Case Study of

OS/2

Submitted By:
1. Twinkle Bothara (07)
2. Shruti Chavan (11)
3. Vaishnavi Dhawalekar (14)
 INDEX
01 -Introduction

02-History

03-Design Principle and Architecture

04-File system

05-Features

06-Comparison

07-Advantages

08- Disadvantages

09-Conclusion
Introduction:
OS/2 is an IBM operating system for the personal computer that, when
introduced in 1987, was intended to provide an alternative to
Microsoft Windows for both enterprise and personal PC users.

OS/2 jointly developed by Microsoft Incorporation and IBM to operate with

Intel microprocessors.

The OS/2 is an advanced single-user, multitasking personal computer

operating system that exploits advanced hardware platforms.

OS/2 was originally a 16-bit operating system that was designed to work with
286 processors and first introduced in 1987.

It provides a demand-paged system with a 32-bit programming model that is

portable to other 32-bit processor architectures

OS/2 is compelling because it offers the best system for running 16-bit DOS
and Windows applications while moving into the more flexible and powerful
32-bit world.

OS/2 later became a graphical interface similar to Windows, but also

supported a command line.

In fact, many OS/2 and DOS commands are the same.

The user interface is built up object-oriented and free technical supports are
the compelling factors.

OS/2 is smallest one of these three major operating system (Linux, Windows
NT, and OS/2) when using a graphical interface but is one of the three for
backward compatibility with DOS and Windows.

It is a high performance, highly reliable, information accessible, and integrated

operating system
History:

The development of OS/2 began when IBM and Microsoft signed the "Joint
Development Agreement" in August 1985. It was code-named "CP/DOS".
IBM OS/2, in full International Business Machines Operating System/2,
an operating system introduced in 1987 by IBM and the Microsoft
Corporation to operate the second-generation line of IBM personal computers,
the PS/2 (Personal System/2).

IBM OS/2 was intended to replace the older disk operating system (DOS),
which, with the development of the Intel Corporation 80286 microchips in the
mid-1980s, was growing increasingly obsolete. OS/2 combined a
new graphical user interface (GUI) with features previously available only on
mainframe computers. It shared similarities with other personal computer (PC)
operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, UNIX, and Xenix.

Simultaneously, Microsoft continued development of its Windows operating

system, whose popular third iteration (Windows 3.0) contained some of the
GUI elements developed for OS/2. Despite later basing some Windows NT and
Windows 95 developments on code written for IBM and OS/2, Microsoft soon
discontinued development of further interface features for OS/2.

With Microsoft focusing its efforts on Windows, IBM turned to Commodore

Business Machines for interface development and borrowed GUI design ideas
from the Commodore AmigaOS. With OS/2.20 the WorkPlace Shell was
created and became a GUI standard, and future OS/2 iterations ran Windows
with a reliability that led IBM to label the system “crash proof.”

In 1994 IBM introduced a new version, OS/2 Warp, which included many new
features. OS/2, however, failed to acquire a share of the mass market. It
survived in IBM-dominated markets such as automated teller
machines (ATMs), but the company halted production in 2005 and support in
2006.

Users and developers still loyal to OS/2 support releasing the software as open
source, but Microsoft retains rights to some of the code, and the security of
ATMs could be compromised.
DESIGN PRINCIPLE AND
ARCHITECTURE:
OS/2 was designed to extend the capabilities of DOS and to create a single
industry-standard operating system.
Initially the OS/2 was developed from the MT-DOS and DOS 3.2 source code
bases and did not include the Presentation Manager (PM) GUI. The later
versions included the PM
It was designed to support radical changes in hardware, from older 8-bit or 16-
bit microprocessors to new high-powered 32-bit processors.

System Structure:

The OS/2 system is composed of the kernel, device drivers, dynamic link
libraries, and applications programs.
As in OS/2, the OS/2 kernel uses device drivers to access the system’s
hardware resources.
The most critical portions of the operating system, such as multitasking,
memory management, inter-process communication, DOS compatibility, and
I/O reside in the kernel.
Many of the system’s API is located in the kernel, but some of them are located
in the dynamic link libraries – shared libraries that can be used to extend the
functionality of the system.
MULTITASKING:

The OS/2 multitasking architecture provides the capability to execute

programs concurrently in a protected environment.
The model consists of a hierarchy of multitasking objects called sessions,
processes, and threads. The session is at the top of the hierarchy, and the
thread is at the bottom.
OS/2 is a preemptive, priority based, multitasking system.
The scheduler implements a multilevel priority scheme with dynamic priority
variation and round-robin scheduling within a priority level.
OS/2 is interrupt driven to allow the processor to be used while I/O is
occurring.
The 32-bit OS/2 system supports up to 4095 processes and threads.

