About

Windows is a series of computer operating systems developed and sold by the American consumer electronics company Microsoft.

History

Windows 1.0 OS was released on November 1985 as an extended version of MS-DOS, which featured a variety of built-in applications, including Calculator, Calendar, Paint, Notepad and Terminal. In December 1987, Windows 2.0 was released, leading Apple to file a lawsuit against Microsoft for copyright infringement. On August 24th, 1995, Windows 95 was released, including the Comic Sans font that was supplied with each subsequent version of Windows. On June 25th, 1998, Windows 98 was released, followed by Windows ME in September 2000. On October 25th, 2001, Windows XP was released for retail sale, selling an estimated 400 million copies within the first five years. On November 30th, 2006, Microsoft released the Windows Vista OS, which was criticized for having performance issues and restrictive licensing terms. On July 22nd, 2009, Windows 7 was released, receiving more favorable reviews than its predecessor. On October 26th, 2012, Windows 8 was released to mixed reviews due to its revamped interface designed for touchscreen devices.^[1]

Windows 10

On September 30th, 2014, Microsoft held a press event where they unveiled the upcoming Windows 10 operating system (shown below). The new version of the OS will run on a variety of devices, including smart phones, tables, desktops and laptop computers. It will feature the traditional Windows desktop environment rather than the touch-screen friendly Windows 8 design.

Immediately after, Internet users began joking about the company inexplicably skipping Windows 9.

Later that day, redditor cranbourne commented on the post claiming to be a Microsoft dev.^[2] He offered the following explanation for the skipping of Windows 9.

Post by cranbourne:

Microsoft dev here, the internal rumours are that early testing revealed just how many third party products that had code of the form

if(version.StartsWith("Windows 9"))
{ /* 95 and 98 */
} else {
and that this was the pragmatic solution to avoid that.

The post claims that if the operating system had been named "Windows 9", programs might mistake it for being an earlier version of Windows (95 or 98) due to the incomplete code used in identification methods by third-party program developers.

Related Memes

Blue Screen of Death

Blue Screen of Death (also shortened as “BSoD”) refers to the notorious “stop error” message displayed in Microsoft Windows operating systems. Because the BSoD message indicates an unrecoverable system crash or freeze and leaves the user no option but to reboot the computer, the blue screen has been both feared and ridiculed by Windows OS users ever since its introduction through Windows 3.1 in March 1992.

Delete System 32

Delete System32 is a popular trolling scheme used to hoax inexperienced PC users into deleting the Windows system directory called System32. It is essential to the running of the Windows OS since the release of Windows 95.

Microsoft Sam Can't Say Soi

Microsoft Sam Can't Say Soi is a series YTMND pages and YouTube videos mocking the default male voice in the Windows 2000 text-to-speech application.

Microsoft XP Bliss Wallpaper

Microsoft XP Bliss Wallpaper refers to edits and parodies made to the image of a rolling green hill and a blue sky that acts at the default Microsoft XP desktop background image.

Windows 7 Launch Party

In September 2009, Windows released a "Windows 7 Launch Party" advertisement to promote the Windows 7 OS, which featured a group of Windows enthusiasts providing instructions on throwing a Windows 7 launch event (shown below). The commercial was criticized by many for being cringeworthy and inspired a series of remix videos mocking the premise of the ad.

Search Interest

External References