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It was twenty years ago yesterday (August 24, 2015) that Windows 95 was introduced, says El Reg.
Windows 95 was a great success, despite not being the most stable of operating systems. Microsoft's own Windows NT 3.1, released two years earlier, was built on stronger foundations, but high system requirements and lack of compatibility with many DOS applications and games made it unsuitable for consumers. Windows 95 was better in both respects, running in as little as 4MB of RAM – though painfully, with 8MB a more realistic minimum – and retaining DOS complete with 16-bit device driver support.
At the time, most PCs ran Windows 3.1 or 3.11 (Windows for Workgroups), and IBM was pushing OS/2 as a "better Windows than Windows". Windows 95 was a considerable improvement on Windows 3.x, with pre-emptive multitasking, mostly 32-bit code, and plug and play hardware detection. There was also new support for "portable computers", with a battery indicator on the taskbar and the ability to suspend the system without turning it off completely.
Perhaps what I'm going to say will be controversial, but I'm of the opinion that Windows 95 is the greatest software engineering feat ever, given the challenge Microsoft faced at that time. Unlike Apple, which continues to make its own computers, Microsoft did not and, therefore, had to do a vast amount of testing in order to ensure that Windows 95 would work on most existing 32-bit Intel machines.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday August 25 2015, @03:25PM
Except the two that won the market: drivers and software support...
Oh, and that pesky "installed for you at the PC's factory" stroke of genius.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @07:16PM
Is that what you call it when someone breaks the law?
It has long been in the law that it is a criminal act to specify that *you must buy this in order to get that*. [google.com]
The fact that that law isn't enforced demonstrates that the Facists have complete control of the system.
One Microsoft Way reminds me of a great scene with Jack Nicholson's character, Bobby Dupea, trying to order the meal he wants. [google.com]
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Five_Easy_Pieces#Dialogue [wikiquote.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday August 25 2015, @09:45PM
Remember the legal technicality "if you do not agree with the EULA, do not use it and you can return it"?
I did not specify the kind of Genius involved. I just pointed out that Mr Gates wasn't just enjoying sheer dumb luck.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 25 2015, @10:32PM
yep, tried this once, Seems that if I wanted to return the operating system, I was required to return the laptop it was installed on as well! So, yes, illegal conspiracy and collusion. Micro$oft single-handedly set back computing tech by at least 20 years.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mojo chan on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:32AM
While I agree that it's annoying to be forced to buy Windows with many new PCs, I can also understand why shops are so reluctant to sell machines without an OS. I used to work in one, and while we did sell machines sans-OS we also had quite a lot of people complain that their new PC didn't work and then get upset when told it would cost then an extra £65 for Windows, as if we were trying to scam them by advertising an incomplete machine to make it look cheap and competitive with Dell.
Even when you did sell them a machine with Windows on it they would complain that Word and Excel were not there. A lot of people just assumed that MS Office was part of Windows. I mean, what use is a PC that you can't write letters on? It's a basic feature of computers, right? So we put Open Office on as standard, and Chrome so that they were not infected within moments of going online. People still didn't get it though, until we started renaming the OO apps to "Word" and "Excel", and the Chrome icon to "Internet". Seriously.
Sadly people buying computers more often than not just expect Windows and Office to be there. That's what a computer is to them, Windows and Office.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @07:54PM
So then, giving a customer a plastic disk (or a thumbdrive) which contains an OS that can be booted to a completely usable desktop--including dozens or even hundreds of useful apps like an office suite--and configuring the machine being sold so that by default it will go to that drive (or port) and present that usable desktop sounds quite useful.
The fact that it will display an INSTALL THIS TO YOUR HARD DRIVE icon on the desktop also sounds quite useful.
The fact that the customer can go back to that plastic disk|thumbdrive and still get online to go to your company's site, or the hardware manufacturer's site, or the distro's help forum, or elsewhere EVEN WHEN "THE COMPUTER IS BROKEN" also sounds quite useful.
Now, throw in the fact that that wonderfully useful OS costs $0.
Now, preinstall the $0 OS.
In contrast, the installation of a stripped-down payware EULAware MICROS~1 OS sounds quite lame.[1]
The fact that Redmond makes things purposely difficult WRT their install media so that you won't pirate their wares compounds the lameness.
...and in recent years M$ was giving incentives to whitebox builders to NOT include install media AT ALL with a hardware sale.
I understand that M$ has finally achieved what they consider to be Nirvana WRT to that no-install-media-included paradigm.
To me, that's the ultimate in lameness.
The reason vendors stick with M$ is the opportunity to upsell (stuff like anti-virus and other payware apps).
...and with Windoze there's even more money to be made on service calls after the warranty expires and Windoze continues to crap itself or the Malware Magnet gets infected again and again.
.
...and, after the court case where MSFT was prosecuted for requiring that whitebox vendors pay for a copy of Windoze for every box that vendor shipped--even when Redmond's OS wasn't installed on that box, vendors started offering the customer actual options like just shipping a $0 FreeDOS disk with the hardware.
You're going to have a hard time convincing me that The M$ Way is superior compared to the $0 software which has been available to whitebox vendors for many many years.
As has already been said, M$ set back personal computing for decades.
[1] ...and years ago when the EU court mandated that customers be given a choice of browsers, MANY folks chose to avoid the MICROS~1 app.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by hamsterdan on Wednesday August 26 2015, @01:43AM
That and the fact it ran 3.x apps so well, writers had no incentive of building both a W95 *AND* OS/2 version. (that and it required a beefier machine than W95)