The interface for 95 was indeed a huge improvement, unfortunately, they screwed up the backend so badly that you had to reinstall regularly. I think everybody I knew during that part of the '90s had at least one serial number memorized due to the large number of reinstalls. I think it was about 4 or so a year, assuming you didn't hit a particularly bad bug.

7 was a huge improvement, I think with that you really only need to reinstall about once a year, and possibly less frequently if you're not making many changes.

You're right about NT, I can't recall why they didn't want to make that the standard. Eventually XP was based off that one, but it seemed a bit later than it should have been. Trying to maintain separate lines of completely different OSes didn't make much sense from a resources perspective.

MS just doesn't really get the fundamentals and I do hope that this is really the last version of Windows and they move to more of a rolling updates model where they have smaller releases that just add minor features and fix things that are broken. Most of the problems in Windows are the result of a lack of continuity between releases. You have to wait several years and they have a huge number of poorly tested changes that get pushed out all at once.

I havent been keeping up on any of it. only thing i looked into was hardware as my last topic I made showed when I was asking for advise :-P

But its good to know :-)

Initial FUD came from the "Free upgrade for a year after release", which some people took to mean "you get Windows 10 for free for a year, then you have to pay" instead of "If you get Windows 10 within a year of release, they are free". Most recent FUD came due to this article, which takes a financial shenanigan (this slide) and goes wild with it. Microsoft will be spreading out the income of Windows 10 licenses over a few years, with said years being the years said devices is expected to get updates. That doesn't mean the device won't be getting updates past said years, but people posted it as if they won't.

Feel free to ask if you want more clarifications.
If you are talking about Office 365, that exists along side Office 2013 (or Office 2016, once it's out). Depending on needs, one may be better than the other.

Windows 10 is a decent OS if isnt by the forced upates (well, and least you can stop it for installing and reinstalling wrong/outdaped/broken drivers by disabling download driver throught WU under devices management), the crap that not show uninstall option and you need to unistall throught Powershell (Bing Maps, OneNote, Groove Music, Movies and TV, Weather, the really crappy Mail & Calendar apps, Xbox...), and the no obvious way how to disable OneDrive client.

I have mixed feelings about that. Updates do cause problems at times, but having people that never update their software is also a huge problem. Whether or not this becomes a big deal is going to depend in part on what they push as an update and how good their snapshot technology has gotten if things don't work out.

The part I object to here is where they're including updates that aren't security or bug related. Adding new features automatically is probably not a good idea on any OS.

You heard it here first, folks.

KEK!

Ouch, a bad nightmare. MS has rolled out mandatory patches before to help bypass cracks for ripping CD's/DVD's before, which have priority over say computer crashing bugs and long standing bugs going back all the way to windows 95.

Forced updates.. No thank you, another reason 7 is my last version.

When does Windows 10 come out?

Apparently Windows 9 was so appallingly bad no one even talks about it.

I don't believe they were really trying to please the desktop users with the new "features". Windows 8/Metro's objective seemed to be to make current Windows desktop users accustomed to the mobile interface (even if it is clunky for desktop use with a mouse and a keyboard) and the Windows Store, hoping that this will magically make all these desktop users buy Windows RT tablets and mobile phones where MS would make more profit (as they get a cut for all apps sold through the Windows Store etc., something that they don't on PC Windows programs and games).

In a way that ploy partly worked, for getting people used to Windows RT interface. I recall when I first tried using some early Windows RT phone, I didn't quite understand at first how to use it. Later, after I had already used Windows 8 on PC for some time, I instantly knew how to use the ASUS Windows RT device I tried on a computer store. I had learned how to use Windows RT devices just because I had learned the quirks of Windows 8 on a PC. At that point I also realized that while the UI was crap on a keyboard/mouse environment, it worked quite well on a touch device.

It is not a coincidence that Microsoft representatives started talking about "post-PC devices" (implying that current PC laptops and desktops with mouse and keyboard are really a thing of a past, and people would and should move on to Windows mobile devices), and the MS articles suggesting that in the near future no one would even want to use a keyboard and a mouse for controlling their computer devices, only some nerdy programmers would use them anymore. Everyone else would use (Windows RT) tablets and phones for all their computing needs.

Or so they hoped. I think they are still hoping that, but are ready to admit that not all PC users are willing to go only with touchy-feely mobile devices, at least not yet. They overestimated the death of "legacy PCs" and were probably surprised how many PC users wanted to keep using a mouse and a keyboard. And buy their applications and games also from outside Windows Store (like Steam and GOG.com, for instance).

It seemed as if MS actually hoped "legacy PCs" to die off at least at homes... as long as those people would move to Windows mobile devices.

It's scheduled for the 29th.

It's quite the opposite.

Windows 9 was "too good" to release, so they skipped it. :)


For an alternative explanation, this article covers the several different theories as to why..

Actually, this is the idea going back to the early 2000s. But the market didn't accept it until recently. Although they were offering this to businesses for quite some time. You basically pay an annual subscription to get the latest version of the OS, so you always have "the latest version". This exists at least for a solid 10 years. Only it was never an option for consumer products.

Actually vice-versa. The "explorer" interface first appeared in Windows 95. NT 4.0 got out after Windows 95. Earlier versions used Windows 3.x like interface.

And the "explorer" interface itself is very much influenced by classic Mac interface. There are differences, but similarities are even greater, including teh existence of a "Windows" button as a replacement for Mac's "Command key".

Objectively it was. It was based on totally new technology and it was independent of DOS. Windows 9x existed only because DOS was so pervalent that people demanded DOS support. Windows 9x is very much an improved version of Windows 3.1x (much improved but the base architecture borrows a lot from 3.1x). Windows 3.1 was the first 32-bit Windows (it required 386 or better), although it wasn't a full OS yet. Windows 95 is an OS, although it contains and is based on an internal version of DOS. Although once Windows is loaded, if appropriate 32-bit drivers are installed, it pretty much works independently of DOS (although it probably depends on DOS memory management for virtual memory management and process multi-tasking which might explain its instabillity).

Windows NT has a completely different and more complex and more stable architecture. It's not a Frankstein OS like Windows 9x. Although it also got some things from Windows 9x merged back in Windows 2000 and XP (mostly GUI enhancements including IE integration).

They did, but Windows 3.0 turned out to be extremely popular and NT didn't have any DOS compatibility, so they made a few interim 9x releases that took some elements of NT WIN32 API with some elements of Windows 3.1x and hightened DOS compatibility through the improvement of Windows 3.1x virtual DOS machines. Eventually NT got some DOS compatibility and by then DOS mostly lost the popularity it once had.


There. Now I'm done. :P I'll gladly provide proof for most of my claims if needed. I'm just too lazy to do it right now. :)

Well, from what I've seen, the UI is great for mobile devices and lots of people were happy with it. For what I do on my computer, a tablet is neither sufficient nor what I would say is the right interface.

It seems that tablets in general are more inclined for "consumption" of content rather than the creation of it.
My apologies, you are correct. I remember Windows 95 came out in August and I believe it was later in the year I was playing with the experimental shell they had running on Windows NT 3.51 which became the Windows NT 4 the following year. Thanks for the correction!

Oh, and as far as Windows 3.1 being the first 32-bit windows, didn't that require Win32s in order to get that capability? It didn't seem there was much software around taking advantage of it at the time.