RSS10 Years On: Windows 95 Remembered
By Nate Mook | Published August 24, 2005, 1:00 PM
August 24, 1995 was a momentous occasion for the computer industry as Microsoft introduced Windows 95 at a gala launch event. The long awaited new operating system not only sparked the explosion of the Internet, but for the first time computers became inspirational tools that would make our lives better.
The Windows 95 launch took place on a 12-acre sports field at Microsoft's Redmond campus. It took 20 days and over 200 people to prepare for the festivities, and Bill Gates' address was beamed simultaneously to 43 other events in cities around the world - not an easy feat in 1995.
Over 70,000 people tuned in to watch the launch event live via satellite. The Empire State Building in New York City was even lit up with the Windows 95 logo. Fields in England were also painted with the logo so it could be seen from the air. In Poland, journalists were taken in a submarine to experience "a world without Windows."
The launch was a hit. 20 national magazine cover stories, 13,000 newspaper stories, 800 radio news spots and 2,000 television news segments all covered the arrival of Windows 95, which would usher in a new era in computing.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Windows 95 and relive the excitement, we have collected stories from those who where there to experience the events first hand:
"Windows 95 was launched in a big white tent on the suburban Microsoft campus east of Seattle. The tent held about 1,500 people; some 300 were journalists. I sat with a pack of them, all identifiable by their press badges and shopping bags full of free software.
"At the end of the show, the backdrop was yanked away, revealing two bleachers full of the Windows 95 software team. They were in four groups, each of which wore t-shirts of a single color. The whole created the four-paned window that is the Win95 logo. Then -- kaboom! -- the stage split in half, a way-cool thing to happen. We were supposed to exit through the divided stage and into an aisle between the two bleachers.
"As we trooped out, the software developers began to chant. One bleacher yelled, "Windows!"; the other, "95!" "Windows!" "95!" Anyone who has been to a high school football game gets the idea. As the press filed out, it joined the cry: "Windows! 95!" - Charles C. Mann, Inc. Magazine
"I remember.
"Windows 95 was an event. People lined up for blocks outside computer stores (like Egghead) at midnight to get their copy of Microsoft's newest operating system. Rolling Stones' song "Start Me Up" set the tone for the launch.
"Those were the days when Microsoft got aspirational marketing right and for the right audiences. Microsoft wooed businesses to Windows 95 with features like easier networking, more productivity and (gasp) long file names! Microsoft promised consumers better entertainment, such as desktop games or multimedia (no one called it digital media back then). The Windows 95 CD included music videos "Buddy Holly" by Weezer and Edie Brickell's "Good Times" to show off the cool, new multimedia features." - Joe Wilcox, Jupiter Research
"You can hide under a bridge, row a boat to the middle of the ocean or wedge yourself under the sofa, cover your ears and then hum loudly. But get near a newspaper, radio, television or computer retailer today and you will experience the multimillion-dollar hype surrounding the launch of Windows 95." - David Segal, Washington Post
Microsoft was also making the Windows 95 Launch event known on the Internet, and even put up a Web site heralding the new operating system's arrival on August 24. Advertising banners bombarded the few Web sites in existence and online services such as AOL with reminders of the special day.
"While Microsoft has spent nowhere near the $200 million reportedly allocated for its Win95 TV campaign on this site, and perhaps not even the $12 million reportedly spent to license the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" (highlighting the start button on the new OS interface), the company has obviously taken pains to make the Internet launch a success.
"The site has plenty to offer Windows enthusiasts before and after the big date, including a downloadable product demo, a free copy of the new Internet Explorer browser, and plenty of technical information." - Writeside Review
Even those on the other side of the pond were getting hyped for the launch.
"Perhaps acknowledging that little about Windows 95 remains unsaid, Microsoft PRs disclosed that the development team consumed an estimated 2,283,600 cups of coffee and 4,850 lbs of popcorn while toiling over the new product.
"Mr. Gates, 39, laid on hot air balloons, a ferris wheel and free food and Coke to sustain the enthusiasm of anyone not intoxicated by the prospect of smoother multi-tasking and being able to call computer files any name they want.
