Vocabulary

Well, yes . . . but it's not your operating system, and the term doesn't refer to what the end user does. People who write software code for use on personal computers need to know what kind of platform they will be using. So the code writer is concerned with the platform, the end user does not necessarily need to know anything about the platform.

Your sentence only makes sense if you are writing code for software you hope to sell to end users. For your purposes, you would be speaking about the operating system, usually just referred to as the OS, on your computer.

So what is a platform

A platform is a combination of hardware and software. A computing platform includes a hardware architecture and a software framework (including application frameworks), where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run. Typical platforms include a computer architecture, operating system, programming languages and related user interface (run-time system libraries or graphical user interface).

Thank you Con, that's very helpful. It would appear then that it's largely an abstract conception

Thank you all.

Not at ll Jane but not sure we've been of much help

Unless….perhaps Jane you could now explain what a "platform" is in terms suitable to Your Average Clod (me)