Happy Birthday: Windows turns 25 today

Emil

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Today, on November 20, 2010, Microsoft Windows turns 25 years old. On November, 20 1985, Microsoft released Windows 1.0, a 16-bit graphic user environment that was considered to be state-of-the-art at the time. In the two and a half decades that followed, Microsoft became one of the wealthiest companies in the world as Windows turned into the de facto operating system installed on over 90 percent of computers worldwide.

Windows 1.0 fit on just two double-sided floppy disks and needed 256K of RAM (512K if you wanted to run more than one program at a time). It wasn't until Windows 3.0 that the operating system really started to take off, but this is where it all began:

Here's a timeline for the releases of Microsoft Windows operating systems:

  • Windows 1.0: November 20, 1985
  • Windows 2.0: December 9, 1987
  • Windows 2.10: May 27, 1988
  • Windows 2.11: March 13, 1989
  • Windows 3.0: May 22, 1990
  • Windows 3.1: April 6, 1992
  • Windows for Workgroups 3.1: October 27, 1992
  • Windows NT 3.1: July 27, 1993
  • Windows for Workgroups 3.11: November 8, 1993
  • Windows NT 3.5: September 21, 1994
  • Windows NT 3.51: May 30, 1995
  • Windows 95: August 24, 1995
  • Windows NT 4.0: August 24, 1996
  • Windows 98: June 25, 1998
  • Windows 98 SE: May 5, 1999
  • Windows 2000: February 17, 2000
  • Windows Me: September 14, 2000
  • Windows 2000 Advanced/Datacenter Server Limited Edition: August 29, 2001
  • Windows XP: October 25, 2001
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition: October 31, 2002
  • Windows Server 2003: April 24, 2003
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004: September 30, 2003
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005: October 12, 2004
  • Windows XP Professional x64 Edition: April 25, 2005
  • Windows Fundamentals (for Legacy PCs): July 8, 2006
  • Windows Vista (for Business use): November 30, 2006
  • Windows Vista (for Home use): January 30, 2007
  • Windows Home Server: November 7, 2007
  • Windows Server 2008: February 27, 2008
  • Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: October 22, 2009

The software giant has managed to sell 240 million copies of the latest version of its client operating system, Windows 7. The company is just starting to push its new mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7, but the sales are nowhere near the same level.

Let us end by saying a "Happy Birthday!" to Microsoft. May the next 25 years of computing be just as exciting as the world goes mobile.

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Happy Birthday WIndows! Hope the future releases keep getting better abd better. I hope that in 25-years we will look back at windows 7 and laugh about how we thought it was a great operating system with great features, in the same way we look at windows 1.0 now
 
Happy Birthday too!! After 25 you lose the magic as you are approaching the 30s, then in the 40s you lose your head, and from them on you are just a grumpy old chap that only remembers the good old time on the early 20s, XP come back!!!
 
Happy birthday, Windows! I agree with Uvindu, just wait until Windows 7 becomes as primitive as Windows 1.0 is now. :D
 
Happy 1/4 Century Birthday, Windows, I first used Windows 3.0 on a Gateway 2000 standlone desktop pc many many moons ago, keep up the great work.
 
Man, all those bright and exotic colors they used back in the day. lol
 
Been with Windows since 3.0, a bumpy ride...
3.0 glitches, 3.11 was the best of that OS
95 had glitches...98SE was the best of that version
XP, for me was rock solid
Vista...well, let's just say it was different.
Win7, it's like a toaster oven, it just works.
 
Happy birthday MS been a long ride, you have changed the face or maybe the entire world with your Products and thats not an overstatement.
 
Uvindu said:
I hope that in 25-years we will look back at windows 7 and laugh about how we thought it was a great operating system with great features

In 25 years, I think, humanity will be discovering bronze (again, maybe) ...
 
neoflux said:
captaincranky said:
Are you sure you don't mean stone tools?

rock does not need to be discovered because rock will never die ...

(If) The world ends in 2012
Everything is destroyed, the planet has disintegrated
It will take thousands of years for there to be a new planet with just the right conditions
Then once there is a planet with perfect condition, life will start in the sea and slowly evolve over thousands of years
Finally there will be humans and then after a while we will discover bronze and etc etc

So in 25 years, now that I thought about it, there will be *drum roll*
...

DUST! :)

That's only if 2012 happens though. (Sorry to go off topic)
 
Thank you Microsoft for making me a smarter person. On my 9th PC build. Favorite build was 98. Least favorite was Millennium. Win7 rocks.
 
Interesting take Emil, reminded me how much I disliked Windows 1.0, not until Windows 3.1 came along when I truly switched from DOS (not that it went away obviously). At least it was slightly more reliable than the only Mac I ever used in those days which would breakdown for no apparent reason every few weeks. Although it (Win 3.x) had its own quirks, e.g. installing sound card or even mouse could turn out to be a real hassle, but once you got over these it wasn't a bad OS (if one can call it) at all at that time.

On a side note, I don't believe in Nostradamus's rubbish, there are better things to spend your time on than wasting it on reading his hallucinations.
 
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