Windows Through The Years: From 1.0 To Windows 7

October 22, 2009 By leif

Windows 7

In stores now!

With Windows 7 finally here, we decided to hop in Digital Trends’ time machine and take a look back at the little operating system that changed the way the world looked at computers. From the high points of Windows 95 to the low points of Vista, here are some pictures of the OS we all love or hate too well.

Please share your stories about your best and worst windows experiences in the comments below.

Showing 14 comments

andrew at 5:02pm 26th October 2009 I'm still running XP on a 5 year old laptop, which is surprisingly fast and portable by today's standards. I think my Vista box will get windows 7 pretty soon though. Who has the best deal on windows 7 ultimate right now?
1. TechFreak at 6:03pm 26th October 2009 I wouldn't get ultimate, stick to Home Premium and save a few bucks.
Rusty Shackleford at 4:55pm 26th October 2009 Long live Windows XP. For its age, it has held up incredibly well over time, and as much as I like Windows 7, I'm still hesitant to move on from it.
1. andrew at 4:58pm 26th October 2009 I'm still running XP on one machine, and I love it. I think my Vista box will get upgraded soon though.
Greg Mombert at 8:38am 26th October 2009 I'm getting windows 7 this week, i can't wait to get rid of vista, what a piece of s!@#.
leif at 9:55pm 25th October 2009 Windows 3.1 will always have a place in my heart. I remember when my dad got us ( my family ) a Packard Bell with a sound blaster 16 cd-rom. That CPU was always there to help my get my homework done.As for Windows 7, I like all the new features and am glad I upgraded.
1. TechFreak at 9:58pm 25th October 2009 Yeah, that's what I used in college as my OS. It came on floppy disks haha.
  1. Dan Gaul at 10:00pm 25th October 2009 I remember installing it from 12 floppies or something like that. Crazy. Now I hate buying games that have 4 cds instead of 1 dvd
Dan Gaul at 6:40pm 25th October 2009 Man, I remember the good old days of Win98. Playing Counter-strike. Those were the times.It's too bad Vista is being compared to Windows ME. ME was a truely horrible OS.
Ian Bell at 1:42pm 24th October 2009 My worst experience is tied with Windows ME and Vista. Both felt like incomplete fake OSes and I had major issues with hardware compatibilities.
TechFreak at 7:02am 23rd October 2009 Leif, can you add a Windows ME slide in there? Did he miss anything else guys?
1. leif at 11:42am 24th October 2009 TechFreak, check out the new slide!
  1. Ian Bell at 1:48pm 24th October 2009 What about adding 3.11 for Workgroups? I guess you can rename the 3.1 to 31./3.11 etc.
TechFreak at 7:02am 23rd October 2009 Windows 95-200 to XP was a huge leap and probably the one with the largest impact.Although, you guys missed Windows ME - anyone remember that? It was like a suped up version of Windows 98.