MEMORY MANAGEMENT
OS/2’s virtual memory model provides 4-gigabyte addressing
The large 32-bit memory model frees the application developer from the
memory constraints of the 16-bit segmented model.
The 32-bit paging model achieves better utilization of memory and higher
performance.
The flat model is easily portable to most processor architectures
Two forms of protection - Protection is among the processes in the system and
isolation of the system from the user processes.
The memory management component of the system is responsible for
allocating process virtual address spaces and for setting up the required
hardware structures to enable processes to be protected from one another and
from the system.
OS/2 provides functions for object allocation, deallocation, and sharing.

DYNAMIC LINKING:

Dynamic linking allows the binding of code and data references to be delayed
until the program is actually loaded or until the program specifically requests
the operating system to link dynamically to a dynamic link library (DLL).
Two types of dynamic linking - load-time dynamic linking, and run-time
dynamic linking.
There are two executable modes in OS/2 environment: EXE modules for
programs and DLL modules containing shared libraries.
Dynamic linking is a powerful mechanism for providing linkages to shared
code and data objects in a multitasking virtual memory environment.

I/O:

OS/2 can be categorized in two categories: system I/O and user I/O.
Processes use system I/O to perform file level; I/O to secondary storage
devices managed by the file systems.
Processes utilize user I/O to interact with the user by employing keyboard,
display, and mouse.
OS/2 supports the FAT file system used by DOS, and consequently can read
and write DOS files.
OS/2 provides an alternative file system, called the High Performance File
System (HPFS) to support many concurrent I/O requests from different
processes on large block devices.
OS/2 has an installable file system (IFS) to provide a architecture
in which programs are transparent to the type of file system.
Device drivers run in the most privileged execution state, privilege level 0.
PAGING:

The paging feature is not only used to support the flat model and multiple DOS
address spaces, but also to allow OS/2 to provide memory over commitment.
The storage can be virtualized on fixed disk media at a much lower I/O cost,
because the size of the page is not variable.
It makes use of demand paged, virtual memory system and is designed so that
the system will run acceptably in nominally over committed situations.

OS/2 API:

OS/2 provides the dynamically linked 32-bit API to allow flat-model

applications to use the OS/2 system services
The 32-bit API has been designed so that applications and subsystems that use
and provide 32-bit APIs will be portable to any future OS/2 platform.
The multitasking API provides better thread management in the areas of
creation and termination, and the system supports up to 4095 processes and
4095 threads.
The 32-bit API uses the Presentation Manager (PM) for managing the user I/O.

INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION:

Inter-process communication primitives provide the basic features for data

sharing and thread synchronization.
The IPC facilities of the OS/2 system are organized into a tiered hierarchy
based on the complexity of the IPC mechanism.
The simplest IPC mechanisms are shared memory, semaphores, signals, and
exceptions.
Queues and named pipes are examples of higher-level abstractions that allow
processes to exchange data and to synchronize their execution.
The highest-level abstraction is the API call.

PRESENTATION MANAGEMENT:

Sessions, or screen groups, are managed by the session manager, a component

of OS/2.
The user shell allows the users to start or stop applications, and to select the
foreground session.

The Presentation Manager is the graphical user interface of OS/2.

It extends the functionality of the base user I/O services to include a windowed
user interface and device-independent graphic presentations.
The PM is divided into two functional groups: the windows API and the
graphics API

DOS COMPATIBILILTY:

OS/2 provides DOS compatibility using the virtual mode

OS/2 uses paging to provide more than one DOS compatibility environment.
DOS applications can be run full screen, windowed, or iconized in the
background.
Since DOS environments are swappable, starting many DOS sessions does not
drive up the system memory requirements.
APPLICATION COMPATIBILITY:

