On August 24, 2025, I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since Microsoft launched Windows 95! Can you believe this classic operating system is reaching its third decade? As a huge fan of the OS, I always enjoy revisiting its nostalgic aspects, from celebrating its birthday to delving into the history behind the iconic Start menu and its integration into the revolutionary taskbar. And who can forget the fascinating story behind the development of the Start menu as a Windows 95 feature? This operating system truly revolutionized personal computing!
With the approaching end of Windows 10 and Microsoft focusing more on promoting Windows 11 to persuade users to upgrade, it’s puzzling that the older version still retains many features from Windows 95. However, a question that has long been unanswered, until now, is: Didn’t the Windows 95 setup team realize that MS-DOS was capable of graphic functions?
A seasoned Microsoft Engineer named Raymond Chen, who has played a significant role in shaping the Windows operating system for more than three decades, recently disclosed the reasoning behind Microsoft’s choice to create the setup process for Windows 95 as text-based rather than graphical.
Why was Microsoft’s Windows 95 setup text-based?
Compared to more recent Microsoft operating systems, Windows 95 is noticeably different. This distinction is evident in its relatively simple user interface, characterized by plain text, in contrast to its successor’s visually engaging install process that boasts vibrant graphics.
In simpler terms, Raymond Chen, a Microsoft Engineer, shared that MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) had the capability to display graphics. However, Microsoft chose a text-based version of Windows 95 instead of a graphical one due to its rudimentary and time-bound graphics support.
Indeed, MS-DOS did allow for graphics, but it’s important to note that it was primarily your responsibility to create and manage these graphics. There were no built-in graphic primitives beyond a BIOS call to place a single pixel. The rest of the tasks were up to you, and typically, using the BIOS call to plot pixels wasn’t preferred due to its slow speed. If you aimed for any degree of performance, direct access to the frame buffer was necessary.
A Microsoft engineer disclosed that incorporating graphics into the setup process of Windows 95 would have been challenging due to its limited BIOS call capabilities, which could only plot a single pixel at a time. Chen also mentioned that trying to introduce graphics in this way wasn’t practical because it was slow. The only solution to overcome this performance issue was by accessing the frame buffer directly.
However, what you saw was just the beginning. The actual process was much more intricate, involving the creation of a graphics library for drawing intricate objects rather than single pixels. Fortunately, Windows 95 came with a minimum VGA video card system requirement, eliminating worries about CGA or EGA systems. Yet, dealing with planar modes remained challenging.
In simpler terms, planar modes are types of electromagnetic waves that travel through flat waveguides. These modes assist in confining and controlling light transmission. Luckily, there’s a team of experts nearby who specialize in VGA planar modes and are working on Windows video drivers. Chen mentioned that they could provide assistance to you.
To create an effective user interface using your graphics library, not only will pixels be involved, but you’ll also need dialogue boxes. Writing a window manager to work seamlessly with these dialogue boxes within a standard GUI is essential. Additionally, it should include keyboard support for navigating between elements and assigning hotkeys.
The procedure encompassed incorporating functionality for typing characters in languages other than alphabets such as Japanese. Fortunately, we could draw upon the knowledge of the Windows team specializing in Japanese input based in Tokyo, though the time difference might hinder our pace of work. In addition to this, the UI team was developing new controls, which would operate under a similar system.
Remember to include animations that rely on a scheduler to initiate events based on the system’s hardware timer. This will necessitate coding something not included in the Windows 95 installation procedure. Moreover, it would have been quite challenging to fit everything into the limited 640KB of storage space. However, you can avoid this limitation by creating a Protected Mode Manager to take advantage of the additional memory allocated for protected mode.
It appears that the actions taken might not be beneficial since Microsoft already offers a comparable product, specifically the Windows 3.1 runtime. This system was thoroughly debugged, equipped with video drivers, a graphics library, a dialog manager, a scheduler, a protected mode manager, and input methods.
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2025-02-19 18:39