"He also enlisted late night chat show host, Jay Leno, who cracked that Windows 95 was 'so powerful that it can keep track of all of OJ's alibis at once'." - Ian Katz, Dan Atkinson and Nicholas Bannister, England's Guardian Newspaper
"What better way to show how fun, and easy Windows 95 was than to have Bill Gates demonstrate to irreverent computer novice and late night talk show host Jay Leno how cool Windows 95 really is. A TV star who knew almost nothing about computing, sharing the stage with a computing great who knew almost nothing about television. It was a match made in heaven.
"The event was a cross between a High Tech Expo and a Carnival, with the inclusion of a playful "Midway Area" designed to let people simply have fun. It was here and in the pavilions where launch attendees experienced Windows 95 and related products hands-on." - Bob Johnson, The Caribiner Group
Looking back, it's hard not to be nostalgic. "I think it would be tough to recreate the magic of the Windows 95 launch today or next year. But I certainly would encourage Microsoft to try. And I would like to see the company remember Windows 95," says Jupiter's Wilcox.
"Windows 95 launched with such promise, with such aspirational context, that somehow buyers' lives would be better with it or worse if they didn't buy it. You were hip, you were tech, you belonged if you had Windows 95."
I have a lot to thank Windows 95 for, after years of using MS Xenix, then SCO Xenix.
I bought a new computer that came with Windows 95, within a year I'd been driven back towards Unix systems by 95's crappiness and I discovered Linux.
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|Well concept was old but new Marketing with Windows 1.0 it started (Wow was that one a pain in tha ass, cant remember nabme GeoWorks or so was mutch better but no Marketing). Then with windows 3.0 (2.0 was still crap) there was a revolution. People liked it ans Tought "wow thats cool" but there where several others that where nicer and better in coding and concept. Well thants to M$ all those good companies died.
3.1 was then very famous and WFW 3.1. Due all other Companies killed by microsoft i had to use it :/
So i expected 95 like every other Donkey.
Nowadays I still use Windows 98 SE on one Laptop.
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|I'm sure everyone will make lots of comments about Windows 95 and how horrible it was, etc, etc.
All I will say is that the first time I saw "It is now safe to turn off your computer." I almost peed myself laughing.
It wasn't until Windows 2000 that it was safe to turn _on_ your computer.
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|Windows 95's launch was a definite *event*, and I was part of it. Not in Redmond, but in the *other* Washington (as in DC), where the launch took over several conference rooms of a downtown hotel. There were demonstrations of Windows 95 itself, applications that were either included with or could run on the new operating system (from the fledgling MSN to games) and also featured a 3D Pinball tournament (played on rear-screen projection monitors). And there were interviews. Lots of interviews. I found myself interviewed twice by local TV stations (including while taking down Bions in Fury3, which was also being launched at the event), putting me in the odd positon of going home to see *myself* on the six PM news (and the eleven PM news as well). To this day, I *still* get odd looks from people that I've never met.
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|OS I used:
Windows3.1>Dos6.22>Windows 95>Windows 98>Windows 98se>Windows Me>Windows 2000 Pro/Server>Windows XP Pro
Now：Debian
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|A milestone Operating System!
We still use Windows 95C to run an ISDN interface application at work. It runs 24/7 and gets a reboot maybe once every few months when the system resources get to low. Very reliable!
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|Yup, and Win95 can join a domain...NOT EVEN WINDOWS XP HOME CAN DO THAT!!!
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|wow, that was a while ago.. lol
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|I still use windows 95 in my home!
hauhauhauhauhuhau, because i dont have money to change another computer more news.
Bye,
Takeda, Brazil
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|of course you do.
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|QUOTE: August 24, 1995 ... but for the first time computers became inspirational tools that would make our lives better: End of QUOTE.
as always, it should have said:
..but for the first time non Apple computers became inspirational tools that would make our lives better
by that time I was using a Classic MAC and it was way better than Win95. Now I had to admit I had to compromise and assimilate the Windows platform (I still prefer Win 2000 over last versions). Fortunately they have followed many of the good trends of Apple GUIs and current hardware was made to cope with an originally inefficient software design for those days hardware
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|at the time of its presentation, I was running the unforgettable amiga. however progress is progress so now I am running xp64. not withstanding all critisism about microsoft, the os performs and can only get better. who knows what their next os will bring ? I do hope positive critisism will help shape a better os and lets just face reality, which is what microsoft represents...
