Best Operating Systems for Windows

Windows 11 provides a calm and creative space where you can pursue your passions through a fresh experience. From a rejuvenated Start menu to new ways to connect to your favorite people, news, games, and content—Windows 11 is the place to think, express, and create in a natural way. Access all the apps you need and multi-task with ease with tools like snap layouts, desktops, and a new more-intuitive redocking experience. Connect instantly to the people you care about right from your desktop with Microsoft Teams. Call or chat for free—no matter what device they’re on. With Microsoft Edge and a multitude of Widgets you can choose from, you can quickly stay up to date with the news, information, and entertainment that matters most to you. Easily find the apps you need and the shows you love to watch in the new Microsoft Store.

To get started, you will first need to have a license to install Windows 10. You can then download and run the media creation tool. For more information on how to use the tool, see the instructions below. If you are installing Windows 10 on a PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista, or if you need to create installation media to install Windows 10 on a different PC, see Using the tool to create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) to install Windows 10 on a different PC section below. You have a license to install Windows 10 and are upgrading this PC from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.

Better security. More packages. Newer tools. All your open source, from cloud to edge. Secure your open source apps. Patch the full stack, from kernel to library and applications, for CVE compliance. Governments and auditors certify Ubuntu for FedRAMP, FISMA and HITECH. Rethink what’s possible with Linux and open source. Companies engage Canonical to drive down open source operating costs. Automate everything: multi-cloud operations, bare metal provisioning, edge clusters and IoT. Whether you’re a mobile app developer, an engineering manager, a music or video editor or a financial analyst with large-scale models to run — in fact, anyone in need of a powerful machine for your work — Ubuntu is the ideal platform. Ubuntu is used by thousands of development teams around the world because of its versatility, reliability, constantly updated features, and extensive developer libraries.

FydeOS is a lightweight operating system with a Linux kernel + browser platform + container technology driver; its use is very similar to Google Chrome OS. FydeOS can run smoothly on most mainstream hardware. Hardware devices installed with FydeOS can perfectly support the latest web application standards, are compatible with Android programs and Linux environments, and can be used in network environments in China without any obstacles, providing a Google Chromebook-like experience. FydeOS is based on the second development of The Chromium Projects. We have modified and optimized its kernel, based on the most optimized browser platform, and added more localization enhancements that conform to the habits of users in China and improve user experience. Cloud technology operating system that truly meets the needs of the Internet era. After a long time of accumulation of technology, we can make FydeOS run in more types of hardware devices and provide an overall solution around FydeOS.

Windows Server 2022 introduces advanced multi-layer security, hybrid capabilities with Azure, and a flexible application platform. Elevate the security posture of your organization starting with the operating system. Extend your data center to Azure ​for greater IT efficiency. Empower developers and IT pros with an application platform to build and deploy diverse applications. See how your cost savings will add up on Azure with offers such as Azure hybrid benefit and extended security updates. Modernize your workloads on Azure, the trusted cloud for Windows Server. Connect on-premises Windows Servers to Azure with Azure Arc. Update to the latest operating system for enhanced security, performance and value. Now you can leverage all of the benefits of the cloud with Azure. It’s free to start, so manage your servers, clusters, hyper-converged infrastructure, and Windows 10 PCs with Windows Server.

Transform your organization’s computers so they’re secure, easy to manage, and never slow down. CloudReady gives you all the power of the web—without the weight or risk of traditional operating systems. It’s an OS designed for now...and for what’s next. That’s why companies, non-profits, schools, and government agencies around the world use CloudReady to streamline and secure their devices when accessing web apps and VDI. CloudReady is based on Google’s Chromium OS, the same open-source architecture as Chrome OS. Whether your computers are brand new or a decade old, installing CloudReady provides unparalleled speed, simplicity, and security without hardware limitations.

Parrot is a worldwide community of developers and security specialists that work together to build a shared framework of tools to make their job easier, standardized and more reliable and secure. Parrot OS, the flagship product of Parrot Security is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian and designed with Security and Privacy in mind. It includes a full portable laboratory for all kinds of cyber security operations, from pentesting to digital forensics and reverse engineering, but it also includes everything needed to develop your own software or keep your data secure. Always updated, frequently released with many hardening and sandboxing options available. Everything is under your complete control. Feel free to get the system, share with anyone, read the source code and change it as you want! this system is made to respect your freedom, and it ever will be.

