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Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows 3.1 first went on sale in April 1992. It was so successful and popular that support for the OS continued through December 31, 2001, and embedded systems running Windows for Workgroups 3.11 continued to be available until November 1, 2008! Windows 3.1 introduced new features and enhancements that improved system stability, extended multimedia support, added TrueType fonts and workgroup networking. Windows for Workgroups included additional extensions that enabled users to share resources over a network using SMB over NetBIOS without the need of a centralized authentication server.
Microsoft Windows 95 launched on August 15, 1995 and introduced many new features and improvements over its predecessors. In addition to an all new user interface, Windows 95 brought with it plug-and-play technology, preemptive multitasking, a full, 32-bit kernel, and support for long filenames. Windows 95 was such a massive success and was so popular that it remained the most common desktop operating system throughout the 90s and continued to receive support from Microsoft through December 31, 2001. Many well-known Windows features can trace their heritage back to Windows 95 including the Start menu and taskbar.
While Microsoft Windows 98, released on May 15, 1998, was mostly comprised of cosmetic improvements to make it more user friendly, new features such as improved USB support, DVD support, and the introduction of the Windows Driver Model greatly improved the system's capabilities. Other new features included Disk Cleanup, Windows Update, and Internet Connection Sharing. Of course the most interesting new features included in Windows 98 were related to Web-integration. Active Desktop allowed users to add HTML content to their desktop, and Channels offered users dynamically updated content in much the same way that RSS feeds do today. Microsoft released Windows 98 SE on May 5, 1999, which included many updates and bug fixes. One particularly nasty bug that was patched was related to a memory overflow issue that would cause older Windows 98 systems to crash if they were left running for 49.7 days. Windows 98 SE marked a vast improvement in stability and reliability and remained so popular that Microsoft eventually extended support through July 11, 2006!
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