5 ms·

Windows was made in the floppy era, not CD era. I still remember picking up my release day copy of windows 95. It was on several floppies.

_8j50 4y ago
You're right, I just don't have memory going back that far.
qubex 4y ago
As a teenager I avidly read some Microsoft book on the impending Windows 95 release (I didn’t have the “Chicago Betas”. I remember reading that book cover to cover. I remember that it depicted checkboxes are rhomboid-shaped, which didn’t actually appear in the final release. I remember my excitement as I queued to get my upgrade edition of Windows 95 that I then installed onto my sluggish 486DX2-66. I miss those times.
robin_reala 4y ago
Where several = 13. I had to install that a good few times.
- theta_d 4y ago
  Do you remember the Weezer “Buddy Holly” video that was included to show off the multimedia features? Hilariously small resolution by today’s standards.
  - fredoralive 4y ago
    If he's got the floppy disc edition he won't, it was only on the CD version. (As well as bonus "filler" like Weezer and Hover they also cut a few things from the actual installer like some of the alternate sound effects and animated cursors from the floppy version IIRC).
- dspillett 4y ago
  And they were DMF format, 1680KiB instead of the usual 1440KiB which would have resulted in two extra disks. If you were unlucky and had an old/crap drive you might find you have to replace it to get Win95 to install. Somewhere into the 4.x line of MS Office, pre-dating Win95, this format started to be used as well.
- theandrewbailey 4y ago
  I messed up my parent's computer so many times, that my uncle (the family IT guy) just left the set of floppies so I could re-install it myself. I inevitably kept breaking Windows 95 every 8 months or so.
mgerdts 4y ago
When I installed windows 95 soon after release, I had to figure out how to dial boot it with my SLS or Slackware installation which was installed from floppies.
dboreham 4y ago
Present day Windows is NT, which wasn't made in the floppy era (floppies existed but were not practically useful by the time NT 3.1 was released).
- fredoralive 4y ago
  Windows NT 3.1 seems to have come with a CD, a complete installation set of 3.5" discs, and even boot discs for the CD on 5.25" discs (and a voucher for a 5.25" complete set). So Microsoft obviously thought 3.5" discs were often going to be needed back in 1993 (and there's a notable number of people that have a CD-ROM drive, but no 3.5" drive?). See https://socket3.wordpress.com/2016/12/24/ebay-purchase-5-microsoft-windows-nt-3-1/ https://socket3.wordpress.com/2016/12/24/ebay-purchase-5-mic... Frankly, I'd count Windows 95 as really being in the CD era, floppy software was getting rare than (although apparently there's a even a 39 disc floppy version of Windows 98 if you're a real masochist), but a couple of years earlier CD-ROMs were still quite niche, although a high end workstation does seem a likely candidate to have one.
- meepmorp 4y ago
  I remember having installed NT Server 4.0 from floppies at least twice when it was new.
- _8j50 4y ago
  Yes, but stuff from that era still has to be supported despite rewrites.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
I had an NT4 machine at work until 2007 that only had a floppy drive for writable media. It had USB 1 ports but those were unusable in NT which was why $employer kept running it.

_8j50 4y ago

You're right, I just don't have memory going back that far.

qubex 4y ago

As a teenager I avidly read some Microsoft book on the impending Windows 95 release (I didn’t have the “Chicago Betas”. I remember reading that book cover to cover. I remember that it depicted checkboxes are rhomboid-shaped, which didn’t actually appear in the final release. I remember my excitement as I queued to get my upgrade edition of Windows 95 that I then installed onto my sluggish 486DX2-66. I miss those times.

robin_reala 4y ago

Where several = 13. I had to install that a good few times.

theta_d 4y ago
Do you remember the Weezer “Buddy Holly” video that was included to show off the multimedia features? Hilariously small resolution by today’s standards.
- fredoralive 4y ago
  If he's got the floppy disc edition he won't, it was only on the CD version. (As well as bonus "filler" like Weezer and Hover they also cut a few things from the actual installer like some of the alternate sound effects and animated cursors from the floppy version IIRC).
dspillett 4y ago
And they were DMF format, 1680KiB instead of the usual 1440KiB which would have resulted in two extra disks. If you were unlucky and had an old/crap drive you might find you have to replace it to get Win95 to install. Somewhere into the 4.x line of MS Office, pre-dating Win95, this format started to be used as well.
theandrewbailey 4y ago
I messed up my parent's computer so many times, that my uncle (the family IT guy) just left the set of floppies so I could re-install it myself. I inevitably kept breaking Windows 95 every 8 months or so.

mgerdts 4y ago

When I installed windows 95 soon after release, I had to figure out how to dial boot it with my SLS or Slackware installation which was installed from floppies.

dboreham 4y ago

Present day Windows is NT, which wasn't made in the floppy era (floppies existed but were not practically useful by the time NT 3.1 was released).

fredoralive 4y ago
Windows NT 3.1 seems to have come with a CD, a complete installation set of 3.5" discs, and even boot discs for the CD on 5.25" discs (and a voucher for a 5.25" complete set). So Microsoft obviously thought 3.5" discs were often going to be needed back in 1993 (and there's a notable number of people that have a CD-ROM drive, but no 3.5" drive?). See https://socket3.wordpress.com/2016/12/24/ebay-purchase-5-microsoft-windows-nt-3-1/ https://socket3.wordpress.com/2016/12/24/ebay-purchase-5-mic... Frankly, I'd count Windows 95 as really being in the CD era, floppy software was getting rare than (although apparently there's a even a 39 disc floppy version of Windows 98 if you're a real masochist), but a couple of years earlier CD-ROMs were still quite niche, although a high end workstation does seem a likely candidate to have one.
meepmorp 4y ago
I remember having installed NT Server 4.0 from floppies at least twice when it was new.
_8j50 4y ago
Yes, but stuff from that era still has to be supported despite rewrites.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

I had an NT4 machine at work until 2007 that only had a floppy drive for writable media. It had USB 1 ports but those were unusable in NT which was why $employer kept running it.