Fedora Workstation is a reliable, powerful, and easy-to-use operating system for desktop and laptop computers. It is functional for a wide range of developers, from hobbyists and students to professionals in business environments. Focus on your code with the GNOME 3 desktop environment. GNOME is developed with the needs of developers in mind and is free from unnecessary distractions, so you can focus on what really matters. Avoid the hassle of trying to find or compile the tools you need. With Fedora's comprehensive collection of open source languages, tools, and utilities, it's just a click or command away. There are even hosting projects and repositories like COPR to share your code and make builds available to the entire community.

Try the cloud-first, fast, easy-to-manage, and secure ChromeOS for PCs and Macs. ChromeOS Flex is a free and sustainable way to modernize devices you already own. It’s easy to deploy across your fleet or simply try it to see what a cloud-first OS has to offer. Install ChromeOS Flex on your PCs and Macs so they are secure, boot fast, don’t slow down over time, update automatically in the background, and can be managed from the cloud. Devices boot quickly, don’t slow down over time, and update in the background, reducing device downtime. Experience fast access to VDI and web apps with an intuitive, clutter-free, and reliable experience. Deploy ChromeOS Flex across your fleet via USB or network deployment and a user’s settings and policies sync to the device almost instantly. Use the Google Admin console to manage updates and configure device policies remotely. Blocked executables and sandboxing technology eliminate the need for antivirus software.

The open-source enterprise server OS with just the features you need. ZFS, OmniOS' native file system, combines a volume manager and file system with strong data-integrity protection. Easily share volumes via iSCSI, CIFS, and NFS. Run lightweight OmniOS or Linux virtual machines in containers without the overhead of a traditional hypervisor and with full resource control. OmniOS also provides full hardware virtualization via bhyve and KVM for running guests such as Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, and many others. Virtualize your network infrastructure through Crossbow virtual interfaces and switches and even allocate dedicated resources for specific services. DTrace provides a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework to aid troubleshooting across the whole software stack. Always available, instrument anything on demand. OmniOS is open-source, self-hosting, and maintained on GitHub. All development is done out in the open with pull requests and anyone can grab the source and build OmniOS.

DragonFly version 6.2.2 is released. The 6.2 series has hardware support for type-2 hypervisors with NVMM, an amdgpu driver, the experimental ability to remote-mount HAMMER2 volumes, and many other changes. DragonFly belongs to the same class of operating systems as other BSD-derived systems and Linux. It is based on the same UNIX ideals and APIs and shares ancestor code with other BSD operating systems. DragonFly provides an opportunity for the BSD base to grow in an entirely different direction from the one taken in the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD series. DragonFly includes many useful features that differentiate it from other operating systems in the same class. The most prominent one is HAMMER, our modern high-performance filesystem with built-in mirroring and historic access functionality. Virtual kernels provide the ability to run a full-blown kernel as a user process for the purpose of managing resources or for accelerated kernel development and debugging.

Microservice OS providing transactional (Atomic) updates upon a read-only btrfs root filesystem. Designed to host container workloads with automated administration & patching. Installing openSUSE MicroOS you get a quick, small environment for deploying containers, or any other workload that benefits from transactional updates. As rolling release distribution, the software is always up-to-date. MicroOS offers an offline image. The main difference between the offline and self-install/raw images is that the offline image has an installer. Raw and self-install allows for customization via combustion or manually in the image after it is written to the disk. There is an option for a real-time kernel. Try MicroOS in VMs running on either Xen or KVM. Using a Raspberry Pi or other system-on-chip hardware may use the preconfigured image together with the combustion functionality for the boot process.

Arm Mbed OS is a free, open-source IoT operating system that includes all the necessary features to develop IoT products. The OS includes everything you need to develop smart, connected products on Arm Cortex-M based hardware, including machine learning capabilities, security, connectivity stacks, an RTOS kernel and drivers for sensors and I/O devices. Arm Mbed OS is designed for the Internet of Things. It is integrated with connectivity, machine learning, networking, and security stacks and is supported with software libraries, development hardware, tutorials and examples. From hardware to the cloud, Mbed OS supports more than 70 silicon, module, cloud, and OEM partners, optimizing your developer choice. By using the Mbed OS API, your application code can remain clean, portable, and simple, while taking advantage of security, communications and machine learning. The integrated solution reduces development cost, time, and risk.

