Windows 95, codenamed Chicago, has finally been released! It is the most exciting and promising release of the Windows Operating System ever. Along with it, Microsoft introduces 32-bit computing for the first time and with it, is planning to replace MS-DOS and Windows 3.1(1). At last, anyone with or without prior computing skills can easily step into the world of Windows without a steep learning curve.

Windows 95 Launch Commercial featuring Rolling Stones track “Start me up”

GUI

But, most noticeably, Windows 95 introduces a major paradigm-shift with its revolutionary Graphical User Interface (further referred to as ‘GUI’). Windows’ exciting new GUI is ‘document-centric’ and far easier to use and understand than its predecessor ‘DOS’. Gone are the days of the command prompt. Point and click is the promising motto of Windows 95. The ‘Start’-button is the most prominent element in this concept, since it’s the central access hub to everything on your computer; from the Help-function, to the new Control Panel, to every single program you’ve ever installed.

Clicking the button invokes cascading menus to expand in a beveled style, like every other element in the renewed Windows user interface. Old Windows 3.1 application immediately adopt this refreshing look and fit right into their interesting new environment.

The gray bar that runs along the screen horizontally is also a new feature and is called the ‘taskbar’. It holds the Start-button, the task-buttons and the system-tray. Every running application is accompanied by a button, which allows decent multi-tasking for the first time. The system tray shows programs running in the background and the system clock at all times.

Every object can be interacted with: a left click usually selects an element, double clicking opens a document or starts a program and right clicking usually shows a contextual menu. Don’t know what a certain icon stands for? Right click it!

Desktop

Resembling a real desk, the Desktop is the home of numerous system icons, like ‘My Computer’ and ‘Network Neighborhood’. User created content and shortcuts can also be placed on the desktop, however. Shortcuts are icons that point to applications and files, making it easier to access them.

Great DOS-support

DOS is still an integral part of Windows, even though it’s initially used as a boot loader. Windows 95 has full support for DOS and can even run several command prompts at the same time, each in their own consolidated, configurable shell. You can choose to run DOS application windowed or more traditionally, in full screen. Run DOS and Windows 95 alongside each other for the best of both worlds!

Support for long filenames

Through the use of the VFAT file system, Windows finally allows support for long filenames. These can be up to 255 characters long (mixed case). Also, file extensions no longer need to be a mere 3 characters long. This support is confined to Windows 95 only, though, since this feature isn’t supported by DOS and earlier version of Windows. When encountered in these OSes, they’ll be truncated to their 8.3 cousins. For example: ‘Checklist for Trip to Venice.xls’ becomes ‘CHECKLIS.XLS’.

Plug and Play

Plug and Play or PnP is a technology that detects hardware automatically. Many peripherals can be automatically installed, doing away with the intricate hassle of driver-gathering and installation. These devices have to be especially equipped with this technology, though. Until it is broadly available, this feature will be greatly crippled. Fear not, new devices are being released as we speak.

Older computers are supported too, since the user can easily specify a driver for an unrecognized device.

Other improvements

The built-in Paint has been enhanced and WordPad has been introduced, which is pretty much a fully-fledged word processor and fully compatible with Word for Windows 6.0. An advanced media player has been included, along with support for full-motion video. Windows 95 is also deemed to be the most stable version of Windows ever, since 32-bit applications built for Windows 95 will not be able to crash the OS, as happened every so often in Windows 3.1. Full backwards compatibility has been retained, despite the completely new 32-bit platform. DOS and 3.1-era applications will continue to work flawlessly.

System Requirements

Microsoft recommends the following to run Windows 95 smoothly:

• Processor: 386DX or higher (486 recommended)
• RAM: 4 MB or more (8 MB recommended)
• HDD: 55+ MB
• Floppy: 3.5 inch high density
• Video: VGA or higher (256-color SVGA recommended)

And optionally:

• Microsoft Mouse of compatible
• Modem
• Soundcard and speakers

Windows 95 should run fine on Windows 3.1 era hardware, but better is recommended for optimal performance.

Conclusions

I’m very excited about this new OS, especially after the Windows 3.1(1) debacle. It’ll take a while before 32-bit computing becomes mainstream, but Windows 95 will be at the frontline. Who knows what greatness the next version of Windows will bring us!

Now, let us return to 2008…

I believe the future is the web, even to the extent that we’ll be putting all of our data, including the OS, up in the cloud and compute from there. eyeOS is one example of a possible implementation of this concept. As much as I’m behind cloud computing, I and many others agree we’re still far off and might never reach this utopia to the full.

‘Eye’ at the clipping from the official website:

clipped from www.eyeos.org eyeOS was thought as a new definition of Operating System, where everything inside it can be accessed from everywhere in a Network. All you need to do is to login into your eyeOS server with a normal Internet Browser, and access your personal desktop, with your applications, documents, music, movies… just like you left it last time. Currently, with the base system you can find a full suite of applications bundled, some for private use, like the file manager, a word processor, a music player, calendar, notepad or contacts manager. There are also some groupware applications, such as a group manager, a file sharing application, a group board and many more. eyeOS is Open Source If you want to start using eyeOS, you can join the International eyeOS free server, or create your own eyeOS server easily and be able to decide who can join it and customize it to your needs. Creating your own eyeOS server is actually very easy. All you need is a web server with PHP support

First off, I haven’t yet taken the time to elaborate on the full technicalities of the actual server installation of eyeOS, so I can’t pitch in on how that works out. I’ve only chiefly played with the free server, which allows you to initiate your own eyeOS account. The idea of running a OS within and OS, more concretely in your browser could be chilling for some, so you’ve been warned.

Account creation

When using the pre-configured free server over at eyeos.net getting started is a 2-step process. The only thing it requires is the desired username and password and you’re up and running. The simplicity is soothing to this point.

The UI
***

Design and user interface have been done in a simple but pleasing fashion and looks a lot like the Mac’s, which is generally a Nice Thing, yet rarely original. The sparing use of ‘eye’ candy makes the system snappy enough for real-time interaction. Windows move around swiftly, yet the system shows some inconsistencies when dealing with multiple instances.

Swift as it may be, whether this system would be eligible for use with low-speed connections is questionable.

(Any more Apple-esque design features, and I’d start to question the creativity of this project…)

Your basic toolkit
**

Booting to the ‘desktop’ (dare I say ‘webtop’?) takes less than a your average Joe can say “Holy baloney”. The blank workspace contains a shortcut to your home folder and the trashcan. Atop the screen sits a tiny launcher-like menu and contains a few commonly used applications. An enumeration of the most noteworthy ones (the synchronous naming scheme is similar to Apple’s I-syndrome — really cracks me up):

• eyeFiles (X-files, anyone?): your basic file manager
• eyeDocs: a primitive word processor, contradictorily, it only manages to process ONE type of document
• eyeCalendar
• eyeNav: a browser that browses, in your browser, go figure.

This brief list can be augmented with additional applications contributed by the community. Although many needs are met even with this small allotment of apps, functionality feels crippled somehow and road bumps make the trip a bit uneasy.

eyeFiles

The file manager has adopted the XP-styled task-based sidebar to provide you with the common file operations, since the right-click thing hasn’t made it debut yet (version 1.1 ‘Dahlia’ — hmz, flowers).

All the usual suspects are present, like creating directories, deleting, renaming and copy-paste operations. I guess you could compare this thing to an online storage solution where you provide the disk space yourself. Services like Strongspace (paid) and Windows Live SkyDrive (free but limited) provide this functionality too, save the bells and whistles of an OS.

Drag-n-drop is lacking in the iteration, though, unless dragging an icon behind another one counts for deleting.