Windows 95 released 17 years ago today

Windows 95 was arguably make or break for Microsoft, and today we celebrate the date in which it was released seventeen years ago.

The iconic clouds startup screen.

Seventeen years ago today Windows 95 was released to the public to major fanfare and success, this success also brought an antitrust case against Microsoft for bundling Internet Explorer 4.0 with a later service release of Windows 95.

Windows 95 integrated Microsoft's formerly separate MS-DOS and Windows products. It featured significant improvements over its predecessor, Windows 3.1, most notably in the graphical user interface (GUI) and in its relatively simplified "plug-n-play" features. There were also major changes made at lower levels of the operating system, such as moving from a mainly 16-bit architecture to a pre-emptively multitasked 32-bit architecture.

Welcome indeed.

In the marketplace, Windows 95 was a major success, and shortly became the most popular desktop operating system. It was also suggested it had the effect of driving other major players (including OS/2) out of business, something which would later be used in court against Microsoft.

Depending on how you look at it, there were six major updates to Windows 95 between 1996 and 1997 which included both Service Packs and Service Releases, this excludes the Windows 95 Plus! Pack that was released on the same day as Windows 95.

Three years later Windows 98 succeeded it; but I think we can all agree that Windows 95 started a PC revolution, and for that we can be thankful --or not, depending on which way you swing.

Windows 95 is unsupported as of December 31, 2001, but anyway;