Microsoft says that Windows 3.0 sold 10 million copies in the first two years, thanks to its improved graphics, virtual memory, and restructured Program Manager, File Manager, and Print Manager that together made for a makeshift pseudo-OS you could work all day in without dropping back to the DOS prompt – unless you were a gamer, in which case you still saw the DOS prompt all day long and didn’t bother running Windows while doing so. He told InfoWorld in April 1984 that “Our strategies and energies as a company are totally committed to Windows, in the same way that we’re committed to operating-system kernels like MS-DOS and Xenix”.
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However, “Windows” name prevailed because it best describes the boxes or computing “windows” that were fundamental to the new operating system. Windows 1.0 came out with several other programs – Paint, Windows Writer, Notepad; Calculator.
The point of the software package was to allow a user to run a number of different programs at once on their computer.
But the Microsoft Windows 1.0 debuted wasn’t as glorious as it’s makers wished.
Windows 1.0 had a colour 16-bit interface and was less than 1MB in size. This feature serves to address a major complaint users have with the operating system: little control over the installation of the features Microsoft is pushing out to its customers via Windows Update. Rival software companies tended to focus on individual productivity applications – word processors or spreadsheets – and only recognised the popularity of full office suites until Microsoft already dominated the market.
The first of these was arguably Microsoft’s failure to spot the rapid ascendancy of the web in the 90s, such that Windows 95 shipped without a web browser.
The latest such increase was recorded on November 12, the day when Threshold 2 was actually released, so there’s no doubt that the update really helped bring more people on Windows 10.
Meanwhile, the current version of the platform, Windows 10, continues to gain acceptance.
That changed when the Windows NT line, built for server computers, was merged into the desktop line with Windows XP in 2001.
“Windows 1.0 was a flop”, wrote CNET reviewer Charles Cooper.
A few Windows versions which reportedly couldn’t get released were: Windows Nashville; Windows Cairo and Windows Neptune.
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Windows 7 is said to have been evaluated by 8 million beta testers worldwide before it was released.
