5 ms·

Windows 95 was the third best Windows after XP and 98 (which was really win95SP3). It was a big leap over Windows 3.11, and evolved to XP quite nicely. Too ba

by michael1999 5y ago

Windows 95 was the third best Windows after XP and 98 (which was really win95SP3). It was a big leap over Windows 3.11, and evolved to XP quite nicely. Too bad the whole line was an unfortunate 20 year dead end detour from secure, multi-user, networked computing.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
I'd place Windows 2000 in the lead. It was the first consumer-friendly version to work with dual processors, the first to support native remote desktop and it's networking was more robust previous versions (as Nimda/Code Red infections can testify). I have a customer who is still running a Win2k instance in a VM - db host.
- icedchai 5y ago
  Windows 2000 was pretty solid, and relatively low on resources, too. For a couple years in the early 2000's my main desktop was a Win2K box with 256 megs of RAM.
  - hyperman1 5y ago
    For me the windows sweet spot is somewhere between 2000 and XP. 2000 was great except some rough edges in e.g. directX, while XP started the decline with things like the fisher price theme and DRM. Win95 was a big step up in terms of front end compared to windows 3.11 and deserves its praise. But don't you dare look under the win95 hood at the almost but not really separate address spaces and the 16/32 bit Frankenstein. Someone described it as putting a Mercedes hood on a trabant undercarriage.
  - EvanAnderson 5y ago
    Windows Server 2003 was a joy to use as a daily-driver on my laptop back in those days. It had excellent compatibility with Windows XP but could be a little more lightweight.
- vardump 5y ago
  NT4. It was the first sufficiently stable Windows version to use productively. Win2k was more like USB stack, PnP and graphical dressing on top of NT4. Of course 2k was a good release as well.
ConceptJunkie 5y ago
After about 6 months with Windows 95, I bailed and bought a copy of Windows NT 3.51. It was a huge improvement. The best version of Windows was 7, then XP, then 2000.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

I'd place Windows 2000 in the lead. It was the first consumer-friendly version to work with dual processors, the first to support native remote desktop and it's networking was more robust previous versions (as Nimda/Code Red infections can testify). I have a customer who is still running a Win2k instance in a VM - db host.

icedchai 5y ago
Windows 2000 was pretty solid, and relatively low on resources, too. For a couple years in the early 2000's my main desktop was a Win2K box with 256 megs of RAM.
- hyperman1 5y ago
  For me the windows sweet spot is somewhere between 2000 and XP. 2000 was great except some rough edges in e.g. directX, while XP started the decline with things like the fisher price theme and DRM. Win95 was a big step up in terms of front end compared to windows 3.11 and deserves its praise. But don't you dare look under the win95 hood at the almost but not really separate address spaces and the 16/32 bit Frankenstein. Someone described it as putting a Mercedes hood on a trabant undercarriage.
- EvanAnderson 5y ago
  Windows Server 2003 was a joy to use as a daily-driver on my laptop back in those days. It had excellent compatibility with Windows XP but could be a little more lightweight.
vardump 5y ago
NT4. It was the first sufficiently stable Windows version to use productively. Win2k was more like USB stack, PnP and graphical dressing on top of NT4. Of course 2k was a good release as well.

ConceptJunkie 5y ago

After about 6 months with Windows 95, I bailed and bought a copy of Windows NT 3.51. It was a huge improvement. The best version of Windows was 7, then XP, then 2000.