Windows 95 – 20 years old today

Windows 95 released on 24 August 1995, was a big change from Windows 1.x, 2.x and 3.x – it was the end of Windows running over MS-DOS and the beginning of a complete operating system.

I still remember the excitement of this new 32-bit operating system based on NT 4.0 and installing it from 13, 3.5” floppy disks. That was relatively painless – Microsoft Office at that time had something like 20 separate floppies and often fell over during install.

It was the defining moment for Windows and its look and feel – design cues – carried right through to Windows 7 released in July 2009. These included the task bar, Start menu, and general use of multiple Windows for different tasks.