Must Read: Apple to Congress: We do not use 'tax gimmicks'

Topic: Windows

Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

Summary: On the biggest day of his professional career, August 24, 1995, Bill Gates took center stage to introduce the world to Windows 95.

Andy Smith

By |

 |  Image 1 of 41

On the biggest day of his professional career, August 24, 1995, Bill Gates takes center stage to introduce the world to Windows 95. Remember, this launch was so big it helped make Gates the richest man in the world. Here's a look back at some of the features and headaches that made this product so memorable. Mary Jo Foley blogs her thoughts on Win 95's 15th anniversary and more Windows to come.

Photo and screenshot credits: Microsoft

  • Thumbnail 1
  • Thumbnail 2
  • Thumbnail 3
  • Thumbnail 4
  • Thumbnail 5
  • Thumbnail 6
  • Thumbnail 7
  • Thumbnail 8
  • Thumbnail 9
  • Thumbnail 10
  • Thumbnail 11
  • Thumbnail 12
  • Thumbnail 13
  • Thumbnail 14
  • Thumbnail 15
  • Thumbnail 16
  • Thumbnail 17
  • Thumbnail 18
  • Thumbnail 19
  • Thumbnail 20
  • Thumbnail 21
  • Thumbnail 22
  • Thumbnail 23
  • Thumbnail 24
  • Thumbnail 25
  • Thumbnail 26
  • Thumbnail 27
  • Thumbnail 28
  • Thumbnail 29
  • Thumbnail 30
  • Thumbnail 31
  • Thumbnail 32
  • Thumbnail 33
  • Thumbnail 34
  • Thumbnail 35
  • Thumbnail 36
  • Thumbnail 37
  • Thumbnail 38
  • Thumbnail 39
  • Thumbnail 40
  • Thumbnail 41

Topics: Windows, Operating Systems, Software

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

46 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

    You left out the blue screen of death
    AndyPagin
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

      @AndyPagin
      MS gets the blame - but the vast majority of problems were caused by 3rd party drivers and the applications that did not play well together.

      You can easily test: isntall a fresh copy of Windows. Install ONLY the application that crashed - and then see if it crashes. If it does not then neither Windows nor the application is at fault - but some OTHER application that was installed onto the system that caused the problem and MS got all the blame. Reason why MS came up with their testing lab and that companies must pay MS to run their app through MS labs to get its seal of approval.
      JUST LIKE APPLE does now.
      Course Apple does not have to support millions of applications and billions of possible hardware combinations that those applications run on. They choose the hardware and you get little to no customizations to meet your specific hardware needs at all.
      BTW, how many languages does the Apple OS come in? I've never seen that listed anywhere in how many different languages the whole OS menu system can be set to run under.
      TAPhilo
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

        @TAPhilo
        The idea that an entire operating system can be rendered permanently useless, with the only option being to re-install the whole lot because of something as trivial as a device driver fail is utterly unacceptable.
        AndyPagin
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

        @TAPhilo Many of the BSOD's were also actually hardware glitches.
        doctorx125
        Reply Vote

      • Not knowing your history..

        @TAPhilo - "The idea that an entire operating system can be rendered permanently useless, with the only option being to re-install the whole lot because of something as trivial as a device driver fail is utterly unacceptable. "

        Think of the year Windows 95 came out. You had the choice of that, OS/2, Apple System 7, AmigaDOS, a very rudimentary version of Linux, and DOS 6.. And that's if you really didn't care to get any real work done.. Try to get software, and you're suddenly left with Windows, DOS, and System 7, all of which were non-protected-mode operating systems, all VERY susceptible to crashing because of a bad device driver.
        daftkey
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

      @AndyPagin
      Tee hee giggle snort. If it's funny 300 times, it's sure to be funny 301 times!
      Loverock Davidson
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

        @Loverock Davidson <br>Quote:<br>"Here's a look back at some of the features and HEADACHES that made this product so memorable"<br><br>BSOD was a significant part of my Win95/98/2000 experience. In fact it was the single issue that made me switch to Linux.
        AndyPagin
        Reply Vote

    • why dont' you guys grow up

      @AndyPagin why don't people make such comments, after using it so long.
      jinishans
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

      Your wish is granted.
      andy.smith@...
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

        @andy.smith@... I wasn't the one who asked, but oh my, thank you. There are actually times I wish for the good ol' "blue screen of death." Like when help desk calls and asks if I can help with a user that their computer is randomly and frequently rebooting. Help desk fortunately had already done a little homework and so they had turned off the default "restart on crash" feature. Instant BSOD of death instead. I had help desk read me the error message we now got on that BSOD. I don't know much about BSOD but it gave us the clue immediately to the problem (faulty CD-ROM driver).
        dedrizen
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

    I got a copy of Windows 95 at a convention that was being sponsored by Microsoft. Microsoft was also handing out free software disks that were all infected with viruses (I think it was a game disk - forgot which game. I didn't get one of those, lucky me!)
    Carrion
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

    I purchased Win95. It was a piece of crap, but I needed it to stay current with Autocad. But what a piece of crap.
    chuckleberry
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

      @chuckleberry -- Yeah, why exactly? Or am I just feeding a troll? Obviously Windows 95 wasn't a failure as a product.
      avoidz
      Reply Vote

    • AutoCAD?

      @chuckleberry -

      If you need to "stay current" with AutoCAD, why weren't you running it under NT?
      daftkey
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

    One or another version of 95 came with this really nice pine forest through a window wallpaper. I wish MS would make it available again.
    Bill4
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

      @Bill4

      This one?

      http://members.multimania.nl/renrenren/forest.bmp
      Arphenion
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

    Where is the blue screen of death capture during the demo? That was what really made the demo famous.
    TorinZece
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

      @TorinZece

      I thought that was during a USB demo for Windows 98.
      RationalGuy
      Reply Vote

  • Win95-98 was actually quite stable

    I depended on what you ran on it but I often ran upwards of 32 applications simultaneously without issues. I remember lots of IT people in other companies complaining about crashes but I gave our 98 SOE a whole year of testing before I released it. It was very stable.
    gavin.bollard@...
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

      @gavin.bollard@...

      Win 95 was not nearly as stable as Win 98 SE. Of course, the original Win 98 release was pretty crappy, too.
      RationalGuy
      Reply Vote
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close