VOTW: Every Major Windows Upgrade On Video

[joelmartinez]

interesting

 

[kilo_17]

That was a good video

 

[the_brute]

windows haters can your OS do that? (although I do use Fedora too)

 

[agnickolov]

While they are all named Windows, there are in fact two distinct OS lines that have been developed at Microsoft. Windows 1.0 through 3.11 were never really OSes in the first place - these were graphical DOS shells. Windows 95 finally merged DOS with Windows into a cohesive OS, along with all the deficiencies of the by then venerable 16-bit DOS (the Windows kernel was in fact partly 16-bit, partly 32-bit). This OS line continued through to Windows ME. Considering the progression from Windows 1.0-3.11 line, the choice of Windows 2000 as the stepping upgrade to Windows XP is extremely odd - that OS belongs to the completely unrelated Windows NT OS line. This consumer Windows OS line was thankfully finally terminated with the Windows ME release. Enter Microsoft's premier business OS line - Windows NT. Initially released as version NT 3.1 in 1993, it progresses through NT 3.5, NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 (NT 5.0). Finally, Windows XP (NT 5.1) merges the consumer-oriented features of Windows ME thus finally signing the death sentence for the DOS/Windows line. We've since witnessed Windows Vista (NT 6.0) and Windows 7 (NT 6.1). To keep things interesting, Microsoft actually spun a new OS line after Windows XP - for server installations (it's been in existence since early Windows NT really, but with Windows XP came the divorce in names). We've had Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 released so far (with Windows Server 2011 coming soon).

Observant readers might have noticed a development cycle in Windows NT OSes somewhat reminiscent of Intel's tick-tock cycle of architecture changes and die shrinks. In Microsoft's case these are major feature development and polishing. Unsurprisingly, the major feature releases aren't popular and considered by the mass public as flops - Windows 2000, Windows Vista. In contrast, the minor version releases (Windows XP, Windows 7) have become very popular. If Microsoft keeps this development philosophy (I hope they don't...), the next consumer version of Windows is bound to be another public disappointment.

 

[ProDigit10]

[citation][nom]thomaseron[/nom]I've been thinking about installing Windows 95 on my SSD, just for the fun of it. 🙂 The whole operating system is like 150-200 MB in size when installed, and my SSD averages on about 150MB per second in readspeed...[/citation]
I was thinking of installing my version of Win98Se, but it seems that I'm going to have difficulties finding all the necessary programs, like winzip won't open any more modern compressed files, the browser will be limited to FireFox 2.20 (unless you want the very old IE6).
I think if it wasn't for firefox win95 and nt, and anything before that won't be able to go online!

 

[iamtheking123]

[citation][nom]CKKwan[/nom]Regretablely, Win7 removed the support of classic Start Menu, and that stops me from upgrading[/citation]
+1 and the general arrogance of not allowing you to change anything to how you want it.

 

[g00ey]

[citation][nom]agnickolov[/nom]Windows babble[/citation]
I like your post agnickolov! If we shall confuse things a little more we also have the 64bit versions of Windows XP. The WinXP x64 is based on Windows 2003 Server x64 but is pretty much the same as WinXP professional.
When it comes to Microsoft's new iteration it probably is likely to be a flop, at least initially, even Steve Ballmer has admitted that the Windows 8 is a very risky project. My suspicions are that they are going to try to conceive an OS that is tightly integrated with an AppStore like entity very much like the package managers in Linux but with software that you pay for and an integrated online based license management. I believe that their ultimate intention is that software such as MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite, 3DStudio, Steinberg Cubase, Autodesk AutoCAD/Inventor/Solidworks/..., Catia etc are to be sold and distributed through their "AppStore" where licenses, bug reports and updates are managed. They might also lean towards something cloudish with their "Microsoft Azure" framework but I don't think the customer base will be ready for such a thing during the next 5-10 years. To provide e.g. video editing software as a cloud based service requires an infrastructure with a level of reliability that is not likely to be achieved anytime soon.

 

[eddieroolz]

I still remember Windows 95. Maybe I'll play with it in a VM.