Why Windows 95 Was a BIG Deal!

It is the night of August 23, 1995. Everyone around you is excited for Windows 95. This is clearly a big deal! You got your JNCO jeans on, you brought your Game Boy with you because you have no idea how long this is going to take, and you and your friend are waiting in line at Best Buy with hundreds of other people, waiting for midnight to strike, because that is when the all-new Windows operating system will be available for purchase on store shelves. But do you even know why you’re here?

Microsoft got the whole world excited for Windows 95 with its retrospectively famous “Start Me Up” campaign. Its marketing was just incredible. It worked so well, thousands of people waited in line at many retail stores across the world to buy it, making it the most successful software launch in history. People knew that Windows 95 was an important milestone, but did they understand why? Yeah…but also, probably not. What’s really interesting about Microsoft’s product launch is that it was able to even mesmerize people that frankly didn’t really know what was going on. Today, we are going to look at the causes and effects of this great software phenomenon and explain “Why Windows 95 Was So Important.”

The seemingly everlasting influence of the Windows 95 operating system can really be boiled down to three things: brilliant marketing (arguably the biggest component), innovative features, and, just like many other incredibly successful things, timing. It’s honestly really easy to overlook Windows 95 as this revolutionary piece of software, even at the time. But keep in mind, that’s not the question this video is answering, but rather why Windows 95 was important. Being important and revolutionary are different things. But was Windows 95 revolutionary? Not really, or at least not as much as you’d think. Heck, its exorbitant amount of marketing actually brought it a lot of criticism, particularly from Apple users. Many of these people scoffed at the features that Windows 95 was boastfully advertising, and mockingly nicknamed it “Macintosh 87.” This is because they claimed that Macintosh did it first, almost a decade earlier, and they actually weren’t too far off. A new feature included in Windows 95 allowed users to name files up to 255 characters long, a huge improvement to the previous 11-character limit. But this was a feature the Macintosh had for over ten years, along with a similar looking GUI that used similar icons. I mean, if you really want to get technical Macintosh actually copied Xerox and Windows just copied it afterwards, but that’s a whole other video, but it didn’t stop Apple users at the time from giving Windows 95 some bad PR. Yeah, the whole “Mac vs PC” debate is a lot older than you might think. But Microsoft’s incredible advertising serves as a testament for why people still chose Windows 95 over the already existing Mac OS instead. Yeah, Windows 95 was similar to the Macintosh, but its marketing gave it a better personality.

Computing had an interesting role in the 90s, which was to be as relatable as possible, to transform from this niche community into something that everybody did. Computers were going to be as relatable and fun as cars or television, and Windows 95, in a lot of ways, was the one that took initiative on achieving this goal. Their commercials were upbeat, exciting, and appealed to the masses using pop culture references of the time. Their main focus was showing the operating system’s simplicity, and how much the user could do with such little effort. It was less of a convoluted piece of software and more like a person, when in reality, Windows 95 honestly wasn’t all that different from its previous version, Windows 3.1. With the way 3.1was marketed, people basically just saw it as DOS wearing a fancy outfit. Windows 95 also ran on top of DOS, only difference was DOS booted into Windows by default, so you didn’t notice it, and of course the ads wouldn’t tell you that. All this fun advertising excited people and encouraged them to go out and see what all the fuss was about, including those that were just getting into computers and had no prior experience with them. Consequently, many people weren’t even exactly sure why they were in line, but just knew that it was the start of something big, and that this product was going to soon enrich their lives in one way or another.

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[nationsquid]

Yes, this is the “Beatles” channel. 😎 I may also just upload other things that interest me as well. The format and content is very, 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁. It may not be what you are used to from me and it may be outside your comfort zone, so just a heads up on that. Although, I will also be making 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝘆𝘀 in the format that you all are already familiar with. Nonetheless, I hope to see you over there! :)

As always,
NationSquid

[zedsdeadbaby]

Windows 95 and PS1 in the same year. It was absolutely colossal. You are spot on about 1995 being that specific point where everything changed. The zeitgeist shifted and everyone could really feel it. For me, no time period invokes as much nostalgia as the mid-nineties.

[Uomosabbiaa]

I remember when back in the 90s I would ask my father the permission to play with the delicate computer. Playing meant opening Microsoft Paint and drawing random sketches

[jacob_swaggerz]

Your divide of the 90's is brilliant. I was born in the late 80's and remember growing up with a rotary phone, fast forward 5 years and I was playing Diablo on the internet on Dial-up with people across the world. I truly feel part of a blessed generation because I remember vividly my grandma telling me about having to ride horses to work and surviving the war whilst my dad showed me how to navigate the internet. Such a change.

