Windows 3.x wasn't "just a graphical shell" on top of MS-DOS, either. Much more than that going on there, with Standard and (especially) Enhanced modes, and how it manages multitasking, virtual memory, and running actual DOS programs concurrently.

Perhaps a better way to word the idea is that they are graphical environments that depend on DOS, with Windows 9x having further reduced that dependence.

My understanding is that Windows 3.x was largely self-contained also, but still needed the DOS environment to host it. All file system operations were delegated to real-mode DOS, but little else was.

Part of the distinction is that MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 were separate products that had to be installed separately, while Windows 9x included the required DOS environment, and installed all required components as part of the same process. In both cases, DOS is still there, and real-mode system services can still be invoked by the system as deemed necessary.

640K!enough wrote:

My understanding is that Windows 3.x was largely self-contained also, but still needed the DOS environment to host it. All file system operations were delegated to real-mode DOS, but little else was.

Even if nothing else was, that's a pretty big ticket in itself.

I'll just link to my 8/2015 comment, when Windows 95 turned 20:

Happy Birthday Win95

I will add that, while Windows 95 is not my all-time favorite OS (MS-DOS 6.2 and Windows 98 SE share that honor), it was an important step in the evolution of personal computers - even with all the teething troubles it came with.

dr_st wrote:

Also, I don't know what exactly they did, but compatibility with DOS games running in an emulated DOS window also increased greatly inside Windows 9x compared to Win 3.x. With Win9x, the average DOS user/gamer could really boot into the Windows GUI most of the time, and most his games/apps would work; restarting in MS-DOS mode would become an exception, rather than the norm; the same cannot be said of Win3.x.

Was it actually emulated in 9x? I always thought that Command Prompt in Win3x and 9x was just a viewport to the DOS layer that was running in the background. But I'm obviously no expert. 😜

Standard Def Steve wrote:

Was it actually emulated in 9x? I always thought that Command Prompt in Win3x and 9x was just a viewport to the DOS layer that was running in the background. But I'm obviously no expert. 😜

I don't know if "emulated" is an accurate term, but it was definitely not a "viewport" to the underlying DOS layer. Possibly "virtualized" is a better word, since it was more like a V86 session (like EMM386 provides), except with a lot of the low-level stuff handled by Windows; for example, file system calls: when running a command prompt within Windows, you could use Windows mounted network drives, Windows CD-ROM drivers, etc. You were also using Sound Blaster emulation provided by the Windows driver for your sound card, if such was available. Probably there were other things, but this is off the top of my head.

640K!enough wrote:

My understanding is that Windows 3.x was largely self-contained also, but still needed the DOS environment
to host it. All file system operations were delegated to real-mode DOS, but little else was..

That's true so far, but there are subtle differences. Windows 3.0 was "just" a graphical environment, just like Digital Research's GEM.
Both had their own executables, multi-tasking mechanism, memory managment and such things.
However, Windows for Workgroups, version 3.11 in particular, went one step further.
It emulated parts of the DOS API and -if both FastDisk and 32Bit File Access were loaded- ran on its own, just like Win95.
All -okay, let's say most- int21h (& int13h) calls made by either DOS or Win16 applcations were handled by Windows then.
In that state, DOS was never called again, except for device drivers, maybe.
Plain old Windows 3.1 was somewhat in-between, which further complicates the definition of Win3.x.
It was originally called a graphical environment, too, but later in its lifetime was considered an OS.

At the end of the day, both definitaions are valid depending on the point of view.
However, personally, I think that at least WfW 3.11 can be safely considered some sort of an OS.
It fulfilled most if not all requirements of a network operating system.

Edit: Minor edit.

Has any of you used Windows 95 for assignment purposes? Like in the 90s days. Microsoft Word 97 for example.

Who hasn't? The clippy hate didn't just come out of nowhere.

Can I see any document example of research paper typed in Windows 95?

leileilol wrote:

Who hasn't? The clippy hate didn't just come out of nowhere.

🤣

I'd forgotten about that little f**king clippy.

badmojo wrote:

🤣

I'd forgotten about that little f**king clippy.

If rumours are to be believed, Bill Gates didn't like it much either. Allegedly, when he saw it for the first time, he asked how to turn off "that [censored] clown". From that time forward, it was known as TFC within the development team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ucCxtgN6sc

badmojo wrote:

leileilol wrote:

Who hasn't? The clippy hate didn't just come out of nowhere.

🤣

I'd forgotten about that little f**king clippy.

Yes, they included it because Rover and the other "Search Companions" were what made MS Bob such a huge success.

Speaking of MS Bob, my dad had a mug that we would put the bar for shaving in it and we still have it, even though the handle broke off years ago.

Like this?
https://www.cafepress.com/mf/35409902/bob_mug … uctId=405329311

Yes. My dad had the mug since the release of Microsoft Bob when he worked for Computer City (CompUSA) in the 1990's. Plus, Microsoft Bob was one of the many programs to include e-mail, basically like Microsoft Office and having access to other programs.

Heck, I remember installing that program in Windows 95 and I did the same thing in Windows for Workgroups 3.11 as well.

I'm gonna try installing MS Bob in Windows 10.

While we are talking about addon's I used to install Plus! mainly to use DriveSpace 3 which I used on my 420MB "Archive" disk on my 486.
Primary drive was 1GB so trying to squeeze the main lan party games of the time C&C, RA, Warcraft 1 and 2, Doom 1 and 2, space for other games got rather tight,
Also used the added themes support and would try out which ever game I was playing at the time, as most games used to add a theme as a bonus.
(Most of the time they were pretty bad although I kept the Command and Conquer GDI theme for a bit.

Win95 was thought out well. I taught myself how to use in about a week? I did struggle at first trying to use My computer for windows stuff as it most closely resembled Program groups of 3.11, In the end I just had to tell myself, my Computer = dos, Start menu = Windows.

Try finding things in Windows 8 and above without using the search function. I miss the start menu

How many of you picked up one of these when they were giving them away?