Posted on 08/27/2012 9:21:26 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Windows 95 was arguably make or break for Microsoft, and today we celebrate the date in which it was released seventeen years ago.
The iconic clouds startup screen.
Seventeen years ago today Windows 95 was released to the public to major fanfare and success, this success also brought an antitrust case against Microsoft for bundling Internet Explorer 4.0 with a later service release of Windows 95.
Windows 95 integrated Microsoft's formerly separate MS-DOS and Windows products. It featured significant improvements over its predecessor, Windows 3.1, most notably in the graphical user interface (GUI) and in its relatively simplified "plug-n-play" features. There were also major changes made at lower levels of the operating system, such as moving from a mainly 16-bit architecture to a pre-emptively multitasked 32-bit architecture.
Welcome indeed.
In the marketplace, Windows 95 was a major success, and shortly became the most popular desktop operating system. It was also suggested it had the effect of driving other major players (including OS/2) out of business, something which would later be used in court against Microsoft.
Depending on how you look at it, there were six major updates to Windows 95 between 1996 and 1997 which included both Service Packs and Service Releases, this excludes the Windows 95 Plus! Pack that was released on the same day as Windows 95.
Three years later Windows 98 succeeded it; but I think we can all agree that Windows 95 started a PC revolution, and for that we can be thankful --or not, depending on which way you swing.
Windows 95 is unsupported as of December 31, 2001, but anyway;
Reference & Images: Wikipedia
Thanks for the tip MtnCodeDrewFreak in our forums!
I recall those earlier versions of Windows, including
Windows NT and Windows 2000. In fact, I am currently using Windows 2000 Professional on this computer.
Remember that NT 3.1 could fit on a 12MB box! I think the anti-MS morons even called that bloatware back then.
I spent six months on the Win95 development team testing hardware up in Redmond. Worked with an awesome bunch of people and had a lot of fun doing it.
The good old days of the “tech world”. :-)
I want my Microsoft Bob!
Back in the day, I had an IBM machine that would dual boot Windows or OS/2 Warp. It seemed pretty awesome at the time.
my first brand new computer I bought from radio shack in ‘95.
cost me a fortune back then. it had windows 3.1 with an upgrade guarantee for 95. got the upgrade and it wouldn’t support my bible program. was i hot. I deleted 95 and put 3.1 back on it.
yea, i eventually went back to windows 98, then xp, which i still have. but almost everything i do is on linux. been using it for 12 years or so. shucks, i am on linux now, and i don’t have to buy a bunch of ridiculous programs to keep me safe on the net.
it just works.
blessings, bobo
I kid you not.. One of the companies I work for has a NEC computer, amd k6-90mhz 32 megs ram..
been running since it was plopped on the desk to do it’s task of weighing items and entering shipping with out a problem. Does not even have a CD-rom, network card or modem. Probably never even had a service pack or update installed on it.
I play solitaire on it every night while waiting for something.
In the past year I have had to reload windows 7 4 or 5 times on my laptop.
Maybe I should get a copy of 95...
I remember that release of Windows 95 like it happened yesterday. I installed it on 65 computers in my group and it worked just fine. Then Windows 98 came out and it worked much better.
To me, the operating system is a small issue because the main task for us was using the software which actually did the work. In our case it was Autocad. How Autocad performed had 100 times more impact on our productivity than the OS. All we needed was for the OS to not crash often and Windows 98 was a satisfactory product for my company.
In fact, I am currently using Windows 2000 Professional on this computer.
As am I.
I prefer the gui and am able to find things (for tweaking system settings, etc.) much easier than XP or anything later.
XP, and the later releases are not so much “operating systems” as they are “media presentation software”.
Problem is Flash and Java have dropped support for W2K, so I’m running the latest versions of both that are still compatible, and get bit often by webpages telling me my Flash is out of date.
Tucked away in a cupboard in my home office is an old laptop can’t remember the brand not a Toshiba or dell that I did an upgrade from 3.1 to windows 95. It still works. 95 was such a change from 3.1.
I remember the brand was a Compaq. Like I said. It still works.
Seems like just yesterday.
Wonder how much money he lost!
PS. OS/2 was better! Still is.
I bought my copy at CompUSA and remember my wife being upset because it wasn't cheap and we didn't have a lot of extra money at the time. "What was wrong with the old Windows" she would say.
RAM (and later DRAM) used to be a lot more expensive than it is now. Just sayin'.
New York State Police Information Network (NYSPIN) still runs on Windows ‘95.
I started on a Texas Instrument machine that did virtually nothing. I considered it a glorified calculator. My husband and I got our first computer in 1994. My husband, being a pilot, was gone a lot. One of the funniest incidents of our marriage was me being hysterical on the phone over BSOD. I thought I’d broken our $1500 computer. In the best form of an epic joke, he advised me to reboot it. I was afraid to touch it, but it worked. Now, I’m not sure I can count how many computers we’ve had or my level of geekieness. LOL.
Win95 was the first OS I ever bought separate from getting a new computer. It was pretty cool at the time, though not the most stable thing in the world — I seem to recall that Win98 was a much more stable OS that was mostly the same in terms of look and feel.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.