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|It seems amazing to me that so many of you whine about Windows 95, and yet you were probably among the crowds who were standing in line at midnight... or you're among those who still whine about Windows XP. "
It's mostly because those wannabes have no conception of what it takes to write and beta test a consumer OS. With XP, the majority of problems reside between the keyboard and the chair, yet the whinging, snivelling and general rubbish continues.
At the end of the day, if you want a rich and generally complete desktop experience, you use a MS OS. If you want to put up with various forms of mediocrity from a user perszpective, ranging from in multimedia to hardware support, et. al. you use something else.
And that's something the whiners simply can't bear to face even while they cannot escape the inevitability of the concept.
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|I couldn't agree with you more!!!
I'm using WinXP and Fedora Core 4 simultaneously. Those who think "FC4 > WinXP" need to do some serious introspection.
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|I'm also using WinXP and FC4 simultaneously. After several months of hard-core FC3/4, predated by years of windows use, I've come to a rather simple conclusion.
Windows brought, and continues to bring computing to the masses. That's what makes the 10th anniversary of Win95 so important. There were many OSs before it, but it ran on the most hardware, it was the simplest to use, etc. It appealed to the masses.
Microsoft continues this tradition today. XP is probably the most fool-proof operating system to date, but this has a down side for experienced users who want the most out of their computing experience.
For the beginner and the light user, Windows is by far the better operating system. Even for medium and up, Linux can be daunting at first. Once learned, however, Linux becomes by far the better operating system for the sole reason that it isn’t tailored to the beginner. Even then, a dual boot can be useful, and even necessary for developers and IT people. (Some of whom will stay on Windows because that’s what they work with)
Sorry to disappoint you, but there is no convenient "=,>,
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|Well said Roj
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|Hear hear!
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|Can you show anymore ignorance about OS's ? I think not. You should give yourself a chance to try out more OS's before talking about them. That's the typical answer of one who has seen another non-MS OS just from above and heard rumors about them.
That's a shame.
Please also tell me you still use internet explorer.
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|I was on the official beta team for Windows 95... among the youngest, I suppose... at the age of 14. It was an amazing experience for me since I was so interested in new technology... no matter who it was from. I had a 386DX-40 with 16MB of RAM at the time, and it ran amazingly "fast" for the time... even though I really wanted that brand spanking new processor from Intel, lol.
Windows 95 was definitely a huge leap forward for Windows. It was faster, it was easier to use, and it was more reliable. It had long file names (which saved me from trying a switch to OS/2), it had Device Manager and all sorts of nifty stuff.
I don't remember being as excited about technology as I was at that time... at least not until the Windows 2000 launch. *sigh*
--------------------------
To the people who claim it was slower and crashed a lot... yeah, ok, and you probably still whine today about Windows crashing so much, so frankly--- go sing your pitty-party theme song to someone who cares, since it's obvious nothing pleases you guys/gals. No one wants to hear about how Windows crashed 50 times a day because you're the user that IT departments cuss at when you leave the room.
To those who complain about Microsoft stealing the whole GUI idea... all I can say is-- so what if they did? If you're computing environment is better for it, then it's all good. Maybe it didn't occur to some of you that maybe.... just maybe... the same common elements of the GUI are used cross-platform because it's simply the most logical, efficient, and practical way of doing things.
To those whining about hardware support... that's true of any OS aside from Apple, and they only work with "Plug and Play" because you can only plug in devices they like anyway... aka, THEIR HARDWARE... ok, and any USB and Firewire devices (which are designed to be more universal by default).
It seems amazing to me that so many of you whine about Windows 95, and yet you were probably among the crowds who were standing in line at midnight... or you're among those who still whine about Windows XP.
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|"No one wants to hear about how Windows crashed 50 times a day because you're the user that IT departments cuss at when you leave the room."
ROFL owned.
Well said.
...oh man...
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|So true... Why do these idiot's keep checking the 'Workstation Only' box and then wondering why the network programs aren't working?
Gah...
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|I am sorry to say, but I do have a crashing Windows (though XP is indeed much sturdier etc than its predecessors)... and I _am_ an IT guy...
For me, Windows gets more and more irritating. But of course no OS is foolproof, and anything can go wrong.
