Screenshot History of Windows

jobugeek writes "Neowin has an article that shows the progression of Microsoft Windows from pre-windows 1.0 through the 2003 server. For those of you who have used all of them, I'm sorry."

Yechh...

[DoctorFrog]

You don't appreciate how ugly the standard Windows colors are without this kind of perspective.

A crowd Pleaser

[Anonymous Coward]

What they need is a history of windows blue screens....and photos of frustrated 4th year students who lose 3 hours worth of work, 2 hours before there final papers are due.

You know who you are!

I remember most of those screens

[MonkeyPaw]

I still have install disks for Windows 3.0.

Seveal years back I tried to uncover some from Windows 1 and 2 but could never track them down.

I have a softspot in my heart for early windows...

Then again, when Windows 1 through 3 were out, I was on Apples, Amiga and my trusty TI-99.

It only goes as far as 3.11

[Anonymous Coward]

After that, the /. effect kicked in, and so I have no proof that any more windozes exist

(in denial)

Windows just gets uglier

[Xpilot]

It was ugly before, then came Win95/98, which made everything an acceptable shade of grey.

Then came the awful, awful WinXP interface which inspires my stomach to empty its contents every time my eyes are exposed to the neon primary color mix that comes as the default.

I'm sure many Windows XP fans will reply saying I can theme/skin the thing, but for all the billions in the bank and all the money M$ supposedly spent on testing the interface, that was the best default they could come up with? And people complain that Linux GUI's suck... sheesh.

NonBloated

[questamor]

Hey, at least the bloat hadn't yet set in. I have a few versions of Windows archived away here just because they don't take up too much room.

Win 1.0 is a 244k zip file.

Win 2.0 really went overkill and that's where the bloat set in I'm afraid. 667kb. What do people need all that for anyway?

They missed one

[traskjd]

Ignoring the fact I made this (mod it down if that's a problem - I don't mind) I think they missed one of the screen shots of early windows -

A never released version of windows* [traskmicrosystems.com]

*of maybe it was - you decide :D

Well aint it just typical...

[guran]

I got to Win 3.1 and then the server refused to serve me anymore.

You may call it slashdotting, but I say BLAME WINDOWS!

(Or perhaps it was just emulating the slow release process of Win -95)

Sorry?!!?

[Anonymous Coward]

"For those of you who have used all of them, I'm sorry." Has it ever dawned to you that some people actually like using Windows??? Not everyone is a Microsoft bashing Linux freak like you Michael.

Re:A crowd Pleaser

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Wow, people manage to get to their 4th year (of anything that requires even incidental use of Windows) without developing an I - must - press - Ctrl-S - every - 15 - seconds reflex?

Re:windoze schmidoze

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, from these pictures, I can't tell the difference between 1.0 to 2003.

Re:A crowd Pleaser

[BWJones]

What they need is a history of windows blue screens....and photos of frustrated 4th year students who lose 3 hours worth of work, 2 hours before there final papers are due.

Yeah, it went beep beep bee...... Oh, Never mind. I've switched already.

heh. slashdotted already

[devlogic]

22 comments on the story, and the site is already experiencing the full force of the /. effect. I wonder what OS that server's running? Oh. [netcraft.com] Well, that blows my theory out of the water.

You know, this was a lot funnier BEFORE I went to netcraft.

Re:Windows just gets uglier

[Rew190]

Then came the awful, awful WinXP interface which inspires my stomach to empty its contents every time my eyes are exposed to the neon primary color mix that comes as the default.

Yes, time and time again has shown that your average user doesn't like flashy colors and gimics such as transparent cases and such...

Oh wait.

Re:Windows just gets uglier

[inkswamp]

I like to think of it as the Fisher-Price interface. Big, primary-colored, rounded, and plastic--just perfect for users prone to poking their eyes out on sharp edges.

See... eventually, the Windows user experience will look a little something like this [fisherprice.com]

Re:A crowd Pleaser

[BWJones]

What they need is a history of windows blue screens....and photos of frustrated 4th year students who lose 3 hours worth of work, 2 hours before there final papers are due.

Seriously though, I remember working on our Token-Ring (or whatever it was) equipped early Wintel based systems at the library on papers (before I bought my first Macintosh), and someone would yell, "MY Computer crashed!". And then everyone would frantically be saving their files to disk before the crash propegated itself through the network systematically crashing everyone's computer. The entire network would then have to be rebooted and God help the poor soul who had submitted his paper to the print que without saving it.

OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

I was using OS/2 during that whole sordid Windows thing. Sure I've seen Windows, but I never inhaled. I never saw the point in Windows; still don't. I'll admit to exchanging blow jobs with some of my buddies when I was 14, but I'll never admit to using any MS product except NT4 at work ( unplesent duty, that).

from the article

[smylie]

In regards to windows 1.0:
It took 55 programmers one year to develop this program.

And 500 slashdotters 20 minutes to overload neowin's server looking at screenshots of an OS we all supposedly loath . . .

Re:A crowd Pleaser

[el_flynn]

Well, if it's history you want, then this screen [neowin.net] has got to be the granddaddy of them all. Now we all know where the BSOD get its start from... dang, it's been around since the 2.0 days!!!

Most popular app

[mabu]

I think it's quite telling that for several years the biggest-selling and most popular application for Windows was what?

A screen saver! (After Dark)

Re:Damn

[tulare]

Sure. Take a square. Make it just a tad darker than sky blue. Now put a grey bar at the bottom, with a crappy logo on the left and the word Start. (remember, you have to Start before you can Shut Down)

You will also notice a funny-looking lower-case 'e' somewhere. This is special software for your computer. Very special. Time-warp forward about three months. The blue square is now an annoying set of green tiles with gold trim, or a wierdly-distorted picture of someone's wife and kids. But it doesn't really matter because just about all you can see are random icons scattered haphazardly all over the place. Most of them came as a result of the funny 'e' software, and they are named things like "pics.scr" and "Brittney_SPears.mp3.exe. None of them do anything when you click on them, so you naturally download another to see if you can make that one work, too. But I digress...

Pretty much, that's the look of the thing after 3.1, at least until XP. To get a picture of XP in your head, you first have to be familiar with the gumdrop look of Mac OS X, which came before XP. Then, while holding the OS X desktop in your mind, send in some Tellytubbies, and have them run around, say gibberish, point to their belly buttons, and while they're at it, customize the desktop and control buttons very slightly to suit their own, um, needs. That's Windows XP, in a nutshell.

The preceeding comments were brought to you by the letter G and the Number 3.

Burned-in pattern

[SgtChaireBourne]

Wow, people manage to get to their 4th year (of anything that requires even incidental use of Windows) without developing an I - must - press - Ctrl-S - every - 15 - seconds reflex?

I haven't used MS-Windows/MS-Office in years and I still have the reflex to hit Ctrl-S at the end of each sentence or any time I pause for a moment while typing.

Usually, I catch it in time to abstract it to "Save" and use the correct short cut. But being a reflex it unfortunately still kicks in sometimes as Ctrl-S ... even in Bash or vi.

Can someone post the keygen for Windows 1.0? PLZ

[teamhasnoi]

Oh wait, that *is* Windows 1.0.

Ah, the days before bloat.

Re:The lies prepetuated

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, sorry. Windows 9x is still DOS with a quick switch over to the graphical shell.

It's a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit extension to an 8-bit operating system originally written for a 4-bit microprocessor by a 2-bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition.

What about Bob?

[peatbakke]

I mean, really. It was supposed to be a revolutionary interface!

this is like one of those TV flashbacks

[tankdilla]

Seeing the old Windows 3.10 startup screen brought me back to when I got my first computer, and the Windows 3.1 splash screen booted up. It was Christmas morning and I was a young lad. This was a really big thrill, being the first kid on the block with a computer. After the splash screen, there was some setup screen for some program that was preinstalled. After filling in the information, I clicked the Next button and waited for more magic to happen. I waited...and waited....and waited....then my father pushed ctrl+alt+del, and up pops my very first blue screen of death! It rudely told me it was busy and commenced to spit floppy disks out of the disk drive at me. I went to bed crying and terrified of the computer, and never touched another computer again after that.

the end.

just kidding, actually my father reinstalled the system, and eventually we got it working.

Re:It only goes as far as 3.11

[yobbo]

Well, thanks to slashdotting, the whole site is down (for me at least).

Pretty accurate portrayal of the windows legacy IMO.

Re:A crowd Pleaser

[jez9999]

Hahahaha...

As i'm typing now, the guy next to me's Word 2002 just crashed on Windows XP, with his computing coursework in it! Looks like it's still happening today :-)

Re:Progression

[mccalli]

Hammers haven't changed much since the days of Thor, although they've evolved a bit.

Nonsense. Hammers aren't a bit like they were in Thor's day. Thor's hammer was able to fly and respond to commands, whereas all today's junk can do is hit things.

Pah. They don't make 'em like they used to...

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Progression

[yaba]

There's been no real revolution since win95... just evolution.

