Slashdot Mirror
Windows 95 Turns 15
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.
I had a buddy back in 94/95 who was constantly throwing OS/2 in my face. Hey, look at all the Windows I can have open, look at my clean interface, look at how much faster and more stable this runs that your Win 3.11, look at all these DOS sessions open simultaneously!
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."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
I liked using Windows 95 over 98 because it rebooted much faster after bluescreening.
This space for rent.
I don't know who Roberto Sparese is, but I'm sure he'll get a few more hits to his Facebook account as other readers also wonder whether that was actually a little-known word and not just a typo.
P.S. Cute kitty, Roberto!
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?
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).
R.Mo
Windows 95 was a trully innovative operating system. It allowed the convenience of use normally afforded only to those who had bought a Mac since 1986.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
...yes.. I remember the technical strategy behind Windows 95. Since Windows NT required more hardware let's create a mediocre Windows until hardware gets cheap enough to put NT on every machine. (finally it was accomplished with Windows XP)
me too
get win98 or win98se and run ROM or ROM2se on it (ROM = Revenge of Mozilla) it is basically a tool that strips out IE & OE and the win98 windows explorer and replaces it with a hacked/patched win95 windows explorer, and it is much more stable than win95 & more stable than a stock win98/win98se (i have to say it makes the best win9x possible but the only caveat is any application that requires internet explorer will not function. but anything else works great.
after doing a quick google search i think this app is nowhere to be found, i bet i can dig up a copy on an old CD-r that i kept with lots of ancient third party applications for win9x
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
After so many years of Windows giving me an assfucking, now it's finally legal to... oh wait, one more year. Mustn't make that mistake again!
Oh noes, we're not taking over the world, our evil plan is foiled!
Surely, you don't really think that's what it's all about, do you? Who cares if Windows has more market share? The purpose of free software projects is to produce quality free software, and as long as we continue to do that we could care less whether more people are using it than the proprietary alternative.
Sorry, I call bullshit. A known issue, 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" :-)
Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule.
I've used 98lite back then. The full version can also remove other unwanted stuff.
I guess Microsoft didn't make enough money from it yet, because it will still have copyright protection for some 60 years.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I know someone who took a drink everytime W95 blue-screened. He died of liver damage in 97.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I was at Boeing back then. Everyone in engineering had Macs but the fix was in with Microsoft. W3.1 was judged unsuitable for use, so only a few poor suckers were stuck with that. We had a number of PCs running DOS. Great for lab use, as numerous ISA cards were avaiilable, or easily cobbled up by our technicians.
One day, the IT folks showed up and dropped a Dell 166 on my desk (between my Mac and X terminal). It only had a DOS command prompt, but the hardware guys assured me that the Windows guys would follow shortly with their install disks.
About 3 months later, this pig was still sitting there with nothing but a DOS command prompt staring back at me. The story was that initial W95 installs were proving to be a disaster and IT was in the process of staffing up to levels needed to support the platform. I went to my boss and told him, "While I'm waiting, there's this other system available now that I can load and try out. Its called Linux."
He said, "OK" and I've never looked back. Thank you Mr. Gates.
Have gnu, will travel.
My work Win 95 machine, in the 300MHz days, was coaxed into running for about 30 days without a reboot. By then it was unusable though, I remember icons on the screen all being corrupted, you could barely start any applications due to lack of resources. I can't remember if I purposefully rebooted it in the end, or if it crashed.
9x did not do stability, but it did mean that when sat in front of a 9x machine you wouldn't get stuck at the office late. 2 minutes before home time, a quick double ctrl-alt-del and it would be a case of "fucking Windows has crashed again. Oh well, might as well go home, 'cause I can do anything without the computer working". You can't get away with that any more, every day. Maybe once a month. The PHBs have wised-up to the fact that most computers don't appear to be as shit as they used to be. Windows is of course as shit as it used to be, just in different ways.
Just remembered another 95 PC in the same office, connected up to a client's network for support, that went really strange one day, the clock started going too quickly. I think it was going about 4 times faster than it should, and seeing the clock spinning too fast was utterly hilarious. The machine seemed to be working fine otherwise though. A reboot cleared it, and I never saw Windows do that again... that was the kind of craziness you got with 9x!.
Car analogies break down.
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.
Microsoft Windows 95 was released on August 24th, 1995.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/173161-48-windows-release-date
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/microsoft/stories/1995/debut082495.htm
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/dayintech_0824
So, either all of those places (and a good chunk more) have been "fixed", or you're the one trying to change reality.