20 years ago: August 24, 1995 was the release date of Microsoft Windows 95. Its legacy was vast....
Hailed at the time as a revolutionary product, for a change the reality seemed to match the hype. It heralded (if not quite the arrival) of the extrication of PC computing from the legacy of DOS, and the introduction of more new features and (for the most part) positive changes to a Microsoft product than ever before, or since. For the most part, us Windows users are still living in the computing world that Windows 95 established for us.
Here is a look at many of those features, and where they are now....
DriveSpace (formerly DoubleSpace)
The first of Microsoft's many attempts to provide transparent disk compression actually began in MS-DOS 6.22, but its Windows 95 version had a actual graphic interface. Plus! for Windows 95 had an updated version, but not many people used it anyway. It was last seen as legacy support in Windows ME, the last version of Windows that used FAT as its primary filesystem.
Wikipedia
MSDN: "What is DoubleSpace and How Does It Work?"
Current status: Windows XP defaulted to the NTFS filesystem, which provided its own mechanisms for file compression.
Long file names
The FAT (File Allocation Table) filesystem was the filesystem used from the start in MS-DOS, but was severely crippled compared to competitors due to the fact it only offered filenames of up to eight letters plus a three letter extension, a limitation that even my old Commodore 64 overcame. Windows 95 used a hack to offer longer filename aliases for files as well as the older 8.3 names. (The FAT32 filesystem would debut with Windows 98, and offer more solid support for long filenames.) Windows 95 would present older programs with aliases that supported the old format, and indeed on disk the files were stored as the 8.3 name but with an extra bit that pointed to the rest of the name. The shortened version was often the first six letters of the name with "~1" added to the end. Older disk utilities that worked on the file were prone to losing the long part of the filename, causing unexpected errors.
Wikipedia on 8.3 filenames
pcguide.com on long filenames
Current status: When Windows XP brought consumer Windows in line with Windows NT and took to using NTFS as its main filesystem these fell into disuse. But FAT is still used as a filesystem to this day, and FAT-based filesystems still have old 8.3 filenames as part of their fire records. In related news, Windows still has a limit of 260 total characters in a path. NTFS itself has ways around it but Windows itself often balks at them, which sometimes produces problems like Android phones creating files with filenames so long that Windows cannot operate on them, even to delete them!
System control panel
In Control Panel as "System," and also available by right-clicking "My Computer" and selecting Properties, an access method that still works on Windows 7. Control Panel got expanded greatly on the changeover from Windows 3.1 to 95.
Current status: While Microsoft is trying to deprecate Control Panel, providing the ostensibly better "Settings" starting with Windows 8, many of the primary panels debuting with Win95 are still in Windows 10 in some form, including parts of Display, the Fonts folder, and System. Often when poking around the Control Panel, it doesn't take many clicks to dig down to the old-school, gray-tabbed collections of property settings. Microsoft's continued efforts to escape them seem doomed to always have to provide access on some level.
Device Manager
One of the foremost innovations of Windows 95 is one of the least directly visible to the user: its formidable hardware support. Windows, in all its many versions, is probably the single computer program that supports the most different attached devices, in large part thanks to the magic of USB and Plug-and-Play. Amazingly, USB support wasn't even available in consumer versions of Windows 95; you had to have an OEM version to get it. Microsoft didn't ship an installable consumer version of Windows with USB support until Windows 98! But there were many more devices back then that had to be plugged either into some other oddly-shaped port or even inside the computer's case, and Device Manager was the place to look after doing so, probably to discover the device's icon with a yellow warning sign on it. Time to install the drivers... fortunately, Device Manager could frequently help even with that!
Wikipedia: Plug and Play
7 Ways To Open The Device Manager In Windows 10
Current status: It's more of its own thing now than just a special mode of the System control panel, and it's got some more nodes these days, but in Windows 10 Device Manager still looks and acts much like it did on Windows 95. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Start Button and Start Menu
If the Device Manager is the quietest great innovation of Windows 95, then the Start Button and accompanying Start Menu are the loudest. A single place to go to for nearly everything you can do with your computer, despite jokes by some about having to click "Start" in order to get to Shutdown.
The Start Menu on Microsoft's website
The Old New Thing on why the word START is on the button
MeFi post I made about a Windows 8 Start Menu replacement
Current status: The signature feature of Windows 95, possibly its most successful, and its most enduring legacy, to the extent that Microsoft's attempts to leave them out of Windows 8 were soundly rebuffed by irate users. Well never let it be said that Microsoft has recognized when it has a good thing going.
