I believe the problem is that "Window System" is generic (as in X Window System, often referred to as X-Windows). That made it hard, but not impossible, for Microsoft to defend "Windows." After enough appeals, courts decided "Window" and "Windows" aren't the same thing.
There are plenty of generic names in software that refer to some element of the product.
Apple has a word processor called Pages, while Microsoft has one called Word. There were many applications before these that operated on pages and words.
If the trademark is “Microsoft Windows”, it’s just as specific as “Apple Pages”.
Microsoft’s own list (https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RW... - PDF warning) - while it explicitly says it is non-exhaustive - doesn’t appear to claim ‘Word’ or any variant of it - only the word icons and logos. From your list it lists Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams and Office 365, but not Microsoft Office.
Windows didn't start out as an OS. It started out as a windowing system for DOS.
That's the landscape all the trademark suits happened in.
Footnote: Windows 95/98/ME was still DOS + Windows bundled in one box. Windows XP was the first consumer operating system derived from Windows NT (which was in fact a proper operating system in its own right). Even Windows NT was trademark-iffy. It was a play on VMS (get it? If not, increment each letter).
> It has been suggested that Dave Cutler intended the initialism "WNT" as a play on VMS, incrementing each letter by one. However, the project was originally intended as a follow-on to OS/2 and was referred to as "NT OS/2" before receiving the Windows brand. One of the original NT developers, Mark Lucovsky, states that the name was taken from the original target processor—the Intel i860, code-named N10 ("N-Ten").
I can't figure out what this is referring to, though. Maybe you can do better.
No, Windows NT was first in the OS line. Windows 2000 was NT 5.0. There was no home / consumer / client version of Windows 2000. The versions were: Professional, Server, Advanced Server and Datacenter.
Windows XP was the first convergence version, where the home / consumer / client line transitioned to the NT codebase (with Windows Server 2003 still continuing the NT server market line, but now on a common codebase, and with some of the more workstation uses moving down to the XP line).
shrug And NT was on plenty of high-end devices too. Most e.g. developers and sysadmins ran NT since it came out, over the 95/98/ME line. 95/98/ME were still the consumer brands.
At the time, there was a split between "desktop" and "workstation" which no longer really exists. High-end consumers also sometimes bought machines from e.g. SGI, Digital, HP, or Sun. That whole class of machine kind of disappeared, and now there's a smooth gradient from a $100 computer to one with 196GB RAM, an array of professional NVidia GPUs, and 128 CPU cores.
Workstations had memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking, access controls, proper networking stacks, more sophisticated memory address spaces, were multiuser by design, etc.
no, this is all nonsense. really, did any consumer buy an SGI workstation? or a Sun?
i mean, i used both at the time, but they were bought for me at ludicrous prices by the companies i worked/consulted for.
windows 2k was something you could buy that ran on consumer grade hardware, and was bloody good. it morphed into xp, which is my point about which came first.
> no, this is all nonsense. really, did any consumer buy an SGI workstation? or a Sun?
Yes. I had plenty of friends who did. Mostly from, very likely, similar companies like the ones you worked / consulted for when they upgraded. It turns out that despite the ludicrous prices new, last-generation workstations sold for a song, or were often just found in trash piles.
Corporate workstation markets aren't big into buying used. Supply and demand.
At the time, the gap between a modern Wintel and a previous-generation DEC Alpha (for compute) or IRIX (for 3D) was quite large, and not in Intel's favor. X + twm or similar was much more snappy than either NT or XP. And you had the full power of Unix.
Also: Multihead. Optical mice. Etc.
I had one particular a friend -- a student without more income than you'd expect of a student -- who had a whole roomful of older Suns, and probably a few Vaxes (which everyone hated).
From Microsoft's perspective, you're right, but for all intents and purposes, Windows 2000 Professional was a consumer operating system. It was better than 98 as a consumer OS and more functional than NT for everything else. Libraries and schools deployed it. The majority of gamers, enthusiasts, and tech people used it. From 2000-2002 it was practically the only Windows OS anyone used. Plenty of people continued to use it after XP's release, due to XP's various issues and (let's be honest) infantilizing theme.
The majority of gamers did not use it. I remember that transition, and the numerous compatibility issues that games specifically had on Win2K, since that was exactly the kind of software that was the most likely to play fast and loose with memory protection etc (also, nascent DRM in form of CD copy protection). I personally ran Win2K for several months before reverting for this reason, and so did most of my gamer friends.
I do recall the win2k-specific compatibility issues with games. However, everyone I knew was still using it. In reality I think it might have become more popular just before XP, as compatibility issues were worked out. XP adoption was very slow though.
This might be some kind of regional difference. I remember that WinXP adoption by people who were already on Win2K was blazing fast for the consumer market (colleges and businesses were a different story). But most consumers went straight Win98->XP, or in some cases 98->ME->XP.
