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Windows 95 Turns 15

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-remember-when dept.

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.

9 of 461 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell by Corporate+Troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, but OS/2 was still way better than Win95. Win95 was 32-bit "OS" bolted on DOS. OS/2 was 32-bit from the ground up. The Windows of today has more in common with OS/2 than it has with Windows 95.

  2. I look just like Buddy Holly by Enderwiggin13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think one of my favorite things about Windows 95 was the music video for Weezer's Buddy Holly on the install disc.

    --
    This sig is in another castle.
  3. "turns 15"? by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I could imagine using this sort of anthropomorphisation for a product that was still active, I think Windows 95 is dead.

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  4. Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your buddy was right and you still are clueless.
    OS/2 was a much better OS than Windows 95. It had a better UI, it was a lot more stable, and was really a very modern OS.
    There are still some knowledgeable companies that are just now migrating the last of their systems off of OS/2

    Windows 95 was cheap. That was it's only real benefit. I hate to say it but the terms arrogant and ass would seem to bet apply to you and not your friend.
    That and Microsoft got the hardware manufactures to install it. Had IBM gotten everybody on board with OS/2 it would have one. In this case it was all marketing and you bought it.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  5. Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell by niks42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh, trust me we did work hard with OS/2 preloads to try to convince people that it was a good platform, but ultimately we lost out to a better, meaner, more willing to do the unethical and probably illegal, marketing machine.

  6. Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Windows 95 was cheap. That was it's only real benefit.

    Yeah, apart from the single most important one - it ran more things that people wanted to run.

  7. Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Study what makes an OS popular? It's already been done. Those exclusive contracts that Bill Gates got from all the vendors did it. One doesn't even need to look at any other of Gates unfair trade practices. There came a point where any vendor HAD to be able to offer MS - and Gates insisted that if they sold MS, they could ONLY sell MS.

    A few other little tricks reinforced those exclusive contracts - like donating a few million computers to high schools and colleges, so that students were indoctrinated into the Microsoft way of doing things. But, those contracts are the numero uno prime reason for MS "popularity".

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  8. Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell by recoiledsnake · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What was wrong with DOS as the bootloader? The upside is that single user DOS mode could be used as a recovery console, even allowing you to run DOS based applications without loading the full Windows.

    --
    This space for rent.
  9. Win95 seemed promising at first, but then... by FridayBob · · Score: 4, Insightful
    • CPU and memory requirements were so much higher, that you basically needed a brand new machine to run it.
    • Because of the registry, it was no longer possible to copy a program to another machine by simply copying a particular directory structure and a few .ini files. For M$, of course, this was the entire point. Unfortunately...
    • Because the registry was so easily corruptible, people who used it would regularly see their machine's performance drop and/or encounter regular lock-ups and blue screens, and subsequently find themselves spending hours reinstalling everything. It was no longer possible to fix things by modifying a few .ini files with a text editor.
    • Because of the registry, which would quickly grow beyond the size of a 1.44 MB floppy disk, the only real backups possible were disk-image backups.
    • Because the registry could so easily be exploited, the number of species of computer viruses exploded. Without that, the virus industry would certainly not be as successful as it is today.
    • Because of the registry, it could become next to impossible to get certain complicated machines, particularly fancy laptops, to work properly after installing all of the necessary drivers.
    • It would not lend itself to the simple remote boot method that was previously so popular with Win311 (well, I do know of one NetWare shop that actually managed this feat anyway, but it was very complex). For many of us who thought we had things licked, this made network maintenance an order of magnitude more complicated.

    At the time may career as a NetWare sysadmin was just taking off, so it was another six years before I made the switch to Linux, but for me Win95 marked the beginning of the end of my belief in proprietary software.