Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the biggest and most critical operating system release in computer history, Windows 95. Steve Jobs was in a difficult position after being fired from Apple. OS/2, the supposed successor to DOS/Windows, was not selling well, and DOS/Windows was now obsolete.
Then came the promise of Windows 95, and the year leading up to its release was a fantastic mix of media demonstrations, speculation, speculation, and excitement. In terms of excitement and demand, nothing that preceded the product came close to the levels we're talking about, and even after Windows 95 was released, only Apple was able to get the public to the same level of excitement – but not for an operating system, but for hardware .
The year Windows 95 became available to the public was a pivotal point in PC history that changed the market forever.
Microsoft's Windows 95 launch on August 24, 1995 was a highly anticipated one. Jay Leno took the stage to introduce the new software alongside Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates , with plenty of jokes and the entire Windows 95 development team appearing in front of the audience. It was a huge day for Microsoft, with TV ads blasting the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" with images of the new "Start" button we still use today.
Microsoft even hired Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry to create an hour-long online sitcom for Windows 95, and the software was so popular that 7 million copies were sold in the first five weeks.
PC users chose between Pentium or 486 processors, IDE or SCSI hard drives, double-speed CD-ROMs, and Sound Blaster sound cards to experience Windows 95 to its fullest. Microsoft added many features to Windows 95, but the biggest were a new Start button, menus, and taskbar that made it much easier to use to discover applications and navigate the operating system. The multitasking improvements and graphical interface were a big leap from Windows 3.1 and the MS-DOS days, but the UI was rather similar to that of the Macintosh and OS/2 at the time.
In addition to the 32-bit operating system, a major addition was support for long file names, up to 250 characters. It sounds like a basic feature in 2020, but at the time it made naming documents much easier. Another big feature was the introduction of Plug and Play, for automatically detecting and installing hardware. While the Plug and Play process has been greatly improved in more recent releases, the Windows 95 implementation is often referred to as “Plug and Pray” due to its often unreliable device installation process.
Microsoft had other equally ambitious plans for Windows 95. A new application for the Microsoft Network (MSN) was accompanied by a desktop icon. MSN was designed to provide access to email, chat rooms, newsgroups, and the early WWW homepages over a dial-up connection. Microsoft charged a monthly fee for access to MSN, and if you used it for more than three hours a month, there were additional charges.
Microsoft also introduced its first idea of syncing data between multiple computers in Windows 95. "My Briefcase" aimed to sync files between a laptop and a desktop computer, while in modern versions of Windows, everything is backed up by the cloud thanks to OneDrive .
Microsoft even introduced user profile support in Windows 95 to allow multiple family members to log in and have their own separate profiles with shortcuts and applications. If you weren't happy with all the new features of Windows 95, you could purchase Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95. It included the Internet Jumpstart Kit (an early version of Internet Explorer), theme support, and a number of system utilities.
Later updates to the operating system also introduced new features until Windows 98 came along three years later to improve things even further.