Not even Linux is a saint :)
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|I remember it already, I remember it crashing 50 times a day.
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|Nope XEROX Palo Alto Research Center where Steve Jobs "stole" the idea of the GUI from but comes to show you you don't have to be smart to to get rich just divase. 95 ran better then XP but it was just missing updated drivers and better USB support. Looks almost the same as XP and Longhorn wonder when some will come out with a new idea like dos to 95 windows to ???? hope the future is better.
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|You are such a friggin idiot.
It's obvious that you don't know the core kernel differences which are HUGE.
Now STFU and go drink your coke.
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|Well if win95 was as good as XP and Longhorn why dont ypu start to use Win95. if you fail to se the techical advancements of each new Windows the maybe Dos is more at your level.
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|Hey now! Don't be dragging DOS into this in such an ugly light. Too few people realize just how often DOS saved their incompetent-user butts when they screwed up Windows beyond repair.
DOS commands save me a lot of time and energy, and I can't wait for "Monad" to improve on command-line capabilities again.
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|It's called an opinion... I like Windows 2000 better than XP, yet I still use both on a regular basis... does that make me a friggin idiot too?
Granted, I think he's wacko for liking 95 better than XP simply because of the differences in hardware and memory support, but that doesn't mean I think he's an idiot.
You, on the other hand, prove yourself to be just such a person every time you post. So maybe YOU are the one who is in need of that Coke.
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|By August 95 I was on the US, and watched the stores full of merchandising material from M$... on that time I was pleasure OS user of Amiga OS 3.1, a very stable, ultra fast, preemptive multitasking, longfilenames and with more than 10 years of existence with similar characteristics, since 1985 inside the first Amiga 1000! I still continued five more years with my Amiga 4000/040 till a friend gave me a not too much obsolete PC... Now I use a iMacG5, a couple of PCs with linux and XP and still my AMIGA.
Long life to good OSs!
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|amen to that.
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|Well, it sure has been a while since that day. It wasn't as incredible as DOS to 3.1 but it was soo cool to see the OS running. I sold tons of the machines just for the sleek looking desktop. It was nice but it sure did crash a lot! I think the first one I sold was a Blue Chip, what a dog!
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|For the 10th anniversary celebration Microsoft would like to make this announcement:
We are going to build an OS using the best technology from Windows CE, Windows ME, and Windows NT.
It will be called: Windows CEMENT.
Thank you.
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|lmao... Awesome.
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|I knew it was the XEROX Palo Alto Research Center where Steve Jobs "stole" the idea of the GUI from. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
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|Even if that's true, it doesn't apply to this article. The original Windows GUI was in Win3.1.
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|Wow I remember Windows 95. I used to download the betas with my 28.8 modem off of the AOL warez chat rooms. I remember installing a beta of Win95 over my father's Windows 3.11 and he FLIPPED. He made me uninstall Win95 but at that point, the uninstall didn't work properly and the system was destroyed. I think I may have been grounded for that move... LOL
What I remember from the CD was the music videos, the 3 inspiration movie clips about Windows and of course, who can forget HOVER -- that awful, wannabe 3D game.
Also, I remember marvelling at the Start menu and the way the old Win 3.1 Program Manager Groups were converted to Start Menu "Programs". It took me a litle while to figure out how to get everything into the Start menu -- this was before you could right click on the Start menu items and change stuff... everything had to be done through the Windows Explorer.
Does anyone remember the "Click here to begin" text that would fly into the start menu the first time you ran Win95? I saw that on one of the screenshots on this site... oooh! scrolling text!!! lol... so many memories of this OS.
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|What the hell is "Windows 95"??? =p
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|that's when you were prob. still sucking on your mom's breast!
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|By bizarre coincidence I used a boot disk image to create a USB boot device today and found that as the disk image was originally created on Win'95 it came up with the old clouds and Windows'95 logo.
It didn't even occur to me that I it was the 10th anniversary.
It was a day to remember for me as I started supporting Microsoft Office (4.x) on the day that down the corridor from my team the '95 guys where having all the fun talking to the customers who where after support on the wonders of Wordpad and Pinball!
In case any of the old MS crew read this. I salute you all!
x-icl073
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|I can remember Windows 95 I was 20 when it came out.
