GoKawiilIt was on August 24, 1995 that Windows 95 was released, amidst much anticipation. It was the most widely anticipated Windows release of all time, and the runner up really isn’t close. The idea of people lining up for blocks for a Microsoft product sounds like a bit of a joke today, and the more time goes on, the bigger of a joke it becomes. But I’m serious that in 1995 it happened.
Why Windows 95 was a big deal
Windows 95 promised to be the biggest leap Windows users had experienced to date. Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.0 before it were both runaway successes, but they had limits. They could multitask, but it wasn’t modern pre-emptive multitasking. Instead, the applications cooperated rather than the operating system being able to hand out resources. This meant a poorly behaved program could do a lot more to gum up the works in 1994 than it can do today, since the operating system just had to trust all of the programs to cooperate fairly.
Windows 3.x also didn’t scale all that well. The optimal processor for Windows 3.1 is a 486. Brand doesn’t matter much. And the optimal speed is right around 100 MHz. Somewhere around that point, it hits the wall. Switching from a 100 MHz 486 to a 100 MHz Pentium doesn’t yield much of a speed increase for most operations. I was selling computers at retail in 1994 and 1995, and people were plenty curious about Pentium-based PCs. But when they saw a 486 next to a Pentium and both were running Windows 3.1, most people I talked to saved their money. They just couldn’t find enough things the Pentium did faster.
Anticipation of Windows 95
Just about everyone was looking forward to Windows 95. Consumers were eager for the new benefits, even if they didn’t quite understand what they would be. Computer hardware makers were looking forward to the boost in sales. Retailers were looking forward to the boost in sales, of both software and hardware.
I started at Best Buy in late May 1994, 15 months before Windows 95’s release. I got questions about Windows 95 pretty much from day 1. And the corporate office was training us on how to suggest upsells pretty much from the day I started too. This was a bit of a shift. Best Buy did not want its employees talking about the Pentium CPU before it was released, because that might cause consumers to hold off on a purchase.
But they did want them talking about Windows 95, and just emphasize that a computer they bought that day would run Windows 95 when it came out the next year. And that would set the trap. They’d come back and buy the upgrade for $80 the next summer and find that it ran like crap. Then they’d come back for a new video card, more RAM, and maybe a bigger hard drive, turning that $80 purchase into $500 worth of purchases.
Windows 95’s hardware requirements
The box stated that it required a 386DX or better processor, 4 MB of more of RAM, and approximately 50 MB of disk space. Nothing stopped you from installing it on a 386SX. I know because I tried it, mostly out of morbid curiosity. It took forever to install. Booting took forever too. And once it managed to boot, it took forever to do anything.
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