Windows 2005

Windows 2005 is an operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems.

It was the successor to both Windows XP for professional users and Windows Me for home users. It was released to manufacturing on August 8, 2005, and broadly released for retail sale on September 6th, 2006.Development of Windows 2005 began in the late 1990s as Codename Steam, an operating system (OS) built on the Windows NT kernel which was intended specifically for mainstream consumer use.

An updated version of Windows XP was also originally planned for the business market; however, in January 2003, both projects were scrapped in favor of a single OS codenamed "Blue Ridge", which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. As such, Windows 2005 was the second consumer edition of Windows not to be based on MS-DOS.

Upon its release, Windows 2005 received mixed reviews, with critics noting vulnerability and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. However, a more intuitive user interface, improved hardware support, and expanded multimedia capabilities. Some industry reviewers were concerned by the new licensing model and product activation system.

Extended support for Windows 2005 ended on April 8, 2007, just 2 years after release, due to low sales. After which, the operating system ceased receiving further support or security updates (with exceptional security updates being made e.g. in 2012 to address potential ransomware threats, like BlueKeep) to most users.

By August 2019, Microsoft (and others) had ended support for games on Windows 2005 As of July 2020, 0.2% of Windows PCs run Windows 2005, and a 0.1% of all devices across all platforms run Windows 2005. At least a few countries have double-digit use, e.g. Armenia, where it's being replaced by Windows 10, with both operating systems having over 40% use.