It was fab best thing since sliced bread at the time .compared with my old 386 sx 25 with 2 meg ram and a 10 meg mfm HD running Dos 5
by goum how things have changed and a Green screen
xoineg o yer that error you got explorer has caused a fault in MSVTR32.dll and will be shutdown .. which put u into an never ending loop
when commands had to typed in by had .point and click was a new toy for MS .
when a 1x cdr Drive cost £1000 and the blanks cost £1 each their was no such thing as buffer under run protection .buffer under run was a common error you got or commonly known as a coaster
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|Wow! You must have hated it as much as me... you seemed to be too angry to type straight... ;-)
Funny thing about Explorer, I can install a fresh copy of Windows 2000 or XP and Explorer will be crapping out on me within an hour. It has got to be the most buggy piece of code MS has ever written... and they've had it for 10 years now! I still have to nuke it and restart it on a daily basis, good thing there are non-retarded shells out there you can use.
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|I would never have learned as much as I have about computers had I not reformatted and reinstalled Windows 95 every other weekend in my teens. Long live Windows 95!
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|that's so true, later on i was reinstalling 98 as well every month, trying to learn little by little. How many nights it took me. Sure was fun
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|I still remember using Win3.11 and seeing someone else with Win95 on their computer. I remember being jealous of their awesome new OS. It's incredible how times change. What was I thinking!?!?
lol
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|I'm not sure how many of you were older than 12 when Windows 95 was released (probably none) but weeks before the "release", the kidz on the hacker bulletin boards with their 56k modems had been trading the many bug-laden pre-releases (there was no such thing as beta testing)of 95 and were posting commenst such as: "They're not really release this piece of s***, are they ?" and "It will take them two years to fix all the bugs after the release".
I decided to pass on Windows 95 and stayed with a combo of 3.11 and DOS until they released the much more...erm...stable Windows 98.
10 years later and look how far we've come.
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|Umm... apparently YOU can't remember that modems were 28.8K max back then (and that was the top of the line). AND the Internet was hardly widely-used. Do you seriously expect us to believe the rest of your story?
The last part of your comment was extremely vulgar and un-called-for.
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|56k wasnt even announced until late 1996 and they didn't become standard until 1998, genius.
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|Sorry. It's been a bad day.
You're right on two points:
1) 28.8 was the standard back then. I had a 14.4 Sportser and thought I was flying.
2) That last comment was very rude and I apologize. My PC has been giving me loads of tech headaches lateley and I'm just po'd and you-know-who.
Having said that, the other part of my story about seeing numerous pre-releases in the weeks leading up to 8/24/95 is true. DOS-based bulletin boards were still prevalent back then and most software came on floppies. I had access to a couple of the private hacker boards and the forums were full of commenst concerning the instability of "95".
And, if memmory serves, "beta testing" as we know it today was almost unheard of and those pre-releases were not meant for the public, rather just the programmers and developers.
But anyway, sorry again for the rude remarks in my previous post.
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|I still have a few Official betas which to some one are probably now worth a few quid (that's slang for GBP).
Remember the Rob Roy video trailer on the CD? Well these have a trailer of Interview With A Vampire as the movie was released it was changed at the last minute to a newer movie (bit of MS trivia for you!).
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|I remember that I was only 33 yrs old then. Brings a tear to my eye -) LOL
I bought a brand new Acer computer (gag) with Win95 and loads of junkware, but that was when I was young and stupid.
Just having fun. Peace :)
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|I was 30...
I resisted purchasing Windows 95 for the better part of a year, but finally had to upgrade because there was software I wanted to run that needed it. Within a fairly short time I moved over to NT and only ever ran Win9x for certain games. I never used 9x for work (I'm a developer), and quickly vowed I'd leave a job rather than use it, a vow I fortunately never had to fulfill (not even my PHB's were that sadistic... or stupid).
The day I finally sprung for a copy of XP to replace my kids' Windows 98 my "tech support" for their computer dropped by about 95%. Does anyone recall how with Windows 3.1 you could get it set up and working (which was admittedly often a real hassle), but then it would _stay_ working? And you could back up a working copy of the OS just by duping the directory structure?
Win9x was so fragile that just installing a new piece of software could jeopardize system stability. Heck, just using it could jeopardize system stability. Reinstalling went from a rare event to a regular event, and I wasted so many hours of my precious mortality fighting this horrible beast of product.
