The Microsoft .NET Framework is a programming framework that can only be installed on computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. It will only create applications that run within the Windows system.
Because Microsoft had the dominant operating system, any rival personal computer operating system would have only a handful of applications, compared to tens of thousands of applications for Microsoft's Windows system.
Assuming that we are only talking about the personal computer (PC) market, before Microsoft's Windows operating systems, Microsoft's Disk operating system, or DOS, was used. Before that, CP/M was a popular computer operating system.
Windows 3.x
You do not. You must install Excel to a computer with an operating system. A flash disk is only a storage device and does not contain a functional operating system.
Microsoft's .NET framework is only officially supported for Windows platforms and makes heavy use of the Windows API. If it were platform independent, code written on one system would work on other systems.
The CUR file extension is only used by Microsoft's Windows operating system for cursor images.
Not for the newer systems like XP or VIsta. They connect directly to the Microsoft website only.
No, it's not, but you can get SP2 upgrade from Microsoft Website.
Conficker only affects Microsoft's Windows operating system and so will not infect a Mac running Mac OS X.
It is not yet possible to watch Netflix on Linux operating systems because Microsoft Silverlight only runs on Microsoft operating systems. Netflix uses Microsoft Silverlight because of its DRM protection.
The two concepts build upon each other. A single tasking (ST) operating system is necessarily a single user (SU) operating system, but a single user operating system may be a multi-tasking (MT) operating system. For example, MS-DOS is a SU, ST operating system (there was only one "user" and only one program could run at a time), Microsoft Windows 3.1 was a SU, MT operating system (only one user could be logged in at a time, but multiple tasks could run at once), and Windows XP is a multiple user (MU), MT system, as multiple users could be logged in at once, and multiple tasks could be run at once. There is no known example of a MU, ST operating system.
Windows 8 is aimed at tablet computers but can be used on normal computers like desktops and laptop computers. Microsoft are hoping to take over the tablet market by making their operating system the best. But they have many rivals like Google and Apple with their operating systems for tablet. At the moment Apple is known to be the best operating system for tablets and androids is currently the second best operating system for tablets. But apples operating System for tablet only works on an Apple device but with Google's android operating system they work on any tablet. So when Windows 8 comes out four tablet they will only have one rival that will be Google with their operating system for android.