News - Happy Birthday Windows 95!

[HEXUS]

The Windows Recycle Bin, Start button, Start Menu, and Taskbar are all seventeen years old today.

Read more.

[stewis]

The new microsoft logo is also 17 years old as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGNGRU5g1aU

[simonpreston]

Some rose tinted specs on whilst typing this?
Win95 was, in my view, awful (as was 98 and Me). Plug and Play was aptly named 'Plug and Pray', the computer would hang or bluescreen constantly. I lost count of the times I'd have to hold the power button down to restart it. Multitasking was a joke.

There was a very good reason I stuck with an upgraded Amiga for so long. Whilst the hardware was starting to show its age, it at least wasn't frustrating to use and died every 30 seconds for no reason at all.
Then I built a machine around Windows 2000, which was a world apart from the 9x line. I suddenly had a pretty solid, stable and secure PC.

[Mama Sumae]

The release date of Windows 95 was 24th August 2005;

[mtyson]

sorry, brain burp! date now fixed.

[badass]

Some rose tinted specs on whilst typing this?
Win95 was, in my view, awful (as was 98 and Me). Plug and Play was aptly named 'Plug and Pray', the computer would hang or bluescreen constantly. I lost count of the times I'd have to hold the power button down to restart it. Multitasking was a joke.

There was a very good reason I stuck with an upgraded Amiga for so long. Whilst the hardware was starting to show its age, it at least wasn't frustrating to use and died every 30 seconds for no reason at all.
Then I built a machine around Windows 2000, which was a world apart from the 9x line. I suddenly had a pretty solid, stable and secure PC.

Couldn't agree more. All versions of Windows prior to 2000 were utterly diabolical compared to the competition. That includes the massive resource hog, NT4.

[Malphas]

Yes, Windows was loathed for so long for good reason. Even XP was pretty rough until SP2, of course people forget that when donning their rose-tinted glasses to criticise Windows 8. I do have to give Windows 95 bonus points for including a low resolution MPEG for "Buddy Holly" by Weezer though.

[Mblaster]

Some rose tinted specs on whilst typing this?
Win95 was, in my view, awful (as was 98 and Me). [...]
Then I built a machine around Windows 2000, which was a world apart from the 9x line. I suddenly had a pretty solid, stable and secure PC.

Since I was only 8 when Windows 95 was released, I don't remember it in very much detail, but Windows 98 SE I remember as being pretty good, I actually downgraded back from Windows 2000 to 98 SE, mostly because 98 SE gave me better 3D Mark 2001 scores!

[SineWave]

Windows 95 was a big relief for people who didn't like to fiddle with MSDOS and Win 3.11 shell for it, so it was quite a progress from these two in its day. The big downside to it is that's also just a more sophisticated "shell" for MSDOS, but it worked better than 3.11. However, the release of Windows 2000 was a real operating system, and final departure from DOS "shells". So far, the best *Microsoft* OS I worked with is Windows 2000 regarding features, efficiency, speed. XP added mostly just bloat to it, but in the end I find XP, when nicely nLited and devoid of all the bloat, the best Microsoft OS to date. Essentially Windows 2000+. I don't think they're going to surpass the success of XP ever, since their policy is not to bother with optimisation and efficiency, but mostly having fun with shiny graphics that adds nothing essential and crucial to an OS. Essentially, now they're still sticking to exploiting Windows 2000 kernel, and sticking some new, shiny graphics to it, but their PRs wants you to think otherwise, of course... I just stick to what works best for me, and that's XP at the moment. "Best" meaning speed and efficiency.

[jim]

95 was the first OS I ever used. Despite abusing it on a daily basis, trying all sorts of tweaks I read in magazines and changing every setting in every menu I could find to see if it made things better, I remember it being reasonably reliable. I loved it to bits... admittedly, probably through the lack of trying anything else, but nonetheless... it holds a very special place in my computing heart

[tickleonthetum]

It’s very hard to see 14 years into the future but maybe by that time we will be sadly saying goodbye to the Modern UI…

I would be very surprised if Modern UI doesn't disappear from the Desktop with Windows 9 in a couple of years! It really is that awful on the desktop.

Compared to Windows 3.1, Windows 95 was amazing a the time. However Windows 98SE was the best iteration of that product line, to me Win95 and Win98 were betas on the road to Win98SE.

Then along came WinMe... oh dear... there were some great ideas in there but no... just no... again, in a way WinMe was like an early Alpha version of XP (Windows 2000 was more like a beta to Windows XP). Finally XP came out and hit the ground running!

So MS true to form launched Windows 7 Beta... sorry... Vista..., along with the other two betas (Windows Server), until finally Windows 7 came along...Now Windows 7 is a hard act to follow...

Again MS is sticking to the 'release a beta' tradition with the release of Windows 8! So the question now is will Windows 9 be another beta step or a final product? If I was forced to guess I would say it may be another beta... then I would predict Microsoft will release the final, which I predict may be called just "Windows" no version numbers at all.

1.0 + 2.0 + 3.0 = 3.1

95 + 95SR + 98 = 98SE

WinMe + 2000 = XP

Vista + Sever + Home Server = 7

8 + 9 = Windows™

Have I got it right? Only time will tell...

[jjintheuk]

Happy Birthday, I'm always surprised by the advancement in technology / software. The 1995 Perry / Anniston 30min commercial was very cringe

[pctech2012]

2000 was NT 5 and so the kernel was built for business environments (desktops and servers) so had to be more secure and reliable.

The 9x kernel was aimed squarely at the consumer space to support games and so on.

Standardising on NT was the best decision MS ever made IMHO.

[ColdShoulder]

Windows 95 was the first proper operating system I ever used. When it first came out most games still used DOS, so I spent much time configuring boot disks to run them. Even the compatible games would take the whole system down on an error. It wasn't until XP that a windows session could last more than a few hours for me.

[OilSheikh]

The thread topic is HAPPY BIRTHDAY WINDOWS 95. If you do not want to wish Windows 95 or say anything good about it or talk about your memories of Windows 95, please DON'T POST! I don't want your Windows 95 bashing comments!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WINDOWS 95 !


I still have a sealed copy of Windows 95. Bow before me, fools.




My memories of Windows 95 :
- Didn't know you could use CTRL+A and then choose Delete. Had to keep holding backspace to delete pages of stuff on Word 5.0 or 6.0
- Grolier Multimedia Encyclopaedia
- BodyWorks CD
- Jazz the Jackrabbit
- Duke Nukem 2D
- Lion King
- Aladdin
- DOOM 2
- Drivespace - trying to double the size of my few GB's HDD . lol
- Floppy Disks. I had plenty of tools at my disposal that I used to use to fix FDD's from where you couldnt read - tools like NCC , Norton Disk Doctor, GRWIN Disk utility
- I remember when my CD drive died and I was trying to copy Photoshop off a friend. Photoshop was 50MB and I was trying to source 50 Floppy disks from all my friends!
- Windows 95 Chess
- Microsoft Plus! > Wow for it's time.
- Installed Duken Nukem 2D and it modified registry in such a way that everytime you launch Windows, Duke Nukem starts up even before your Desktop shows up! Had to take it to a PC repair place and the guy had to modify bat or exec file.

[leonc]

Happy birthday!!! It was my first windows os. I remember the days I play red alert with 2GB HHD and 2mb VRAM under windows 95 that spec costed me £1000+ at the time.