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Happy Birthday Windows(TM)

It was 30 years ago today that Microsoft rolled out the first version of Windows.

Anyone who used that clunky old GUI WIMP will remember that it was little more than a toy, a proof of concept, a curiosity.

I honestly can't recall a single piece of useful software (aside from some simple games) that used Windows 1.0 as its platform. It really wasn't worth the effort.

It must be recalled that the hardware of the day was still using CGA colour graphics or the Hercules monochrome board and mice were not a standard piece of kit.

Windows 1.0 looked like a very poor attempt to bring Mac-like functionality to the PC. Even Digital Research's GEM system was miles ahead of Windows in terms of its look and feel.

Unfortunately for DR, Microsoft's ball was already picking up speed -- having had its MSDOS operating system replace the once ubiquitous CP/M. Windows 1.0 wasn't an OS though -- it was a crude graphics shell that simply converted mouse-movements and user-input into the cryptic commands previously required to do simple functions such as copy files, execute programs etc.

In fact, Windows didn't really become an operating system until Windows NT was launched. Up until then, all Windows versions (from 1.0 through to Win95 ME) were simply a program that ran on top of DOS.

As a result of having their roots in tired old MSDOS, these earlier versions of Windows were prone to crashing and suffered significant limitations in respect to memory use.

Despite this, it was Windows 3.x that really changed the face of the PC.

Unlike previous versions, 3.x had support for the higher-resolution colour displays that were becoming commonplace and the whole design of the GUI was greatly improved. A primitive form of cooperative multi-tasking allowed for improved productivity -- until one of the programs crashed and brought the whole precarious (but pretty) house of cards tumbling into a smoking heap.

It was crazy that folk were using PCs which had hardware support of protected memory and the ability to address significant amounts of RAM -- but all this potential was effectively knobbled by the tired and dated 16-bit real-mode DOS on which all the "flashiness" was built.

Windows NT was the first version of the product to allow users access to all the advanced features of the 386 and later processors. Now truly preemptive multi-tasking and memory protection was leveraged to create a far more robust OS with the potential to outperform its clunky DOS-based siblings.

Unfortunately the price and the need to re-engineer program code to take full advantage of this advanced OS meant it really didn't gather much of a following amongst the ranks of the great unwashed. However, it did become very popular as a server OS and many workplaces had a tower system which hummed away quietly in the corner of a room somewhere, serving up data to a network of Win 3.1 workstations running on machines with decidedly worn reset buttons.

The arrival of Windows XP was the first breath of fresh air in the Windows family for quite some time. At last, desktop users got the benefits that NT users had been enjoying for so long -- plus they also got an improved user-interface and more speed. Also, for the first time, the importance of internet connectivity was acknowledged. For these reasons, XP became a runaway hit.

After a few service-packs, XP became a very solid and reliable platform for applications users and developers alike. Gone was the regular need to reboot and the frequent crashes that were the hallmark of earlier Windows desktop versions.

Sadly however, XP was always a bit of a security nightmare. Although it was far better than previous versions, the security model in XP was still lacking when compared to OSes such as Unix/Linux and the popularity of the system meant it was a huge target for crackers.

Enter Microsoft Vista -- a lemon by any other name.

By this stage the computing market had already matured and Microsoft realised that its future revenues would come largely from encouraging people to upgrade to a new version of products that they already owned. It was pretty apparent that Vista was a cynical attempt to boost revenues by making changes for the sake of change in some cases and thus it was a dud.

Vista broke quite a few key bits of software such as device drivers and made huge demands of hardware -- sometimes running much slower than XP on the same hardware. As a result, sales were poor and dissatisfaction levels were high.

Windows 7 was rolled out next and Microsoft (finally) did the job right. They addressed the issues with Vista and finally rolled out a slick bit of code that simply worked and worked well. Of all the versions released to date, Windows 7 is probably the one that I like the most (although it will never replace Linux Mint around here). This version was a lovely consolidation of all that had gone before without the need to try and reinvent the wheel or yield to the temptation that made Vista such a dog -- introducing change just for the sake of it.

And then they lost the plot and rolled out Windows 8. Windows 8 was the new Vista (ugh!).

The temptation to fix stuff that wasn't broken and to demonstrate that the concept of change for the sake of change was still alive and well within the halls of Microsoft, Windows 8 tried to foist a clunky new user-interface on a user-base that didn't want it.

Epic fail!

Although the underlying core code was still good, the God-awful tiled interface really sunk this product - especially in enterprise environments where the cost of retraining staff can be a huge burden when your OS provider decides to go all avant-garde without warning.

A service-pack or two later and Microsoft managed to undo much of the damage they'd created with Windows 8.0 but me, I'm happy to stick with Windows 7.

Now we have Microsoft trying to force users to change yet again with the roll-out of Windows 10.

Do we really need a new Windows?

I don't know -- I don't think I do -- but others may think differently.

Aware that convincing users to shift to yet another version of Windows (especially in the wake of the Windows 8 fiasco) was always going to be an uphill battle, Microsoft even decided to give Windows 10 away for free to existing Windows owners.

Of course the pay-back for Microsoft is that the highly intrusive elements of Windows 10 will harvest huge amounts of data for the company. Data that they can leverage to generates huge revenues -- far greater than they'd ever see from selling the upgrade.

Microsoft realises that data is now far more valuable than code so they're giving away an OS that will perform extensive data collection for them. The sale or use of this data to create revenues by way of advertising or whatever will be Microsoft's gold mine and their only hope of continued growth in a market that has already peaked and is now pretty much in "steady as she goes" mode.

I've already upgraded from Windows for most of my computer work. I upgraded to Linux Mint quite a few years ago and have never looked back.

Yes I do run Windows here -- but it's on a machine that isn't used for any form of web-browsing or other online activity. Even if I do eventually go to Windows 10, Microsoft won't be mining any data from me.

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