3. Operating Systems

The operating system is part of the system software.  All computers have an operating system, they cannot function without one. 

The operating system is a program that allows applications software to communicate with the hardware.

Examples of operating systems are Windows Vista, Windows XP, Unix, Linux and MacOS.

An operating system has many tasks. Here are just a few of them:

• Sorting out where to store data on disk drives
• Dealing with security - user names and passwords
• Organising files and folders
• Managing data transfer from the CPU to the peripherals e.g. printer, monitor
• Deals with saving, deleting, opening, closing files

To find out more about operating systems, check out the operating system mini-website.