Windows at 25: Time to move out

November 20 marked a major milestone in the history of personal computing. Just 250 years ago, Windows 1.0 made its debut.

Wait, did I write 250? I meant 25. It just feels like 250 — especially when you add up all the time collectively spent waiting for our Windows PCs to reboot.

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As anniversaries go, this one comes with more than the usual number of caveats. Windows 1.0 and 2.0 weren’t really fit for human consumption. It wasn’t until 1990, when Windows 3.0 debuted, that the GUI began to find its way onto the desktops of (relatively) normal humans, and Windows 3.1 (1992) before it was stable enough for business folk to rely on — just barely. And it wasn’t until Windows 95 arrived that the Microsoft OS juggernaut began in earnest.

When you’ve been around 2,500 years — er, 25 — you wrack up a lot of history, not all of it pleasant. So the “celebrations” of this milestone on the Web have been low key and mostly bittersweet.

Computerworld’s Preston Gralla notes five lowpoints (only five?) in Windows’ history, including when Microsoft introduced falsified evidence at one of its antitrust trials, Windows ME, Windows Vista, and the lawsuit surrounding “Windows Vista capable” labels, which included some choice emails from Microsoft’s own executives trashing the disaster that was Vista.

The wags at eSarcasm celebrated the anniversary by conducting a NSFW “interview” with an apparently drunk Windows, where the operating system dishes the dirt on Gates and Ballmer. (Read with caution.)

The U.K.’s V3 site offers up 25 facts about Windows that you might not have known, like, for example, the fact that Windows crashes 25 million (only 25 million?) times a day.

The Technologizer has cobbled together a slide show celebrating 25 years’ worth of Microsoft weirdness, including versions of Windows created for the Sega Dreamcast and “Chicago,” the original incarnation of Win 95.

SuperSite for Windows’ Paul Thurrott serves up a nice capsule history of Windows at age 25, including how much he hated it until he had a religious experience (or possibly severe head trauma) after encountering Windows 95. Strangely, Windows ME and Vista are never mentioned.

Me, I like to sit back and ponder what life would have been like without Windows cluttering our computers and our lives for the last 25,000 years — er, quarter century.

Without Windows…

• The acronym “BSOD” might stand for “Boy Scout Official Dentistry” merit badge, not “Blue Screen of Death.”
• The three-finger salute would be what those Boy Scouts are doing while earning their BSODs, not Control-Alt-Delete.
• OLE would have remained what Spaniards cry at bullfights, not Object Linking and Embedding.
• “DLL” might have stood for “Dull Lesbian Librarians” instead of “Dynamic Link Library.”
• Friendless nerds would have spent their Saturday nights playing Solitaire with actual playing cards.
• We could listen to the Stones’ “Start Me Up” without being reminded of Windows 95.
• Steve Ballmer would be doing Shammy Wow infomercials on late-night TV.
• Bill Gates would still be putting the finishing touches on BASIC 7.1.1a; neither Jay Leno nor Jerry Seinfeld would be returning his calls.
• We might all be using OS/2 Warp 12 and complaining bitterly about IBM.

So happy birthday Windows. You’re now 25. It’s time to finally move out of the basement, quit working at Starbucks, and get a real job.

What are your fondest Windows memories? How about the ones you’d really rather forget? Post them below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Windows at 25: Time to move out,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringeley’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.