Task: Question Answering
Input (English): Context: Windows XP (stylized as Windows and codenamed Whistler) is a personal computer operating system that was produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and generally released for retail sale on October 25, 2001. Development of Windows XP began in the late 1990s as "Neptune", an operating system built on the Windows NT kernel which was intended specifically for mainstream consumer usean updated version of Windows 2000 was also originally planned for the business market. However, in January 2000, both projects were shelved in favor of a single OS codenamed "Whistler", which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. Windows XP was a major advance from the MS-DOS based versions of Windows in security, stability and efficiency due to its use of Windows NT underpinnings. It introduced a significantly redesigned graphical user interface and was the first version of Windows to use product activation in an effort to reduce its copyright infringement., Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle, within the Seattle metropolitan area. The population is 60,560 in 2016, an increase from the 2010 census, up from 45,256 in 2000 census. Redmond is commonly recognized as the home of Microsoft and Nintendo of America. With an annual bike race on city streets and the state's only velodrome, Redmond is also known as the "Bicycle Capital of the Northwest"., In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a type of software that provides control, monitoring and data manipulation of engineered products and systems. Typical examples of devices containing firmware are embedded systems (such as traffic lights, consumer appliances, remote controls and digital watches), computers, computer peripherals, mobile phones, and digital cameras. The firmware contained in these devices provides the low-level control program for the device. As of 2013, most firmware can be updated., Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on 1 August 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand. On 10 July 2012, Softpedia reported that Office is used by over a billion people worldwide., Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn) is an operating system by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs. Development was completed on 8 November 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers and retail channels. On 30 January 2007, it was released worldwide and was made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace. The release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor, Windows XP, the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems. It was succeeded by Windows 7, which was released to manufacturing on 22 July 2009 and released worldwide for retail on 22 October 2009., Microsoft Corporation (commonly referred to as Microsoft or MS) is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface tablet lineup. As of 2016, it was the world's largest software maker by revenue, and one of the world's most valuable companies., Microsoft Windows (or simply Windows) is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of several families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. Active Windows families include Windows NT, Windows Embedded and Windows Phone; these may encompass subfamilies, e.g. Windows Embedded Compact (Windows CE) or Windows Server. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x; Windows 10 Mobile is an active product, unrelated to the defunct family Windows Mobile., Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing, multi-user operating system., Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a discontinued series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year. Later versions were available as free downloads, or in service packs, and included in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows., An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. All computer programs, excluding firmware, require an operating system to function., Internet Information Services (IIS, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server created by Microsoft for use with Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NNTP. It has been an integral part of the Windows NT family since Windows NT 4.0, though it may be absent from some editions (e.g. Windows XP Home edition), and is not active by default., Windows 7 ( codenamed Vienna , formerly Blackcomb ) is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft . It is a part of the Windows NT family of operating systems . Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22 , 2009 , and became generally available on October 22 , 2009 , less than three years after the release of its predecessor , Windows Vista . Windows 7 's server counterpart , Windows Server 2008 R2 , was released at the same time . Windows 7 was primarily intended to be an incremental upgrade to the operating system intending to address Windows Vista 's poor critical reception while maintaining hardware and software compatibility . Windows 7 continued improvements on Windows Aero ( the user interface introduced in Windows Vista ) with the addition of a redesigned taskbar that allows applications to be `` pinned '' to it , and new window management features . Other new features were added to the operating system , including libraries , the new file sharing system HomeGroup , and support for multitouch input . A new `` Action Center '' interface was also added to provide an overview of system security and maintenance information , and tweaks were made to the User Account Control system to make it less intrusive . Windows 7 also shipped with updated versions of several stock applications , including Internet Explorer 8 , Windows Media Player , and Windows Media Center . In contrast to Windows Vista , Windows 7 was generally praised by critics , who considered the operating system to be a major improvement over its predecessor due to its increased performance , its more intuitive interface ( with particular praise devoted to the new taskbar ) , fewer User Account Control popups , and other improvements made across the platform . Windows 7 was a major success for Microsoft ; even prior to its official release , pre-order sales for 7 on the online retailer Amazon.com had surpassed previous records . In just six months , over 100 million copies had been sold worldwide , increasing to over 630 million licenses by July 2012 , and a market share of 52.47 % of `` desktop operating systems '' as of January 2016 according to Net Applications , making it the most widely used version of Windows ., Windows Server 2008 R2 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing (RTM) on July 22, 2009 and launched on October 22, 2009. According to the "Windows Server Blog", the retail availability was September 14, 2009. It is built on the same kernel used with the client-oriented Windows 7. It is the first 64-bitonly operating system released from Microsoft. Enhancements include new functionality for Active Directory, new virtualization and management features, version 7.5 of the Internet Information Services (IIS) web server and support for up to 256 logical processors., Active Directory (AD) is a directory service that Microsoft developed for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was only in charge of centralized domain management. Starting with Windows Server 2008, however, Active Directory became an umbrella title for a broad range of directory-based identity-related services., Subject: windows 7, Relation: inception, Options: (A) 1 (B) 10 (C) 1995 (D) 2001 (E) 2008 (F) 2009 (G) 2010 (H) 2013 (I) 2016 (J) 22 (K) 22 october 2009 (L) 24 (M) 25 (N) 30 (O) 4 (P) 60 (Q) 7 (R) 8 (S) january 2000 (T) july 1993 (U) november 2006
Output (English): 22 october 2009