Influential operating system remembered online with photos of Start Menus and floppy disks

Jonathan Ore CBC News

Posted:Aug 24, 2015 12:27 PM ET

Last Updated:Aug 24, 2015 12:49 PM ET

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates sits on stage during the Windows 5 launch event on the company's campus in Redmond, Wash., on Aug. 24, 1995. The influential operating system turns 20 today. Associated Press

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Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system was released 20 years ago today, and tech fans are marking the anniversary with wistful and nerdy reminiscences online.

The revolutionary operating system is credited for making home computing more accessible for consumers and raising the public profile of then-chairman Bill Gates. It was also one of the first tech products to launch with the global fanfare that today is associated with Apple products.

Many of the features and functionality introduced in 1995 are still staples of Windows and other operating systems today, perhaps most notably the Start Menu, which streamlined how to launch and organize applications.

Happy 20th birthday, Windows 95. We've come a long way. #Windows10 pic.twitter.com/GbMdfcn2vN

Other features, like the modern desktop screen, and the taskbar that allows access to currently running applications, are still staples of the Windows interface today.

Internet Explorer, the iconic and maligned internet browser that also launched in 1995, was replaced with the Edge browser as part of the Windows 10 launch.

Introduced the Start Menu

The Start Menu became so ingrained in PC users' habits that Microsoft hasn't been able to walk away from it even when it wanted to. When the menu was removed from Windows 8 in favour of a touch-based interface, widespread fan outrage forced Microsoft to put it back in a major update.

Microsoft introduced Win95 with a huge marketing campaign, which included licensing the Rolling Stones song Start Me Up for one of its commercials, and a one-hour VHS instructional video starring Friends actors Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry, promoted as a "cyber sitcom." (Friends had debuted only a year earlier.)

Forty million copies of the OS were reportedly sold in the first year of its release, numbers that Microsoft wouldn't be able to replicate until the Windows 7 launch in 2009.

Even though support for Windows 95 ceased in 2001, fans fondly remembered it on social media, recalling a time before everything was digital and you actually had to stand in line to buy an installation CD — or a pile of floppy disks — in stores.