What a horrible piece of software history.
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|10 years already? it seems like yesterday that my computer kept crashing with that damn kernel error or the blue screen.
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|Oh, buhu. Don't you have a kernel to recompile or yet another distro to install?
Sorry, couldn't resist bashing that nerd.
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|I get it!
You think everyone who complains in the slightest about Windows is a kernel Developer for *nix!
Well, now that I know where you're coming from I can completely ignore you. I mean, your comments, based on half-assed assumptions, are worthless, right?
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|Reminiscing over Windows is like reminiscing over your first rectal exam.
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|Exactly.
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|I remember my school getting a hold of a early copy of windows 95. I was a Junior in Highschool. I installed it for one teacher on his computer. He looked at it and played with it for a while and came back and announced, " It's Junk, nothing works." I told him, " The way of the future." We found the new version of Solitaire was better graphically however. Here's hoping Vista has 3d Solitaire with animated face cards!
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|And the Open/Save dialog still sucks.
Only Office 2003 has a decent open/save dialog box.
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|What a load of crap. The GUI that Microspud "stole" was in use for almost 10 years before windoze was launched........It was called MAC OS.
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|Wasn't that the GUI that Apple stole from Olevetti?
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|Yeah and it was so wonderfull that they (Apple) didn't bother to update it for much of the the past 10 years. (sarcasm implied)
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|I think your thinking of the Mouse and GUI that Xerox invented for their copiers that Steve Jobs and co. saw a demo of and bought from them on the cheap.
The Xerox CEO didn't his development team "wasting time on something named after a rodent".
Apple used the Mouse and GUI in the first Mac OS that was then poached by Microsoft for Windows.
If you get a chance see the movie Pirates Of Silicon Valley (starring Noah Willey from E.R. as Steve Jobs) as it explains a lot of the early days and shows what a real much of weirdo's invented the early versions of what we now use day in day out.
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|think you will find Xerox had developed it for their computers not copiers.
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|Talking about stealing. Mac OS X is build on FreeBSD. Apple didn't even develop it themselves.
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|And Windows is now based on OS/2...
Point?
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|You've got to be kidding. I was an OS/2 tester and help developer. I was involved in beta testing OS/2 Merlin (OS/2 4.0) IBM was in such seclusion over the whole ordeal that in the end, as I received betas, I received them in hand-written envelopes mailed out of Austin, TX with just the simple "fill out and return" sheets.
Does Windows owe some of it's system to OS/2? In part; but much of what is Windows now is so radically different from the development of Merlin, especially at the core level, that it would be better to say "it borrowed ideas" rather then code base.
OS/2 4.0 had some serious issues with it - issues that even Windows 95 & Windows 98 did not have, especially in regards to memory management and disk management features which could, at best, be called woeful.
OS/2 4.0's java base was unwieldy in comparison to MS's kludgy "add-on" in part because the management features of Merlin were crap in comparison.
Windows & OS/2 share some similarities, but remember this: OS/2 development stopped in earnest in 97. Plug was pulled. When MS planned NT 3.0, it was to be NT OS/2, a Microsoft/IBM collaboration - IBM made no secret about this to those who were involved in development. But when Windows 3.1 came out, MS spiked all development of NT OS/2, and when NT 3.1 came out, IBM was already busy at work on their own OS/2 3.0 (Warp); so it was a collaboration that, due to a lot of different issues, never went anywhere.
IBM, who were busy supporting OS/2 1.0, had relied on MS to create OS/2 2.0. MS later balked and just spiked OS/2, kept their own work, and what they were developing became NT, not OS/2, and IBM went to work on their own project.
So, saying Windows is based on OS/2, based on a division of work that is now 15 years old, and was resolved in a 1992 court battle is somewhat preposterous.
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|I remember when OS/2 had Windows 3.1 within it. I think that was OS2 2.2?? Some apps it ran better then windows. The slogan for the limited media ads was "The way cool way to run your computer"
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|Too bad Microsoft's massive marketing wiped out some better operating systems at that time. I was using IBM's OS/2 Warp and it was superior to W95 at every aspect. I had pre-emptive multitasking, ability to run old Win 3.1 apps and fully 32-bit operating system. It lacked support from software vendors, who followed Microsoft's way. And Microsoft did not catch up until Windows 2000 -- that's five years after OS/2 :)
--
http://paweltkaczyk.midea.pl
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|I believe the phrase "Better Windows than Windows." was coined to describe OS/2.