 Security Enabling Services – Enables Installable Security Subsystem to

provide robust operating systems security services.
 OS/2, DOS, and Windows Support – Since OS/2 Warp supports OS/2,
DOS, and most Windows applications (Windows 3.x and Win32s up to the
1.25a level), these application investments are protected.
 DOS and Windows TCP/IP Support (WinSock 1.1) – DOS, and Windows
TCP/IP applications written to the WinSock 1.1 specification are supported.
 TrueType Engine – New PM support is provided for TrueType fonts.
 OpenDoc – Run-time support for cross-platform compound documents.
 Open32 (formerly Developer API Extensions) – To ease the porting of 32-
bit Windows applications, support for a subset of Win32 APIs and
messages is available
 OpenGL – OpenGL on OS/2 Warp is a highly precise 3D rendering API.
This portable API allows software developers to include high-quality 3D
functionality in their applications. OpenGL is used by CAD, entertainment,
industrial design and modeling, biochemistry, and scientific visualization
applications.
 XMS, EMS Memory Support – Older memory extension specifications still
being used by DOS applications are supported.
 SOM/DSOM 2.11 – OS/2 Warp includes support for a language-
independent, cross-platform architecture for sharing objects through
SOM/DSOM.
 Dual Boot – With dual boot, a user can easily switch back and forth
between OS/2 Warp and DOS/Windows for specific applications.

SECURITY:
Security support is installed independently at the OS/2 machine by performing
the following procedures:
 Enabling Security Enabling Services (SES).
 Installing system fixes and upgrades
 Upgrading the rexecd utility
 Ensuring reverse name resolution
 Installing Tivoli Management Platform Security
 Making security modifications
 Adding new users

 Blocking unauthorized TCP/IP access

 Configuring TCP/IP to support the OS/2 gateway

Because OS/2 is a single user system, you need to install SES to add
UNIX-like security. After installing the Tivoli management platform security
for OS/2 function, all installations that affect controlled files (such
as config.sys, secure.sys, or the Tivoli directories) must be done from the
root user, the default administrator. All parts of the security enabling
process are performed on the OS/2 machine except mutual verification of
name resolution, which must be performed on the OS/2 machine and Tivoli
server.
IBM OS/2 VERSIONS/ ITS TIMELINE:

A brief timeline of OS/2 as follows—

OS/2 1.0—December 1987—Originally CP/DOS

 Joint IBM-Microsoft development
 16-bit protected-mode, multi-threaded, multi-tasking OS
 Segmented virtual memory
 286 CPU and about 1.5 MB RAM required
 Maximum 32MB partition size
 FAT file system only
 Text mode, DOS-like interface
 Single DOS box support

OS/2 1.1—November 1988—Codename Trimaran

 Presentation Manager graphical user interface (codename
Winthorn)
 Support for larger than 32MB partitions
 3-4 MB RAM minimum

OS/2 1.2—October 1989—Codename Sloop

 Installable File system (IFS) support
 HPFS file system included
 Improved Presentation Manager
 Dual Boot capability
 REXX and IPF support

OS/2 1.3—December 1990—Codename Cutter

 Lowered resource requirements (2 MB RAM)
 ATM font support
 Developed primarily by IBM

OS/2 2.0 LA—December 1991—Limited Availability

 Internal revision 6.177 (91/12/11)
 Pre-release version of OS/2 2.0
 Only for selected IBM customers, officially supported
OS/2 2.0—April 1992—Codename Cruiser
 Internal revision 6.307 (92/03/01), XR02000
 32-bit protected-mode, multi-threaded, multi-tasking OS
 Paged virtual memory
 386 CPU and 4 MB RAM required
 Multiple DOS boxes
 Win-OS/2 support (based on Windows 3.0)
 System Object Model (SOM) support
 Workplace Shell (WPS) graphical interface
 Boot Manager included
 Limited hardware support

OS/2 2.00.1—October 1992—Codename Riker

 Internal revision 6.427 (92/06/03), XR02010
 Only preloaded on IBM hardware
 32-bit Graphics Engine (GRE)
 XGA-2 support
 Similar to Service Pak XR06055

OS/2 2.1—May 1993—Codename Borg (previously Yawl)

 Internal revision 6.514 (93/04/12), XR02010
 Improved non-IBM hardware support
 APM and PCMCIA support
 MMPM/2 included
 Win-OS/2 based on Windows 3.1

OS/2 for Windows—November 1993—Codename Ferengi

 Internal revision 6.514 (93/04/12), XR02011
 Used pre-existing Windows 3.x instead of Win-OS/2
 New drivers for S3 based cards
 Largely unchanged from original 2.1 release