Yes, and as we all know Evolution is a Linux application ;-)

Re:Progression

[miffo.swe]

Heh!

You have obviuosly never ever used a pneumatic hammer with 100 nail magazine!

I used one when i built my house and it saved me both thumbs and half the time.

Maybe windows is the (sigh, spelling sucks) equivalent (did i get that right?) of an old hammer and the rest of us is waiting and working towards the pneumatic hammer?

(then again i have rarely seen a hammer fail as often as windows. Come to think of it, Microsoft is to windows what a hammer is to glass!

Novell

[linzeal]

Novell was an evil mistress back than, it was like the mature lady down the street propogating herpes to every yound lad willing and able.

Re:Burned-in pattern

[parliboy]

I've been going in the other direction. I've gotted so used to Ctrl-W in Pico for searching, that when I'm in IE, I do it instead of Ctrl-F, and end up closing my window.

Re:2003 server

[robbieduncan]

Also note on the Windows Server 2003 page they talk about the release like it already happened. They say it was release on 24 April 2003. Do they have a time machine? It's still March here. They also say that Server 2003 was the best MS OS ever. How can they know?

/. anti-Windows bigotry?

[Malc]

"For those of you who have used all of them, I'm sorry."

Errr, why? Not half as sorry as I feel for those who've used X11 since the beginning. Ever got stuck with TWM or FVMW (feeble virtual window manager) or OpenLook? They give me the shudders just thinking of them! FVWM even had a Win95 look on my Slackware distro back in the mid-90's. The difference between them is that you're increasingly unlikely to see older Windows UIs, yet the crap old X11 ones are still active today. My XFree86 under Windows/Cygwin comes with TWM, and I had to suffer TWM on my Linux box the other day when I was compiling a newer version of KDE. Ugh!

Fun Game - aftermarket metaphores

[ch-chuck]

Here's a fun game to play - think of all the aftermarket 'fixes' for Winblow$ and the marketing metaphore. For example:

1) First Aid - Windows is a sick person hemorraging blood and needs 'first aid' while waiting for the 'doctor' or ambulance. It is also succeptible to 'viruses' and diseases. Adherents to this metaphone often say, "My computer is sick!"

2) Oil Change - Windows is an automobile that need regular perodic 'maintenance', as if there were metal parts in there rubbing together and need lubricant. They also often need a cheap muffler, tire rotation, etc. See Also "Tune Up". Adherents to this metaphone say their computer is "In the shop" being repaired, or "Hey Jim! Put 'er up on the rack again - the transmission's still acting up!".

3) Power Tools - Windows is a decrepit old house that just needs a little 'fixing up' and 'sweat equity' to fix the drafty windows, broken stair steps, etc. This metaphore suggests a 'do it yourself' person more willing to tinker with their system than the Sick Human or Broken Automobile metaphore, who must call a Dr. or mechanic. But sometimes users of 'power tools' just make things worse and have to call in a 'contractor' to reinstall a whole new house.

To sum it all up:

[Biomechanoid]

Blue screen of birth [toastytech.com]

Blue screen of death [bysoft.se]

Re:A crowd Pleaser

[PunchMonkey]

I'd never trust my computers on a Tolkien Ring... too many systems turning evil, talking about the precious.... blech.

Re:Windows just gets uglier

[allanj]

For the exact same reasons, I always think of Lego Duplos whenever I see the default WinXP interface. Years ago some guy stated something to effect of "build a system a 5-year old can use, and only 5-year olds will want to". It was intended to bash the Mac then, but I think it goes for interfaces too - "build an interface that pleases a 5-year old, and only a 5-year old will want to use it".

Re:A crowd Pleaser

[master0ne]

and an ever-rebooting Windows box... the most stable MS platform known to man.

Re:Progression

[42forty-two42]

Uh, it might not be a good idea to contradict someone holding that big of a hammer...

^x is cut in Windows

[DrSkwid]

which could be very harmful

cut - save - crash

omg where's my work, it was there when I saved it

Re:Sorry?!!?

[pebs]

"For those of you who have used all of them, I'm sorry." Has it ever dawned to you that some people actually like using Windows??? Not everyone is a Microsoft bashing Linux freak like you Michael.

Ummm... dude.. You haven't used any Windows before Windows 2000 have you?

Windows 3.xx is what turned me into a Microsoft-bashing UNIX/Linux freak.

Re:Progression

[mccalli]

Doesn't AMD's Hammer respond to commands?

Yeah, but it's a non-flyer so far...

Cheers,
Ian