Once again, marketing and maybe a little monopoly muscle causes the better product to fail.
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|Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Windows 95 the first 32-bit version of Windows?
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|No, Windows NT was.
--
http://paweltkaczyk.midea.pl
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|Okay, you're both a little off here. Windows NT was completely 32-bit in it's core while Windows 9X was still built over Dos. So it was 32, 16, and 8 bit all at the same time :).
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|Even NT3.51 was fully 32bit..
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|No. 3.51 had a full 32-bit file-system (actually 2 of them) and almost fully 32-bit but had a 16-bit GUI. Technically, Windows 3.1 actually had *SOME* 32-bit things going for it--386 enhanced mode, 32-bit "swap file" (aka heap space/virtual memory, for young readers that's the old way of using a pagefile.sys)
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|I've been trying to *forget* Windows 95 for the past 10 years, you Insensitive Clod!
>Rolling Stones' song "Start Me Up" set the tone for the launch.
...and prophetized it's future; "You make a grown man cry."
*sob*
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|What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be over at freshmeat.net instead? Go compile a kernel or something.
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|lmao..
Sorry, didn't see the law banning use of multiple tech-news sites.
Shouldn't you be on EQ2.net? Go slay an elf or something.
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|Who is Eddie Brickell? I have heard of Edie Brickell. Maybe that's her brother? I didn't know she had a brother. I hate it when people misspell my name. You want to loose a sale, pronounce my name wrong or misspell it. Attention to details people. Just because this is the Internet, it doesn't mean we can't be accurate.
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|details? like misspelling "lose"?
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|Maybe he meant that misspelling his name would be a signal to his salesmen to untie the product they were ttrying to sell him.
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|"ttrying" to sell him? Misspellathon day today I guess (yes "misspellathon" is not a real word either...)
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|She was married (maybe still is) to Paul Simon. It was Eddie Brickell & The New Bohemians for a while, I believe.
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|OMG THE HORROR. Im having nightmares!!!
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|I still remember installing it on a 486 and it ran like a dream. Didn't really get into Win9X technology until Win98 when I fully bought it with an AMD K6-3D 300MHZ Processor. Not to bad. I kept Win95 for the longest time and I thought at that time it was a superior OS. Never had speed issues or bugs. It's sad that Microsoft really hasn't gotten better in this except for WinXP.
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|same product...just a new name
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|wth?
Install Windows 95 again, my friend...just for grins. You'll soon see how vastly different the products are.
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|Not the same product. Win95 was based on an entirely different code base than Windows NT/2000/XP. Microsoft wanted to rid themselves of the code for win9x/me (since it was so inefficient and very very insecure (compared to the modern versions of windows) so they created XP Home and XP Pro which are both based off windows 2000 code which is in turn based off of windows NT code. I suggest you research your statements before making a comment like this :-P
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|"XP Home and XP Pro which are both based off windows 2000 code which is in turn based off of windows NT code."
...which in turn were based on OS/2 core developped together with IBM ;)
--
http://paweltkaczyk.midea.pl
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|it you guys want a real operating system that works get a mac with mac os x. Windows seems so outdated next to my mac
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|There were actually two streams working on post Win9x OS which where the NT5 team and Windows 2000 team.
NT5 was much more like the old NT4 with all the newer networking and Active directory features where as the win2k product wasn't much more that a GUI replacement.
Eventually the two were merged as both streams had major issues in different areas and so put the best of each into one OS which ended up being Windows 2000
I have an Old NT5 Alpha somewhere and it was a surprisingly good system (like NT4 just very very fast)
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|Its so good that hardly anyone uses it.
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|celebrate windows 95? what are we going to celebrate next 9/11
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|Are you trolling or are you really that stupid?
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|yes i remember windows NT 4 where the startup splash screen was the same screen when you got a blue screen of death
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|Win95 taught me both patience and endurance. Patience to sit there and endure the headaches that followed after the blue screens. I would not have become a PC tech had it not been for Win95. Please, just shoot me.
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