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Windows 98 (1998)

1608 Windows

Windows 98 is a continuation of the Windows 95 product. The major change is an insanely heavy focus on web integration. The help system, many applications, and even the desktop are redesigned to make use of Internet Explorer. Windows 98 runs on top of the same "MS-DOS 7.1" with FAT32 support as Windows 95 OSR2, and it includes support for USB. Windows 98 had two major releases - a First Edition and a Second Edition. It was followed up by Windows ME. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

MS-DOS (1981)

1428 DOS

Originally 86-DOS, written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, DOS was a rough clone of CP/M for 8086 based hardware. Microsoft purchased it and licensed it to IBM for use with Microsoft's IBM PC language products. In 1982, Microsoft began licensing DOS to other OEMs that ported it to their custom x86 hardware and IBM PC clones.

Microsoft Visual Basic (1991)

1276 Windows DOS

First released in 1991, Microsoft Visual Basic was a programming environment where one could build an application by visually creating the user interface first, and then adding code. In contrast, even the smallest Visual Basic basic programs could take reams of program code to write in C or C++. Visual Basic was extremely popular for business application programming. The language itself was an interpreted BASIC dialect, however speed was maintained through the use of reusable compiled libraries (DLLs and VBX controls). These however, limited application development to Microsoft Windows.

Windows 95 (1994)

1108 Windows

Windows 95 offered, at long last, a well designed document-oriented desktop shell that worked much like the 1984 Macintosh Finder. It also included a new way of finding installed applications through a "Start" menu. And it included the same networking abilities as Windows for Workgroups. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

Windows 3.0 / 3.1 (1990)

751 Windows

Windows 3.x was the first to gain significant development and commercial traction. It combined the 8086, 286, and 386 modes of Windows 2 in to one package. It replaced the MSDOS Executive with a Program Manager and File Manager similar to those in OS/2 1.x. Much of its success was spurred by the availability and success of Microsoft Office. Although Microsoft would have had you believe otherwise, Windows 3.x was the direct foundation for Chicago/Windows 95. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

Windows 2000 (1999)

733 Windows

Windows 2000 was a modernization of Windows NT 4.0 which brought many of the desktop changes, including Active Desktop, to Microsoft's Windows NT line. Four editions of Windows 2000 were released, Professional, Server, Advanced Server, Datacenter Server. Improvements over NT 4.0 include new Accessibility Options, increased language and locale support, NTFS 3.0, the Encrypting File System and Active Directory. Windows 2000 was first planned to replace both Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 although using the NT kernel for consumer and professional editions would not happen until Windows 2000's successor, Windows XP. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

Microsoft Windows Boot Disk (1995)

547 DOS

These disks are original boot floppy disk media for use with Microsoft Windows CD-ROMs. Not all Windows 9x/ME CDs are bootable, not all CDs included boot disks, and DOS will not see a CD-ROM drive unless a driver is loaded. OEMs were expected to provide compatible CD-ROM with the boot media provided with their systems. However towards the very late 90s, most vendors standardized on IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM hardware and the use of the OEM Adaption Kit (OAK) driver. If your CD drive is not IDE compatible (such as an MKE or Panasonic interface) you must manually add your own driver. Note: you can use the Windows 98 boot disk with Windows 95 to make things easier. If you have any UNTOUCHED OEM boot disks with different drivers, please submit them.

Windows NT 4.0 (1995)

425 Windows

Windows NT 4.0 is the successor to the Windows NT 3.x release. In this release, the user interface from Windows 95 was integrated, making NT just as easy to use as its consumer counterpart. Internet Explorer was bundled, providing a web browser out of the box. Speed was improved by moving components into kernel-mode, at the expense of security and reliability - changes Windows is suffering from today, and is being reverted. NT 4 was followed up by Windows 2000. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

Windows ME (2000)

383 Windows

Windows Millennium Edition (internally Windows 4.90) was the last in the line of DOS-based Windows products. Like Windows 95 and Windows 98 it used the same hybrid 16/32 bit kernel that ran on top of a bundled version of DOS (MS-DOS 8.0). | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

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Microsoft Office (1991)

331 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Publishing PIM Database Windows MacOS

Microsoft Office is a bundle of Microsoft's productivity application. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and later Mail, Office Manager, and Outlook. The "1.x" versions of Microsoft Office were simply a marketing bundle of the standalone products sold together with no other packaging changes. Even though these were distinct applications, rather than one single monolithic program, they shared a similar user interface, integrated well together and shared the ability to embed documents from one application in the documents of another.

Borland Delphi (1994)

283 Windows

Borland Delphi is a Windows based Object Pascal development environment. It was based on the earlier Borland Pascal product and adds a GUI IDE geared towards Rapid Application Development. Some of its functionality was merged in to Borland C++ Builder but both continued to be sold alongside each other. Current supported versions are sold by Embarcadero Technologies.

