Windows 95: Difference between revisions

The development of Windows 95 started in 1992 shortly after the release of [[Windows 3.1x|Windows 3.1]]. Pre-release [[Windows 3.1x#Windows for Workgroups 3.1|Windows for Workgroups 3.1]] builds were forked into the Cougar project, which attempted to build a 32-bit protected mode kernel to be used in the next Windows-on-DOS release (at the time often called Windows 4.0, Windows 93, or Windows 94). The Cougar project was later merged with Jaguar (known as MS-DOS 7.0, also slated for a separate release) into Chicago, which became Windows 95. The Chicago project additionally took a few components from the Cairo project (meant for Windows NT), including the Cairo user interface, and integrated it into the Chicago shell. Internal Microsoft documents from 1992 occasionally refer to the Chicago project as ''Windows NT Lite''.<ref>http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/5000/PX05522.pdf</ref>

The first two builds known to exist are the [[Windows 95 Usability Testing Builds|Usability Testing Builds]] from December 1992 or January 1993, seen in a Microsoft video.<ref>http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Windows-95-Usability-Testing-1993</ref> The earliest available build is [[Windows 95 build 58s|58s]], known as PDK/M4 from August 1993, followed by [[Windows 95 build 73f|builds 73f]] and [[Windows 95 build 73g|73g]] (PDK2/M5 from November and December 1993), [[Windows 95 build 81|build 81]] (January 1994), [[Windows 95 build 89e|builds 89e]] and [[Windows 95 build 90c|90c]] (March 1994), [[Windows 95 build 99|build 99]] (May 1994), [[Windows 95 build 116|builds 116]] and [[Windows 95 build 122|122]] (June 1994), [[Windows 95 build 180|builds 180]] and [[Windows 95 build 189|189]] (September 1994, build 189 is the first build to introduce the Windows 95 name), beta 2 [[Windows 95 build 216|builds 216]] and [[Windows 95 build 224|224]] (October 1994), beta 3 builds (November 1994 to March 1995), and release candidate builds (mid-1995). The final build of Windows 95, [[Windows 95 build 950 r-6|build 950 r-6]], would be released to manufacturing on 14 July 1995, and would later be available to the general public on 24 August 1995.

In early 1996, Microsoft released the first OEM Service Release of Windows 95, which was also released to the public as a Service Pack for the RTM build. This is the first version of Windows to include [[Internet Explorer]] in its version [[Internet Explorer 2|2]] form, although some OEMs already shipped [[Internet Explorer 1]] with the RTM build. It also introduces infrared support and fixes for bugs which affected the RTM build.

 

In mid-1996, Microsoft released the second OEM Service Release of Windows 95 (codenamed ''Detroit''), which includes various new features such as FAT32 support, [[Internet Explorer 3]], a newer version of MSN, as well as features that were previously exclusive for [[Microsoft Plus! 95]] such as DriveSpace 3 or Scheduled Tasks (formerly System Agent). An update to it, known as the OEM Service Release 2.1, was released in August 1996, which not only updates Internet Explorer to version 3.02, but it also includes [[w:USB|USB]] support in form of an update package. It is not pre-installed by default, since USB support was still in an early state. It eventually caused Windows to crash more frequently. Another update, known as the OEM Service Release 2.5, was released in November 1997 and updated Internet Explorer to version 4.0, along with it the Active Desktop enhancements, although on incompatible devices, it still ships with IE 2. This is the last update for Windows 95 before being replaced with Windows 98.