
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Article Source: Five ever worst Operating Systems