Stratodesk NoTouch is the #1 Thin Client endpoint OS and management solution in the world. Comprised of both NoTouch OS and NoTouch Center, Stratodesk NoTouch lets you transform any PC, Thin Client, Laptop or Raspberry Pi device into a secure and centrally managed Thin Endpoint. You can also instantly deploy NoTouch OS onto thousands of devices and manage them from oStratodesk NoTouch is the #1 Thin Client endpoint OS and management solution in the world. Comprised of both NoTouch OS and NoTouch Center, Stratodesk NoTouch lets you transform any PC, Thin Client, Laptop or Raspberry Pi device into a secure and centrally managed Thin Endpoint. You can also instantly deploy NoTouch OS onto thousands of devices and manage them from one browser. NoTouch OS is the minimal footprint OS that installs from your server onto your PC, Laptop, Thin Client, or Raspberry Pi Device. NoTouch Center is the #1 endpoint management software for your VDI endpoints.

Quickly find that important document, photo, or video. Split View, Editable Location, a built-in Terminal and many other useful features. Dolphin makes connecting your USB flash drives, SD cards, and your phone super easy! Images are an important part of modern life. Kubuntu has applications that make it easy to browse, share, and enhance your photos. Open PDF, Dejavu, PS, DVI, and more, annotate documents and fill in forms and even read eBooks with Okular, the universal document viewer. untu comes built-in with a music and a movie player that are simple to use. Simply select a song or a movie and Kubuntu will take care of the rest. Kubuntu plays most music and video formats out the box; restricted formats such as MP3 are installed with two clicks when needed, usually during the installation process.

Raspberry Pi Imager is the quick and easy way to install Raspberry Pi OS and other operating systems to a microSD card, ready to use with your Raspberry Pi. Watch our 45-second video to learn how to install an operating system using Raspberry Pi Imager. Download and install Raspberry Pi Imager to a computer with an SD card reader. Put the SD card you'll use with your Raspberry Pi into the reader and run Raspberry Pi Imager. Browse a range of operating systems provided by Raspberry Pi and by other organisations, and download them to install manually.

Powering the most performant, dense, scalable, and flexible storage platform in the universe. Pavilion HyperParallel File System™ provides the ability to scale across an unlimited number of Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Arrays™, providing 1.2 TB/s read, and 900 GB/s write bandwidth with 200M IOPS at 25µs latency per rack. Uniquely capable of providing independent, linear scalability of both capacity and performance, the Pavilion HyperOS 3 now provides global namespace support for both NFS and S3, enabling unlimited, linear scale across an unlimited number of Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array systems. Take advantage of the power of the Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array to enjoy unrivaled levels of performance and availability. The Pavilion HyperOS includes patent-pending technology to ensure that your data is always available, with performant access that legacy arrays cannot match.

Urbit is for everyone, but sometimes it is easy to get lost in this universe. Follow these links to contribute to the network through developing, operating, and exploring. It solves the hard problems of implementing a peer-to-peer network (including identity, NAT traversal, and exactly-once delivery) in the kernel so app developers can focus on business logic. The entire OS is a single pure function that provides application developers with strong guarantees: automated persistence and memory management, repeatable builds, and support for hot code reloading. The connected world anticipated by Urbit is a much friendlier one, much like the early Internet, where collegial discussion and collaboration was the norm. Problems that are unsolvable without large-scale political centralization in our current internet – data breaches, spam, fake reviews, malware-spreading, harassment – become tractable when individuals control their computing again. You have one login for everything.

Windows XP is a version of the Microsoft Windows operating system for personal computers. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and to retail on October 25, 2001. The "XP" in Windows XP stands for "eXPerience". Windows XP is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and business users and Windows Me for home users. It replaced Windows 2000 and Windows ME, which helped bring the NT and 9x versions of Windows together. Windows XP is a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows you to use different types of applications or software. For example, you can use a word processing application to write a letter and a spreadsheet application to track your financial information. Windows XP is known for its bright color schemes, easy-to-use interface, and stability. It was one of Microsoft's longest-running flagship operating systems, lasting at least 5 years. It was succeeded by Windows Vista on January 30, 2007.

Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft as the direct successor to Windows XP. It was released to manufacturing on November 8, 2006, and was generally available for retail sale on January 30, 2007. Vista was an incremental update to Windows XP, introducing new features and graphical user interface changes, as well as updated security features. One of the most significant changes in Vista was the introduction of a new graphical user interface (GUI) called Aero. Aero uses a transparent glass-like effect for windows and dialog boxes, and also includes new animations and visual effects. Vista also introduced a new security model that uses User Account Control (UAC) to help protect users from malware and other security threats. Vista was initially met with mixed reviews, with some critics praising the new features and security improvements, while others criticized the performance and compatibility issues.