Why do we shut down any of the windows operating system, while we don't in DOS operating system???

Question

while turning off a computer we go to shut down option in windows operating system, but we don't do that in DOS,i.e we directly turn off the computer, why???

Answer 1

This answer is a little over-simplified, but will still give you an idea of why we do this.

Back in DOS days, computers typically didn't have a lot of memory. Therefore, most things were written to disk as you were working, rather than being kept in memory to be saved off to disk later.

A Windows computer has more memory with which to work. One of the reasons Windows works as fast as it does, is that it keeps things in memory, and writes them to disk at opportune times (such as when you are not doing anything with the computer).

Not shutting Windows down properly would be analogous to turning off a DOS computer while you are still in an application, such as WordPerfect 5.1, before you have saved your document -- chances are you will have lost something if you do so.

Answer 2

Windows was loriginally oaded on top of DOS; it was nothing more than an 'enhanced' computer showing colors and using mouse clicks. Dos was really a very base system and didn't load a lot of drivers. There was no real registry. Instead there were simple filing systems and base commands you would use to get to files or run an application. You had to load things yourself.

With windows loading everything when you 'boot' and has a more complex registry - it's important to shut down so you don't corrupt files.

Answer 3

Windows (& Apple) OSs do quick self tests and open (launch) programs that are required in a set order At startup, one of the first apps that open should be your antivirus checher - if you have one. Everthing on the taskbar (& then some) is loaded. All te applications have electronic "markers". Apps not requested stay open (but not accessed & into RAM) until requested.

Start/Turn off closes the programs in a similar set order THEN powers the PC (Mac) off. My old Macintosh shutdown was under a menubar drop-down, but did tha same thing.

Answer 4

because in windows there may be several processes running in the background and needs to be closed.