OS/2 2.11—February 1994

 Internal revision 6.617 (94/01/28), XR06200
 Also available as Service Pak XR06200 for OS/2 2.1
 Bugfix release

OS/2 2.11 SMP—July 1994

 Internal revision S.624 (94/06/09), XR02014
 Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) support
 Up to 16 CPUs supported
 Only sold with SMP hardware

OS/2 Warp—October 1994—Codename Warp

 Internal revision 8.162 (94/09/19), XR03000
 Performance tuned, lower resource requirements
 Compatible with Windows 3.11
 BonusPak (with Internet Access Kit) included
 Improved hardware support
 Updated WPS
 OS/2 Warp with Win-OS/2—February 1995
 Internal revision 8.200 (94/11/09), XR03001
 Same as above but with Windows 3.1 included

OS/2 Warp Connect with Win-OS/2—May 1995

 Internal revision 8.209 (94/11/09), XR03003
 Networking support included (MPTS, TCP/IP, LAN Requester)
 Peer-to-peer networking

OS/2 Warp Connect—July 1995

 Internal revision 8.210 (94/11/09), XR03004
 Same as above but without Windows 3.1

OS/2 Warp, PowerPC Edition—December 1995

 IBM Power Series hardware support
 Based on MACH microkernel
 Not sold in retail

OS/2 Warp Server 4—February 1996

 Internal revision 8.234, XR03005
 Combined OS/2 Warp and LAN Server
 Entry and Advanced editions (the latter with HPFS386)

OS/2 Warp 4—September 1996—Codename Merlin

 Internal revision 9.023, XR04000
 Updated WPS, new look and feel
 Java 1.0.1 and JDK included
 Voice Type included
 OpenGL (software renderer only) support
 OpenDoc included

OS/2 Warp Server Advanced SMP—September 1996

 Internal revision 7.029, XR03006
 Warp Server 4 Advanced with SMP support
 Free upgrade for Warp Server Advanced licensees

WorkSpace On-Demand 1.0—November 1997— Codename BlueBird

 Based on OS/2 Warp 4
 Required OS/2 Warp Server
 RIPL remote boot
 Centralized client deployment and management

WorkSpace On-Demand 2.0—October 1998

 Added fully diskless PXE client boot support
 Improved client manageability
 Easier management through the LAN Server GUI

OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business—April 1999—Codename Aurora

 Internal revision 14.039F, XR04500
 SMP support
 JFS file system support
 Limited 32-bit device driver support
 High memory support (more than 512 MB per process)
 Improved internationalization
 NetFinity 5.2 included
 Lotus Domino Go Web server 4.6 included
 WebSphere Application Server 1.1 included
 Version 4.50

OS/2 Convenience Pack 1—November 2000—Known as MCP/ACP

 Internal revision 14.062, XR04501
 Based on WSeB kernel
 Java 1.1.8 included
 Programmer’s Toolkit included
 Version 4.51

OS/2 Convenience Pack 2—November 2001—Known as MCP2/ACP2

 Internal revision 14.086, XR04502
 IBM Web Browser included
 Java 1.3 included
 Innotek Flash included
 Version 4.52

OS/2 Convenience Pack 2 Refresh—April 2002

 Internal revision 14.089, XR04503
 Last OS/2 release
INSTALLATION PROCESS:

 Boot screen of OS/2

 Setup of OS/2

 Introduction to OS/2
 Drive Selection

 File system of OS/2

 Installing OS/2 from backup

 Select features

 System configuration

 OS/2 setup and installation

 Transferring files (system configuration to HDD)

 Configured OS/2 desktop

 OS/2 booting screen with logo

 OS/2 Desktop

 OS/2 Graphical User Interface (GUI)

File systems:
FAT:
The File Allocation Table (FAT) file system is a simple file system
originally designed for small disks and simple folder structures. OS/2
supports FAT 12 and FAT 16 for compatibility, but is really designed to use its
own special file system, called HPFS. Although HPFS is similar to NTFS, and
has often been said to be the same, this is clearly not the case. OS/2 does not
support FAT 32; however there are third-party tools available that will let
OS/2 access FAT 32 partitions.

HPFS:
HPFS (High Performance File System) is a file system created
specifically for the OS/2 operating system to improve upon the limitations of
the FAT file system. It was written by Gordon Letwin and others at Microsoft
and added to OS/2 version 1.2, at that time still a joint undertaking of
Microsoft and IBM, and released in 1988. OS/2's file system support is similar
in many ways to that of Windows NT. If you dual boot OS/2 and Windows
partitions you are probably aware of these tools (drivers). By now, there should
be tools that will allow you to access NTFS partitions; however we have not
had the occasion to investigate them.

