Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Happy 30th Birthday, Windows!

Posted by timothy on from the and-all-I've-done-for-want-of-wit dept.

v3rgEz writes: And what a ride it's been. Today marks the 30th anniversary since the debut of Windows 1.01, the first commercial release of Windows. At the time, it was derided as being slow, buggy, and clunky, but since then ... Well, it looks a lot better. .The Verge has a pictorial history of Windows through the years. What's your fondest memory of Bill Gates Blue Screen-of-death that could?

7 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This is not something to commemorate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And yet has become the most used, most useful operating system in the world. Shut up.

  2. 2003, their high water mark, pre-Ballmer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Every desktop software they have made has been terrible since Ballmer arrived. We all know about Vista, 8.0, 8.1 and now spyware 10.0. Windows 7 is a buggy mess with horrible random Clippies imposed on the end users (Libraries? Really?) And Microsoft hasn't made good office software since Office 2003. Their design choices since then, starting with the ribbon, have been ridiculous.

    Satya Nadella promises new Microsoft software we will all love, but so far it's all detestable. Ballmer ruined that company. Nadella has a loong way to go to bring it back to the point where its software is at least at the level of unobjectionable, never mind loving it.

  3. Not most used, sorry by raymorris · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There are more Linux devices in the world than Windows devices, and the gap is growing quickly. Perhaps you're thinking of which operating system is popular on general-purpose consumer devices only. Gartner reports than in 2014, 14% of general computing devices purchased ran Windows, while 49% run Android.

    For about another month, until Christmas, you CAN make the following claim;
    In English speaking countries, during work hours Monday through Friday, the majority of web surfing is on Windows. Android is the most popular on weekends, and after the another few million Android devices are unwrapped on Christmas morning it may beat Windows during work hours too.

    1. Re:Not most used, sorry by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyone who calls a phone or tablet a "general computing device" in an effort to lump them in with actual PCs is a fucking tool seeking to sell data and analysis to a bunch of MBAs.

      Oh, you DID say it was Gartner, carry on then.

  4. Don't diss it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows has a long and sordid history, with predatory business practices at the front of our minds, and there have been shithouse editions of Windows. But if I met the engineers and others who pulled together Windows 95, Windows XP or Windows 7 I would shake their hands as vigorously as I would those of a Linux kernel maintainer.

  5. The Ribbon is functionally limited by CrashNBrn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While the Ribbon interface is somewhat functional, it is limited compared to what it is replacing.
    * The Ribbon interface replaces both toolbars and drop-down menus.
    ----> The Ribbon interface is not as complete as the drop-down menu's.
    ----> The Ribbon interface is basically not customizable.
    ----> The Ribbon interface takes up more space than multiple toolbars and a menu-bar.
    ----> The Ribbon interface is limited to one "topic" available to use at any given time,
    whereas:
    ---> Toolbars could have multiple different toolbars on-screen at any given time.
    ---> Toolbars could be docked to different locations on the window: sides, top, bottom. ---> Toolbars could be UNdocked, and displayed outside of a given window.

  6. Re:This is not something to commemorate. by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Windows was and is a tragic waste of time and money."

    Not so. It is now providing work for a second generation of IT specialists.