The Taskbar
Start proclaims that you should click it to do things. The taskbar beside it, though, just sits there and does its job, showing you running programs. By the way, the Taskbar is provided as part of Windows Explorer, so if Explorer crashes for some reason the taskbar will disappear until it restarts. If for some reason the Taskbar is gone, I have noticed that even fairly recent versions of Windows will put little rectangular items at the bottom of the screen to represent running programs, that function in a way analogous to how the running program icons worked back in Windows 3.1....
Wikipedia
Microsoft's website on the Taskbar
Current status: This is arguably Windows 95's most successful UI element — even Linux window managers provide taskbars, and Mac OSX's Dock is largely the taskbar, but showing icons and with things able to be pinned to it even when they're not directly running. And, as if Microsoft wanted to steal something else from Apple, starting with Windows 7 programs started showing as icons by default, were grouped together if there are duplicates, and could be pinned to it OSX-style. But the first two features can be switched back in settings, and you can just remove all the pinned things if you want to maintain righteous taskbar purity.
The Notification Area, aka the "System Tray"
A small (ideally), visibly-recessed collection of icons on the taskbar that also contains the clock. Used to represent running programs that don't show as tasks and run "in the background," but still need some kind of visual representation for interacting with the user. Notably, when taskbar programs run they register with Explorer to display in this area. If Explorer crashes, when it restarts it won't know of those programs and the tray will be empty.
The Old New Thing: Why do some people call the taskbar the "tray?"
Current status: The tray abides, gaining an improvement under Windows XP to hide icons that are interacted with less often, in order to reduce tray clutter. It no longer looks like a tray, but the notification area still exists in Windows 10.
Windows Explorer
Under Windows 3.1 users used a program called the File Manager to move and copy files around. While its two-pane design had its uses, it didn't even support showing custom icons for files. Windows 95 retired File Manager and replaced it with Windows Explorer. Pretty obviously inspired by the Mac Finder, Explorer can do a lot more than just display folder contents. It also displays the desktop, handles the taskbar, the Open and Save dialogs are really customized Explorer views (which is why you can do many things of the things from dialogs you can do from Explorer windows), and it even handles displaying Control Panel icons and other collections of settings. Most of what users perceived as Windows turns out to be just another view of Explorer. By the way, Explorer.exe is defined since Windows 95 as the "system shell," which among other things is why the OS restarts it when it crashes. Technically if you know what you're doing the system shell can be changed though, a popular tactic for malware looking to visibly mess things up, in the hopes that you'll pay it to unmess them. There also exist programs that offer alternative Windows shells; they can make Windows look and act remarkably different. Here's a few of them. Here's a few more, and Wikipedia has a list, although it should be said that, generally, replacing Explorer as your shell can cause you unexpected problems if a program expects it to be around when it's not.
Microsoft: Using Windows Explorer
Steven Sinofsky on MSDN Blogs, on the history of Windows Explorer
Current status: Explorer's directory browsing windows are now called File Explorer (to distinguish it from Internet Explorer) but it's still there. At various times it's suffered from a bit of mission creep. Remember Windows 98's "Active Desktop," which put web pages on your desktop at the cost of having Internet Explorer always running? Or when Explorer folders allowed you to give them custom wallpaper? (While we're walking through memory junkyard, remember Microsoft's Active Channels?)
Internet Explorer 1.0
Back in the day it was pretty slick. Actually built out of technology licensed from Spyglass Mosaic (more on that from the New York Times), IE eventually vastly outgrew its roots and became the major web browser for the vast majority of people. The development and history of Internet Explorer could fill its own post. It should be mentioned that it wasn't actually part of Windows 95 base, but first released as part of "Plus!," a pack of add-ons Microsoft sold to supplement Windows 95 (and wring some extra dollars out of their userbase).
Wikipedia
MSKB: Internet Explorer version history
Neowin.net looks at old versions
Another history from them, looking at Wikipedia with each version from 1 to 9
A YouTube video showing off versions 1 through 10
Current Status: Microsoft Internet Explorer survived, thrived, drove competitor Netscape out of business, became bloated and an embarrassment that held back the web, then was itself superseded by competitors Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. While IE11 still exists in Windows 10, Microsoft themselves undertook a rewrite and suggest instead using their new Microsoft Edge.