Compared with FAT, HPFS provided a number of additional capabilities:

Support for mixed case file names, in different code pages
 Support for long file names (255 characters as opposed to FAT's 8.3
naming scheme)
 More efficient use of disk space (files are not stored using multiple-
sector clusters but on a per-sector basis)
 An internal architecture that keeps related items close to each other
on the disk volume
 Less fragmentation of data
 Extent-based space allocation
 Separate date stamps for last modification, last access, and creation
(as opposed to last-modification-only date stamp in then-times
implementations of FAT)
 B+ tree structure for directories
 Root directory located at the midpoint, rather than at the beginning of
the disk, for faster average access
HPFS also can keep 64 KiB of metadata ("extended attributes") per file.
IBM offers two kinds of IFS drivers for this file system:
 The standard one with a cache limited to 2 MiB
 HPFS386 provided with certain server versions of OS/2, or as added
component for the server versions that did not come with it

HPFS386:
HPFS386's cache is limited by the amount of available memory in OS/2's
system memory arena and was implemented in 32-bit assembly language.
HPFS386 is a ring 0 driver (allowing direct hardware access and direct
interaction with the kernel) with built-in SMB networking properties that are
usable by various server daemons, whereas HPFS is a ring 3 driver. Thus,
HPFS386 is faster than HPFS and highly optimized for server applications. It
is also highly tunable by experienced administrators.
Though IBM still had rights to HPFS, its agreement with Microsoft to continue
licensing the HPFS386 version is contingent upon the company paying
Microsoft a licensing fee for each copy sold. This was a result from the
Microsoft and IBM collaboration that both IBM and Microsoft had right to use
Windows and OS/2 technology. Microsoft used HPFS in Windows NT.

JFS:
Journaling File System (JFS) is a 64-bit journaling file system created by
IBM. Due to the Microsoft dependence, limited partition size, file size limit of 2
GB and the long disk-check times after a crash, IBM ported the journaling file
system JFS to OS/2 as a substitute.
Features:
Some of the major features of OS/2:

 Low System Requirements:

IBM designed OS/2 with scalability in mind. OS/2 can run on any
386 or higher system with at least 8Mb of RAM and 200Mb of hard drive
space.

 Ability to run More applications:

Because of OS/2's backwards compatibility you can run more

applications on OS/2 today than any other PC OS. 95% of all Win3.x and
DOS software will run on OS/2 right out of the box and many of the most
popular UNIX applications have been ported to OS/2. Despite what
many think, there are thousands of quality native OS/2 programs
available for users who want to take full advantage of OS/2's power.
OS/2 can also run several different versions of DOS and Windows. One
of the biggest advantages that OS/2 has over other OSs is the ability to
run applications from each of these different OSs concurrently.

 Full Preemptive Multitasking:

OS/2, not the applications, controls how much processor time each
program gets. This means that users won't have to worry about a
"resource hog" tying up the system, and they can continue doing their
work. Users can also select exactly how much processor time they want
to allocate to each program.

 Memory Virtualization:

Because of OS/2's excellent memory virtualization users can run

applications that they normally would not be able to because of memory
restrictions. As an example, users can run applications that would
normally use up 32Mbs of RAM on a 16Mb system.

 Crash Protection:

OS/2 protects each program in its own "virtual machine". This

gives the user the ability to run misbehaved applications without having
to worry about crashing the system or other programs. If the system does
 crash, chances are that the user will be able to recover some or all of their
data.

 High Performance File System:

OS/2's file system is called HPFS. HPFS eliminates all of the

problems associated with the FAT or "DOS" file system. HPFS uses disk
space more efficiently that Fat, has built in long file names, eliminates
the need for defragmentation of the partition, and is fully 32 bit. All
these features help HPFS to be a more efficient file system than any
version of FAT. In addition OS/2 fully supports the FAT file system for
all your shared applications and data.

 Complete Networking Support:

OS/2 has support for all industry standard networking protocols.

OS/2 allows unlimited connections to other systems in a peer network,
perfect for the home or small office. OS/2 also comes with a full line of
networking management tools and applications, such as Netscape, Java,
FTP, Telnet3270, Ultimail (Email), and Newsreader/2 (Usenet). Users
can also run their favorite DOS or Win3x networking applications.

