Types of Software

Hi, I hope you enjoyed reading my first post. Before we begin learning types of software lets have a look at software which we use everyday. When we use a remote control to operate a television, music system, air conditioner etc. who is listening the request sent by you to the gadget? Who understands and accordingly performs the desired action? The answer to this is Software. Software are embedded or stored inside these gadget to control them in a user friendly manner.

Software can be classified technically into several different types. But as a beginner we'll categorize software into two categories.

System Software

Till now what all I wrote about software was pointing to controling and managing the devices. These type of software which actually controls the computer or any other electronic gadget is a System Software.

Let us see an example of a system software: when you turn on your PC you need to wait for sometime and later you see a screen and then you start working. What exactly happens inside computer when you were waiting for it to start? During that time a system software named Operating System starts or load itself to make your machine ready to be used.

Operating System is a very complex system software which entirely controls your computer. This piece of software is active from the time you started your machine and till the time you turn it off. Every action perfomed by you using keyboard, mouse or any other device is actually sent to the Operating System. So even if you are moving a mouse, clicking it, playing a music or surfing everything you are doing using an operating system. Most common operating system used is Microsoft Windows, other famous operating system are Apple's Mac, LINUX, UNIX, Solaris etc.

But do we really need to learn system software to use a computer?

No, we don't have to struggle in learning system software. What we are more interested in is the second type of software called Application Software.

Application Software

Lets see where this category fits in the complete scenario between User, System Software and Computer.

Now you can see by the diagram that user really dont have to worry about system software. To perform any sort of task like writing a document, doing some calculation, watching movie, surfing or even playing game etc. what we actually need is an Application Software.

There are different application software for different purposes. Application software are innumerable many comes in for free and many are paid. Before using any application software
we need to follow some simple steps called Installation. Few example for an application software would be Notepad, Microsoft PowerPoint, Internet Explorer etc.

Installation

Installation is a small step by step process of let your operating system know that you are interested in using an application software. In this process the files of your application software are copied to their proper location on you machine and a small notification is given to the operating system because at the end every application software runs on an operating system.

Points to remember:

1. Every machine should have an operating system.
2. At one time there is only one operating system running on your machine.
3. On the contrary, there can be multiple application software running simultaneously.
4. For any application software to use you must install it first.
5. You can install different applications for same purpose like Internet Explorer and Firefox both are used for same purpose i.e. surfing but belongs to different company.