Built-in internet support
While IE didn't debut without the Plus! Pack, an important aspect of Windows 95 was that the system had a built-in "winsock," that is, API for making use of internet functions. Web browsing on Windows 3.1 was held back by the need to install a third-party handler for dial-up internet access, most commonly the shareware product Trumpet Winsock, written by Peter Tattam. (BTW, there's a page where one can donate if they used unlicensed copies of Trumpet Winsock back in the day.)
Current status: It's still there, and was updated in Windows 8, but no one much talks about it anymore.
Quick View
A utility that could be used to provide a quick glimpse into the content of many file types. Most often used for images, its functions are largely handled these days by web browsers and Windows Photo Viewer.
Wikipedia
MSKB: "How to Enable or Disable Quick View"
Current status: While it didn't even make it into Windows 98, as noted above, Windows comes equipped with ways to see many of QuickView's file types, and a few that didn't even exist yet, like PDF. But as a standalone product, a greatly expanded version is still kicking as Avantstar Corporation's "Quick View Plus."
Install Windows Features dialog box
One of the least remarked-upon aspects of Windows 95 was that you could selectively install different parts of it using a certain dialog box.
Microsoft: "Turn Windows Features On or Off"
Current status: Although its contents have changed over the years, the same dialog box, although reskinned a bit, remains 20 years later in Windows 10! Right-click the Start Button, select Control Panel, click Programs, then the link that says Turn Windows features on or off. Extras you can install on Windows 10 include things like a web and FTP server, and an option for searching through TIFF image files using OCR. As late as Windows 7, the Windows built-in games were on this list. Speaking of which....
FreeCell
Even 20 years ago, the version of Solitaire that came with previous versions of Windows had become legendary. Microsoft upped the ante with FreeCell, a Solitaire variant that came with Windows 95. Unlike Solitaire, there were no hidden cards in FreeCell, and additionally nearly every game was winnable, making it more of a logic puzzle in the guise of a card game. It rapidly became your thinking gamer's alternative to Solitaire... well, at least if no other games were installed on the system.
Wikipedia
Microsoft: How to play FreeCell
FreeCell FAQ
FreeCell Solutions
Current status: FreeCell and Solitaire persisted through the different versions of Windows, up to Windows 7, to be abandoned in Windows 8 and the Windows Store, which introduced the hateful Microsoft Solitaire Collection, which decided to make "ad supported" what had originally been free and unobtrusive.
The Registry
One of the more controversial aspects of Windows 95 was the introduction of the registry, a large database of system configuration settings that touches upon nearly every aspect of system operation. Before the registry came along all of Windows configuration was done by editing (either automatically or by hand) one of many text files, most commonly with an extension of INI. While clunky, they had the advantage (or disadvantage depending on your point of view — one could make his system unbootable by editing them) of being immediately user accessible. The registry could contain more than just text configuration data, and provided a centralized location for it to be kept, and thus easily backed-up all at once (and also, its detractors would say, be corrupted). Along with the registry came regedit32.exe, the registry editor, and near the top of the list of ways a clueless user can bork his machine with a single act.
Wikipedia
Current status: The registry remains in current Windows and is bigger than ever. Regedit is still around too, just called "regedit.exe" these days, and it's still got the same ugly, nonsensical icon of a crumbling cube, depicted with the Windows 95 icon palette.
Win32
This is basically what Windows 95 is, the platform itself, the extension of Windows into 32-bit computing. Previous versions of Windows (up to 3.11, Windows for Workgroups) were "Win16."
Wikipedia: Windows API#Win32
MSDN: Win32 Programming Overview
Current status: Most Windows software produced now is 32-bit, and Win32-native versions of Windows continue to this day, but most computers now are sold with 64-bit versions of Windows.
Powertoys & Kerneltoys
Sets of small, free utilities released on Microsoft's website without technical support. Additional toys were added over time. They ranged in usefulness from purely whimsical (a round version of the Clock accessory) to the incredibly useful (Command Prompt Here, TweakUI).
Wikipedia
The Old New Thing: The histoory of the Windows PowerToys
Current status: Some of them, like Send To X, would eventually become supported features of Windows. The Powertoys were very popular with power users and Microsoft released more with prominent product releases up to Windows XP, but eventually Microsoft instituted a policy of not offering unsupported downloads, resulting in the popular series' termination.
WinHelp
Wikipedia
Windows 95's RTF-based help system was quickly adopted by most Windows software. It was supplanted by HTML Help, but you still sometimes run into a program that uses it.
