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> file subsystem was not different Windows 95 used its own 32-bit file system code whenever possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_file_access https:/
by acqq 8y ago
> file subsystem was not different
Windows 95 used its own 32-bit file system code whenever possible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_file_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_file_access
It had to fall back to call BIOS only in special cases, as a backward compatibility for some older hardware/drivers. So even if you would launch it from DOS, it would for most newer hardware be just a bootstrap phase.
- coldseattle 8y agoThis is absolutely true, but Microsoft Haters like to minimize the achievement that Windows 95 was. (In fact, most hard-core Mac Zealots today will tell you that Windows 10 still runs "on top of DOS." Not sure why they need to believe these things, but their self-image depends on it.)
- narag 8y agoMy memories about that are blurry but I remember there was some general problem with file access that persisted until XP adopted NT core for consumer versions. Maybe something about concurrency, not sure, sorry.
- acqq 8y agoWindows 95 didn't have concurrency problems different from NT, unless you used it on the old hardware that depended on DOS drivers. The main benefits NT brought were various protection mechanisms, which is convenient for programmers, but 95 surely wasn't slower, especially with less RAM, the major factor that slowed the NT adoption was its significantly higher RAM needs. Which translated in visibly more expensive computers needed. NT was also slower for all graphical routines for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT "The Windows NT 3.x series of releases had placed the GDI component in the user-mode Client/Server Runtime Subsystem, but this was moved into kernel mode with Windows NT 4.0 to improve graphics performance.[23]" Note NT 4.0 appeared a year after Windows 95. The programmers had the benefit of using Windows NT even before 95 appeared, but the advantages of 95 were clear for the "normal users" who didn't think they needed the "protection" aspects: the most popular software of the time (e.g. Microsoft Word) was unstable enough to, from time to time, crash even on NT. The more stable Word versions appeared only after the famous Gates' 2002 memo started to be applied to the Microsoft Office products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trustworthy_computing#Microsoft_and_Trustworthy_Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trustworthy_computing#Microsof... Windows 95 was for a time a good trade-off for many practical uses.