Windows 95 Turns 15 461
An anonymous reader writes "15 years ago on this day, Microsoft's then new Windows 95 was released. Among other things it moved users away from the archaic file manager and program manager to Windows explorer and the start menu. Compared to today's 'social desktop,' I'd much rather have the simpler and more sparse (pre-Internet Explorer integrated) Windows Explorer, though I do not like the (lack of) stability that Windows 95 offers. Of course if you were alive then, you've probably seen the commercials." I fondly recall downloading build after build and installing them. But within months of the official release, I switched to Linux.
Re:Archaic file manager? (Score:4, Informative)
Are we specifically referring to dos, or just the concept of cli file manager?
No. File Manager was a GUI program included with Windows 3.x (and still included as EXE only up to Windows Me).
Norton Desktop (Score:3, Informative)
I was using Norton Desktop on my Windows 3.1 box before Windows 95 came out. Nice clean interface and I didn't have to have a bunch of windows open. When 95 came out, it removed the need for Norton as it incorporated many of the features into the Windows shell.
I do know that Windows 95 killed my desire to muck with the system. With Windows 3.1 I was researching performance techniques and improving my config. I had a friend with a faster system however my Windows install was faster than his (he ranted a bit about it :) ).
But Windows 3.1 killed my desire to program until I got into Unix. I spent a lot of time reading the Petzold books and I understood how to write code for Windows but it was more complicated than I wanted to deal with for the hobby stuff I was doing.
[John]
And people still don't read (Score:1, Informative)
"What web browser do you use?"
"Umm, I don't know? Foxfire?" "The E?"
Re:Bland and inoffensive (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, I call bullshit. A known issue [microsoft.com], fixed only in 1999, would prevent Windows 95 and 98 from going over 49.7 days of uptime (2^32 milliseconds). Much hilarity ensued back in the day since "how could anyone have noticed / run into this" :-)
Re:"pre Internet Explorer integrated) Windows Exp" (Score:4, Informative)
I've used 98lite [litepc.com] back then. The full version can also remove other unwanted stuff.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 95 finally gave me the ability to rub his arrogant face right in my ass. And, for that, I say "Thank you, Bill Gates."
No, it didn't.
Windows 95 ran concurrent win 3.1 and DOS apps like shit. But I guess you forgot that.
Re:I look just like Buddy Holly (Score:2, Informative)
Edie Brickell's Good Times, Bad Times.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:5, Informative)
I kid you not. This played a huge part in the anti-trust lawsuit, and it's well-documented historical fact. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/368660.stm [bbc.co.uk]
So, I wish your buddy could have continued throwing OS/2 in your face, because today we could definitely do with a bit more competition in the OS department.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:4, Informative)
You are right that OS/2 was way better than Win 95. However, IBM was always on board. It was Microsoft who sabotaged OS/2. You do know that Microsoft wrote the original versions of OS/2? But at the same time, they were working on Windows 3.0. When it was released and got popular, they basically bailed on OS/2. And left IBM to clean up the mess that Microsoft had created. IBM had mostly rewritten it by 1996 when OS/2 Warp 4 came out. But by then, it was too late.
Re:"pre Internet Explorer integrated) Windows Exp" (Score:3, Informative)
after doing a quick google search i think this app is nowhere to be found
After doing my own quick google search I found a mirror of it on the first page of results here [easycommander.com].
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:5, Informative)
Win95 was 32-bit "OS" bolted on DOS. OS/2 was 32-bit from the ground up.
Argh, not this again. Windows 95 used DOS basically as a bootloader and not much else.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2007/12/24/6849530.aspx [msdn.com] (Even references Slashdot bait, thanks to myths perpetuated on here).
Once in protected mode, the virtual device drivers did their magic. Among other things those drivers did was "suck the brains out of MS-DOS," transfer all that state to the 32-bit file system manager, and then shut off MS-DOS.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I look just like Buddy Holly (Score:3, Informative)
Still available on Microsoft's FTP here: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/deskapps/games/public/AAS/Hover.exe [microsoft.com]
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:3, Informative)
It did, however, have a considerable amount of 16-bit code under the hood (to be fair, OS/2 was still running a 16-bit version of HPFS until version 4). Windows 95 was one big fat kludge, rushed out because MS was terrified that OS/2 was actually positioned to grab pack a substantial portion of the Windows market. It was an unstable monster, with horrible TCP/IP support. When they shipped Office 95, it too was basically a suite of 16-bit apps in a 32-bit wrapper, again, rushed out to keep WordPerfect and Lotus at bay. It wasn't until Windows 98 and Office 97 that things began to stabilize.
Chicago was a triumph of vaporware and kludgeware over actual 32-bit operating systems. Microsoft was pushing it even before it had a working OS. I remember some of the pro-Microsoft magazines showing artists renderings of Chicago a year or more before the actual product was released, whole articles dedicated to something that didn't yet exist.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:3, Informative)
Initially, the programs that each was able to run weren't that dissimilar. There wasn't that much real 32-bit software, so most used the Win32S extensions, and OS/2 did a fairly good job of keeping up with Microsoft's constant changing of that library for some time. I think OS/2 ended up stopping support with Win32S 1.25a or something ... Win32S 1.30 started using very high virtual addresses that OS/2 couldn't handle.
OS/2 came with a copy (or could use an existing copy) of Windows as its WinOS2 subsystem, it had a better virtual DOS machine than Windows 95 did for running/juggling DOS software, and both OS/2 and Win95 could reboot into a full DOS mode to run more difficult software (in OS/2's case, it was either a multiboot via Boot Manager to a real DOS, or you could set up a Dual Boot configuration where the boot sector was swapped on the fly in the same partition).
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell (Score:3, Informative)
If you followed the Microsoft anti-trust trial, you would know that at least part of the reason for this was the fact that Microsoft denied IBM a Windows 95 license until the very last minute because IBM wanted to load OS/2 on some of its boxes. At that point in time, Windows had a very strong presence in the market, and MS was able to apply a lot of pressure to PC makers ... even IBM.
FWIW, OS/2 1.x was a Microsoft-branded product for most of its life, and was somewhat crippled with the dated desktop and DOS "penalty box". Besides, IBM's push of OS/2 didn't start until the version 2.0 release in the spring of 1992.
I think you're addressing a niche product and not the OS/2 that made serious inroads into Microsoft's marketshare and mindshare for the better part of four years.
Re:Overly optimistic there... (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously? You don't remember the commercials with the Rolling Stones 'Start Me Up' playing while someone clicked on the start button?
Surely you at least remember the jokes that the second verse would have been more appropriate. (You, you, you make a grown man cry.)
Re:Revisionism (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft Windows 95 was released on August 24th, 1995.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/173161-48-windows-release-date [tomshardware.com]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/microsoft/stories/1995/debut082495.htm [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/dayintech_0824 [wired.com]
So, either all of those places (and a good chunk more) have been "fixed", or you're the one trying to change reality.