 Device Driver Support:

It is well known that in the past OS/2 have had problems with
device driver support for hardware. IBM recognized this problem and
has worked extensively with hardware manufacturers to correct it. IBM
now includes a CD devoted to device drivers with OS/2 and is
continuously supporting manufacturers in ensuring that new hardware
has OS/2 drivers.

 Workplace Shell:
OS/2's interface is called the Workplace Shell or WPS for short.
The WPS is a fully object oriented interface. This means that work can be
done more efficiently, no more need to perform gymnastics with the
mouse just to copy a file. Just drag & drop.
Comparison:

Specification Ms-DOS OS/2 WINDOWS

It was developed by
It was developed by
It was developed co-ordination of
Developers Microsoft
by Microsoft Microsoft Inc. and
Incorporation.
IBM.

It was launched in It was launched in It was launched in

Year of launch
1981 1987. 1985.

Its target systems

types are
Its target system
Its target system workstation,
Target systems types are personal
types are personal personal
types computers and
computers computers, media
servers.
center, tablets and
embedded systems.

Computer
Computer architectures
Computer
architectures supported by
Computer architectures
supported by DOS Windows are IA-32,
architecture supported by DOS
are 16-bit x86. x86-64, IA-64,
are 16-bit x86.
ARM, Alpha, MIPS
and PowerPC.
 Its native APIs are
Its native API is Its native APIs are
Native NIPS Proprietary, DOS
DOS API. Win32 and NT API.
API and Win16.

It has the It has the preferred

It has the preferred
preferred license license Proprietary
License license of
Proprietary and and Source
Proprietary.
Source available. available.

It package Its package Its package

Package
management are management is management is MSI
management
none. Feature Install. or custom installer.

File systems
File systems
supported by
File system supported by OS/2
Windows are NTFS,
File systems supported by DOS are HPFS, JFS,
FAT, ISO 9660,
is FAT. FAT, ISO 9660,
UDF, HFS+, FATX
UDF and NFS.
and HFS.

OS/2 is an
Windows is not an
operating system as
DOS is an operating system
well as a
operating system. but an operating
multitasking
environment.
environment.
DOS provides no
distinction It will distinguish Windows
between the between the 3.0 cannot perform
operating system operating system the functions of an
and the and applications. operating system.
applications
ADVANTAGES OF OS/2:
 Overall Quality

OS/2 2.1 is an operating system. It is not a single-tasking poor imitation

of a Macintosh (Windows) on top of a file system masquerading as an
operating system (DOS). OS/2 2.1 is the only way, short of using some
flavor of UNIX, to unlock the potential inherent in modern personal
computer hardware.

 The Workplace Shell (WPS)

While it is not easy to learn the WPS , it has a consistent set of

conventions for manipulating resources and files. The user interface of
os/2 is similar to windows in terms of user convenience while still
having a powerful command line shell and robust multitasking. It is
interesting that Microsoft seems to be positioning the look and feel of
their future GUI(s) as a ripoff of the WPS rather than a rip off of the
Windows like the Windows 3.1 GUI.

 Multitasking

Anyone who has used a powerful operating system such as UNIX or

VMS on a workstation of minicomputer finds the single-tasking
environment implicit in DOS and/or Windows 3.1 to be very limiting.
OS/2 2.1's multitasking, while perhaps not up to the level of technology
of mature multiuser systems, allows the user to mix and match virtually
any number of applications at one time with no penalty in the
performance of each application (other than the fact that they are
actually sharing one CPU, set of disk, memory array, and so forth).

 One of the biggest advantages that OS/2 has over other OSs is the ability
to run applications from each of these different OSs concurrently. OS/2
is compelling because it offers the best system for running 16-bit DOS
and Windows applications while moving into the more flexible and
powerful 32-bit world
 Less expensive
For some specialized industrial applications, continuing to use OS/2 may
be cheaper than switching to another platform. If a company has custom
OS/2 based applications which does all it needs to do, a rewrite would be
costly with little or no benefit. Adapting hardware requirements to suit
OS/2 may be considerably less expensive than switching to a more
modern operating system.