[keinlanz]

The jump from the heavily dos-reliant 3.1 to 95 in terms of GUI (icons, start, and wallpaper) and user friendliess was much bigger than you are implying for people that experienced it at the time and played a very large role in its popularity. Also, that start up sound is still epic.

[ThorneyedWT]

You didn't mention the main reason why Win took over Mac - it was open hardware compatibility (and therefore much more variety and lower overall prices). Win 3.1 was already growing fast, heck even DOS was gaining momentum before that. Just when Win 95 got really user-friendly interface, it all burst, but potential was always there.
Mac and Linux models have their strong benefits, but when it comes to general public appeal PC/Win is just better.

[Choochinc]

"Features that likely never need to be changed because they were so convenient and timeless"

Modern Microsoft:

[seven_]

Man... imagine living in the 90s and having your copy of Windows 95... even if you had a greenish background and a basic UI with low color modes... it would be revolutionary to have a easy to use file explorer, a freaking browser to connect to the internet, damn you'd feel like in the top of the world...

[colombianguy]

Back in 1998 we had the family first computer. I'm from Colombia so having a computer was a big deal and my dad worked extensive hours as a taxi driver to be able to buy one. It came with win95 because it was february and Win98 didn't lauch yet. For me, it was a life changing experience and shaped my future as a an IT/electronics technitian. I was 10 years old in 1996, and i felt the 90's change to something different because of the tech revolution.

[sbradley]

I pretty much started my IT career with Windows 95, but even today, with Windows 10, I'll ask users to click on their "Start Button" and I'll be asked either "What's that" or "Where can I find that" and I think to myself that this has been there for the last 26 years. Because Microsoft removed the work "Start", the user has no idea where it's at.

[yzrwsie]

It's also worth mentioning that games on Windows slowly started getting better from Windows 95-98, with the introduction of Direct-X and the beginnings of more complex 3D game titles.
Before that, most hardcore gamers still swore by DOS, since concerning Windows 3.x, Windows games were usually no more than point and click games for the most part.

[Crescent_Audio]

“It’s from 1996 to 2002 that the 90’s started to solidify” - great quote, and so true.

Although I used Dos and Windows 3.1 as a kid, Windows 95 was what really broke me into the tech world at large, I learned the vast majority of my current tech knowledge through Windows 95 and 98.

[msthalamus]

Your observation about the 90s being split into two decades by the sudden mass adoption of the Internet is spot on. I graduated from high school in a world where most people had never even touched a computer, and my interest in them was considered strange. Four years later I graduated from college in a world where UPS had its website URL painted on their trucks....

[xorcist]

Man the 90s must've been an interesting time to be alive, so many technological advancements happening all at once. Was probably so hard to keep up with it.

[Traumaqueenamy]

The whole thing about the transition in 1995 is quite interesting to me personally. Not only was it the year I got my first computer (including Windows 95) but I just so happened to turn 13, becoming a teenager, but that's also the year my family moved to a totally new state and home. Pretty much my childhood was in the analog era and my teen years the digital/internet era. So my life personally transitioned during that year in different ways.

[Claudia-tmdr]

I'm a 96 baby and I totally agree with what you said about trends. I naturally have rose coloured glasses around growing up, but the computer to me then was amazing, even just to play Pinball or Minesweeper. I actually don't think my siblings and I even delved into the internet until later years, I mostly remember playing a lot of PC games. There's no one time that is perfect, but those memories of my siblings, cousin and I learning about using a computer and the internet in general are special to me. Honestly boggles my mind how far technology has come in so little time, from dial up to high speed internet, from landlines to portable mobile phones. Sorry if I went on a tangent at all 😅

[misterkuda]

Me with Windows XP in early 2010s: "How do you do, fellow swaggers?"

[BryanEnsign]

The 90s were the best years of a lot of people's lives. Wish I could do it all over again. Great video. Windows 98 was my fav at the time. Miss these days.

[Tom]

In 1995 nobody cared about Apple Macintosh anymore.

[dougdunlap]

Met my future wife in January of 1995, Got married in November of 95, went on a honeymoon to Comdex in Las Vegas. Both of us were computer technician and had a love for Windows 95. It was a great OS and a great year.