Current status: Phased out with Windows Vista. HTML Help, however, which used CHM files, is a popular format for computer reference works.
Buddy Holly
A little extra provided on CD-ROM install disks of Windows 95 was an MPG file of a music video of Weezer's song "Buddy Holly," notable particularly for its use of "Forrest Gump" technology to seamlessly insert the band into an episode of Happy Days. For many explorers of the CD, it was their first taste of computer-based multimedia.
The video on YouTube
YouTube demonstration of the video playing off the CD
Current status: The video was only included with the original release of Windows 95, and even then only on CD. But if you can find a readable copy, it will still play. It's in the "Fun Stuff" folder.
Hover!
A 3D game included with CD-ROM versions Windows 95. Up until that point many were worried that Windows 95, which didn't allow software unfettered access to the hardware, would not allow for the fast-paced games MS-DOS allowed. Microsoft developed Hover! to disprove them. That and a well-received Windows 95 port of Doom did a lot to establish Windows as a capable gaming platform.
Wikipedia
Current status: Hover didn't make it into later versions of Windows. The word is that the game is still available on Microsoft's public FTP server, (they have one?) but I couldn't get it to load. Hover!'s legacy survives in the form of an official web port. (Site will try to sell you on Microsoft Edge, but I think other browsers can play it too.)
Windows Pinball, aka Space Cadet
A pinball game distributed with Plus! For Windows 95 and several succeeding Windows versions. It was actually a version of the Space Cadet table sold in the collection Full Tilt!, produced by SimCity makers Maxis.
The Old New Thing on Windows Pinball
Current status: It was included with 32-bit versions of Windows XP, but it ran into insoluble problems when compiled as a 64-bit program and, as Raymond Chen notes in the above link, Windows XP setup had no provision for including only a 32-bit version of a feature.
The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team! Easter Egg
An oft-traded hidden showing, with music, of the people who made Windows 95.
YouTube video
Current status: It wouldn't make sense for later versions of Windows to provide this. Note, corporate customers complained about the inclusion of such frivolities, and so current-day Microsoft products generally do not contain easter eggs, or at least well-known ones.
For reference, this history of Windows consumer releases (ignoring the NT and mobile lines until they merge in):
Windows 1.0 - November 1985: Original release, Microsoft Paint, mostly ignored
Windows 2.0 - December 1987: Overlapping windows, VGA graphics
Windows 2.1 - May 1988: Supports 286 & 386, requires a hard drive
Windows 3.0 - May 1990: Better UI, Program Manager, File Manager, Notepad, Protected Mode, Media Player, Solitaire
Windows 3.1 - April 1992: The end of Real Mode, TrueType, 32-Bit disk access, Minesweeper, Windows hits it big
Windows 3.1 for Workgroups (Winball/Sparta) - October 1992: Networking
Windows 3.11 for Workgroups (Snowball) - August 1993: 32-bit file access
Windows 95 (Chicago) - August 1995: New UI, Start Button & Menu, Taskbar, Win32, multimedia, WinHelp, TCP/IP, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer 1.0, long filenames, Windows Update, FreeCell, many other things (see above)
Windows 98 (Memphis) - June 1998: IE4, Outlook Express, Active Desktop, Disk Cleanup, USB, DirectX
Windows 98 Second Edition - May 1999: IE5, Web Folders
Windows ME - September 2000: IE5.5, Windows Movie Maker, System Restore, Spider Solitaire, the end of DOS-based Windows
Windows XP (Whistler) - October 2001: Based on Windows NT, Themes, IE6, Multiple Users, Product Activation, 64-bit Windows
Windows Vista (Longhorn) - January 2007: Aero, IE7, Windows Sidebar & Desktop Gadgets, Windows Defender, UAC, Backup and Restore, Windows Search
Windows 7 (Vienna) - October 2009: Snap, Peek, revamped Taskbar, Jump Lists, Libraries, IE8, Windows Recovery Environment
Windows 8 - October 2012: Start Screen, Start Button removed, Charms, Metro/Modern apps, Windows Store, tablet support, IE10, UEFI, Ribbon in Explorer, Redesigned Task Manager, OneDrive/SkyDrive, File History, Settings, Windows games ditched
Windows 8.1 (Blue) - October 2013: Start Button's back, UI rollbacks, 3D Printing
Windows 10 (Threshold) - July 2015: Charms are gone & Start Menu is back, Task View, multiple desktops, IE11, Microsoft Edge, Cortana, mandatory updates, Microsoft Software Collection (with ads)