 OS/2 provides support for Windows applications having Object-Linking-

and Embedding (OLE) capabilities if they are running in the same WIN-
OS/2 session. OS/2 is smallest one of these three major operating
system (Linux, Windows NT, and OS/2) when using a graphical
interface. OS/2 is the strongest of the three for backward compatibility
with DOS and Windows. It is a high performance, highly reliable,
information accessible, and integrated operating system
DISADVANTAGES OF OS/2:
 Hardware Utilization

Of all the Intel-based personal computers in the world, some portion

will not run Windows 3.1, let's say it is 30%. This includes 8088-based
machines and the like. Of these same personal computers, a slightly
larger portion will not run OS/2 2.1, let's say it is 40%. This is because
the rock-bottom minimum configuration for running OS/2 2.1 at all is
somewhere around 4MB of memory and 40MB of disk and a '386 CPU.
It is in theory possible to run Windows 3.1 in 2MB and 20MB of disk
(more or less). Of all the add-in cards you can put in an ISA- or EISA-
bus personal computer, a computer running Windows 3.1 can probably
access 99% of the functionality of those cards. With OS/2 2.1, that
number is closer to 50% than 90%, mostly because many add-in vendors
don't consider it worth their time to supply OS/2 drivers for their
products. What this sums up to is that more computers are good enough
for running Windows 3.1 than are good enough for running OS/2 2.1 at
this time and for the foreseeable future. If you want to use OS/2, buy
"good enough" hardware.

 Software Utilization

There are a few software products written for DOS and/or Windows that
won't work under OS/2's versions of DOS and Windows. There are ways
of booting a "real" copy of DOS from OS/2, but in general this isn't very
useful for routine work. More importantly, using DOS and/or Windows
software negates one of the very big advantages of OS/2. The High-
Performance File System (HPFS) in OS/2 2.1 allows useful file names.
No DOS or Windows software can support this feature. For this reason,
native OS/2 apps are very desirable. Alas, the selection of such native
apps is very poor at this time and for the foreseeable future.
 Availability of Informal Support

Most people can probably scare up a friend or coworker who knows

enough to fix simple problems under DOS and/or Windows. OTOH,
most people are unlikely to find someone at hand who understands
anything about OS/2. However, many of the problems which take an
"expert" to solve in DOS never occur in OS/2. Likewise, it is somewhat
harder to find mass-market books and magazines discussing OS/2, but
this is changing daily and may soon no longer be a disadvantage at all.

 Setup Time Requirements

We can buy DOS/Windows preloaded on new systems. As a matter of
fact, we damned near can't buy a PC without it, like it or not. It is much
harder to buy your PC with OS/2 2.1 preinstalled. This is made more of a
disadvantage in that the OS/2 installation can be daunting for novices
and in some cases (involving non-OS/2-compatible hardware) can even
fail, leaving the buyer with a new computer that won't boot. I would
argue that any "serious" user of a computer probably will be using that
computer long enough to make it worthwhile to learn enough about
whatever operating system he/she uses to do an installation. Many
computer buyers don't feel this way, though.

 OS/2 has 32bit architecture which does not support 64 bit

 Lesser performance compared to other 64 bit operating systems

Conclusion:
Os/2 is an operating system that has an advanced single-user, multitasking
personal computer operating system that exploits advanced hardware
platforms.

Os/2 was the first operating system that suppressed 8 bit or 16 bit
microprocessors and used the high powered 32 bit microprocessor.

Perhaps OS/2 was ill-fated from the beginning, since before it was even called
OS/2. The Joint Development Agreement signed between IBM and Microsoft
could not prevent the rift between the two companies from growing. While
IBM focused mainly on development of OS/2 Microsoft continued its own
research for windows operating systems.

OS/2 was designed as a successor to DOS and maybe this was part of the
problem. OS/2 1.0 superficially didn't look very different from DOS. There was
no wow factor. The command line interface was intended to work just like DOS
and that's what people saw. They did not see the modern, protected-mode
operating with virtual memory and pre-emptive multi-threading. What they
saw was an OS that looked like DOS, required much more memory and disk
space, and wasn't compatible with many DOS applications. OS/2 1.1 as well as
later releases with Presentation Manager was in the same boat. It looked
(again, deliberately) like Windows with higher resource requirements and poor
application support.

Of course the fact that IBM no longer sells OS/2 does not mean that everyone
stopped running it. As late as 2005, some large corporations were rolling out
new machines with OS/2 installed numbering in the thousands or tens of
thousands. IBM officially stopped supporting OS/2 in 2006,but some loyal
users made it’s source code available for experimental purpose.