Program manager
The program manager is the operating system shell of the 16-bit operating systems of the Windows 3.x series and of the 32-bit operating systems Windows NT 3.1 and Windows NT 3.51 . With the release of Windows 95 , it was replaced, like the file manager , by the start menu and Windows Explorer .
history
The Program Manager was introduced with Windows 3.0 and used throughout the Windows 3.x series. The original version of Windows 95 offers the option during setup to continue to use the old combination of program manager and file manager instead of the new Windows Explorer . The program manager was also used in the 32-bit operating systems Windows NT 3.1 and 3.51 until it was replaced by Windows Explorer in Windows NT 4.0. The executable file is included up to Windows XP, whereby the program can no longer run from Windows XP Service Pack 2 .
Range of functions
The program manager consists by default of a desktop in the background, a main window and several program groups. These groups are opened in the form of sub-windows and contain various icons for starting programs; they roughly correspond to the later start menu . The groups Main Group , Autostart , Games , Accessories and, in the network-compatible Windows versions Network , exist as standard, but additional groups can be created at any time.
Minimized programs are represented by an icon on the desktop with which the windows can be restored if necessary. Minimized program groups are also represented by an icon in the main window.
The program manager has certain restrictions: a maximum of 40 groups can be created and each group can contain a maximum of 50 icons.