Ever wonder how Windows has evolved in the past 28 years. I think most people will remember Windows 95 as the 1st version they may have used. My dad bought a laptop in 1991 that had Windows 3.0, that was my 1st experience with windows. See chart below…this where the various version of windows fall into place. I originally thought Windows 2000 & Windows ME were a separate version but they were similar (as early versions) of Windows XP. Most people know that Vista didn’t work out too well. I read that <10% of all PC’s in 2012-2013 were running Vista, the other 90% were all running Windows 7 or XP. Windows 7 seemed to fix everything that was wrong with Vista, and I still use Win7 today. I have used Windows 8 sparingly, I think the new 8.x version will be better.
Year Version Name/Description Rank
1985 1.0 Windows 1.0 *
1988 2.x Windows 2.0 *
1990 3.x Windows 3.0 **
1995 4.x Windows 95,NT,98 ***
2001 5.x Windows XP,2000,Me ****
2006 6.x Windows Vista ***
2009 7.x Windows 7 *****
2012 8.x Windows 8/Metro ***+
Screen Samples:
Windows 1.0 (1985) Yikes!
Windows 2.0 (1988) Not pretty, but windows could overlap, maximize, & minimize.
Windows 3.0 (1990) 1st version I ever used, Windows 3.1 for Workgroups was network version.
Windows 95 (1995) First “Modern” windows version.
Windows NT (1995) Business network version
Windows 98 (1998) Similar to 95 version with a few improvements
Windows 2000 New version of “NT” worked well, but replaced by XP Pro shortly afterward.
Windows Me (2000) A personal version before XP, didn’t really take off…
Windows XP (2001) One of my favorites, very stable.
Windows Vista (2006) Not that popular, older software wouldn’t run…
Windows 7 (2009) I think this is the best version to-date, good interface, better security.
Windows 8/Metro Added tile page, major changes to the screens.