Windows Longhorn (2001)

277 Windows

Windows Longhorn was the pre-release codename for Windows Vista and was the successor to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (built from NT 5.2 codebase). Development on the OS started in May 2001 and went through two unique development cycles separated by a development reset in 2004. The reset occurred as Microsoft's development staff had lost focus on the project as a whole and what was required to be done in order to bring it to market. Features were being written into the OS at an alarming rate with a significant lack of QA or vision of true requirement. This combined with Microsoft's trustworthy computing initiatives caused the reset.

Windows 1.0 (1984)

272 Windows

Windows 1.0 was the first release of what eventually made it onto almost every desktop computer in the entire world. Many of you are probably unaware of this release from 1985; conceived from ideas found in the original Lisa/Macintosh and Xerox Star system, Windows 1.0 was Microsoft's attempt at a graphical multitasking operating environment for the IBM PC. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

Mac OS X (1997)

255 MacOS Mac OS X

MacOS X was Apple's replacement for their classic MacOS. MacOS X is based on NeXTSTEP, a Unix-based OS. The first consumer release also featured a new user interface appearance called "Aqua". | 1.x-6.x | 7.x | 8.x | 9.x | MacOS X | All |

Mac OS 9 (1999)

233 MacOS

Mac OS 9.x, based on Mac OS 8 was the final product based on the classic MacOS architecture. Like previous version, it lacks true protected memory or pre-emptive multitasking. MacOS 9 was abandoned in favor of of the Unix-ish NextStep/Openstep based Mac OS X. | 1.x-6.x | 7.x | 8.x | 9.x | MacOS X | All |

Windows NT 3.x (1991)

218 Windows

Windows NT 3.1 was the first of the Windows NT series. Sporting the same face as its consumer counterpart Windows 3.1, it was completely different under the hood. A true 32-bit native operating system, Windows NT descended from the work Microsoft did while collaborating with IBM on OS/2 after the great split, and bringing in former DEC employees like Dave Cutler, bringing a VMS influence into the system. It was followed up by Windows NT 4.0. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

Internet Explorer (1995)

195 Web Browser Windows MacOS Unix Mac OS X

Microsoft Internet Explorer is a web browser application created by Microsoft primarily for Microsoft Windows. It was initially based on Spyglass Mosaic. At various points, Internet Explorer was also available for MacOS, Solaris, and HP-UX.

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Microsoft Visual Studio (1996)

173 Windows

Visual Studio is an IDE (integrated development environment) for Microsoft Windows that allows developers to develop a variety of applications. It is a bundle of seperate programming products, including Microsoft Visual C++, Microsoft J++, Microsoft Visual Basic, and Foxpro

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Mac OS 7 (1991)

168 MacOS

Mac OS 7 was a major change from the earlier System Software, introducing integrated multitasking, a revamped desktop, networking, and transitioning the name from "Macintosh System Software" To "MacOS'. It was followed by MacOS 8.x. | 1.x-6.x | 7.x | 8.x | 9.x | MacOS X | All |

Windows 2.x (1987)

167 Windows

Windows 2 changes from Windows 1.x consist mainly of visual improvements. Windows 2 adds overlapping windows, menu keyboard shortcuts, VGA support, and other user interface changes influenced by IBM standards. Windows 2 is the last version that supports installation to a floppy disk, and to be available as an application run-time. Later editions of Windows 2 added support for 286 high memory, and running applications in a 386 VDM. The versioning is a little confusing. 2.x and 2.x/386 were released side-by-side. When it reached 2.1x, the regular 8088 version was renamed to Windows 2.1x/286. This is all unified in Windows 3.0. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

CorelDraw! (1989)

148 Graphics Publishing Windows OS2 Unix

Corel Draw is a vector based drawing and illustration program. It is primarily a Windows application, but was ported to Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, CTOS and OS/2. It competed against Aldus Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, and Micrografx Designer.

Adobe Illustrator (1988)

143 Graphics Windows MacOS Unix

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems. It was often sold as a companion product to the bit-map/photo editor Adobe Photoshop. Illustrator was originally released in 1987 for the Apple Macintosh. Early versions were ported to NexT, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Solaris.

Windows Whistler (1999)

131 Windows

Windows Whistler was the pre-release codename for Windows XP, or NT 5.1. It is the successor to Windows 2000. XP was the first that did not compete against a DOS based version of Windows, effectively finally unifying the Windows line in to a single pure 32-bit product. Below are various Beta releases. Winworld does not host the final RTM versions.

OS/2 Warp 4 (1996)

129 OS2

OS/2 Warp 4 incorporated a number of new technologies over OS/2 Warp 3, such as Java, OpenGL, OpenDoc, and VoiceType. It also updated the appearance of the Workplace Shell. | 1.x | 2.x | 3.x | 4.x | All |

Microsoft Word (1983)

123 Word Processor DOS MacOS Unix OS2 Windows

The Microsoft Word word processor was first introduced for MS-DOS in 1983. Its design made use of a mouse and WYSIWYG graphics. Its crude WYSIWYG/mouse support was a direct response to the Apple Lisa/Mac, and VisiCorp Visi On. Initially it competed against many popular word processors such as WordStar, Multimate, and WordPerfect. Word for DOS was never really successful.