Remembering the Iconic Windows 95 Launch

Rolling Stones, Jay Leno, and simpler times

(Credit: Lance Ulanoff)

It’s hard to imagine an operating system, by itself, garnering the kind of near-global attention the Windows 95 launch attracted in 1995.

Journalists arrived from around the world on August 24, 1995, settling on the lush green, and still relatively small Microsoft Campus in Redmond, Washington. There were tickets (I still have mine) featuring the original Windows Start Button (“Start” was a major theme for the entire event) granting admission to the invite-only, carnival-like event. I can’t remember if Microsoft mailed it to my New York office or if I picked it up when I arrived in Washington.

I do recall getting bused to the campus, where we weaved our way through a series of greeting tents and were handed special name tags featuring a redesigned Windows logo and the iconic clouds and blue-sky background.

Few of the assembled tech reporters were going into this event blind. We’d spent months picking apart what, at that time, was still code-named “Chicago,” and most were test-driving Windows 95 pre-release versions. Everyone knew it was a stark departure from Windows 3.1, a major update that would transform and unify the disparate interface elements. It was the first natively 32-bit Windows platform (software companies raced…