1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,600 Windows 95 was a big deal. It gave us the start button, featured USB support, and made people 2 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:10,320 who weren't alive in the 1960s aware of who the Rolling Stones are. But despite all that, 3 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:15,520 let's be real. Windows 95 and its successors, Windows 98 and especially ME, collectively 4 00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:20,720 referred to as Windows 9X, were bugger than a roach motel. It might be tempting to lay the 5 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:24,560 blame on the less powerful hardware of the time, especially considering that many of 6 00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:29,360 Windows Vista's problems were a result of PC makers installing it on below spec computers, 7 00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:33,840 but it turns out the main reason Windows 9X was so maddening was that the operating system was 8 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:38,800 built like a house of cards. You see, all three of these OSs were based on MS-DOS, which was released 9 00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:44,560 all the way back in 1981. And even though Windows looked very different, it shared lots of the code 10 00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:50,080 with DOS under the hood. And as a metaphor, well, putting an infotainment system and some heated 11 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:55,280 seats in an 81 Bonneville isn't exactly going to make it run the same as a modern car. The reason 12 00:00:55,360 --> 00:00:59,680 that Microsoft built Windows 95 this way was because they wanted users to be able to run 13 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:04,720 familiar DOS programs and wanted the OS to run well on older hardware. And to be fair to Microsoft, 14 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:10,000 Windows 95 largely achieved these goals. But doing so came at an unavoidable cost. 15 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,400 The stability problems ultimately boiled down to the fact that DOS was not meant to be a true 16 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:19,120 multitasking operating system. Although a big part of Microsoft's marketing was how well the 17 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:23,920 new Windows taskbar would make it super easy to switch between programs, that underlying DOS code 18 00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:28,640 was built more for something called cooperative multitasking. What this meant was that DOS relied 19 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:34,080 on programs voluntarily relinquishing CPU time if the user wanted to switch to a different program. 20 00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:38,720 This wasn't a big problem in DOS because users were nearly always just trying to use one program 21 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:42,880 at a time. Not only were there hardware and software limitations that kneecapped how many 22 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:48,240 programs you could conceivably run and an interface that steered you toward exiting a program rather 23 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:53,440 than minimizing it, but early users largely thought in a single task paradigm. Windows 9x, 24 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:58,080 though, was supposed to allow you to have lots of things open simultaneously. To enable this, 25 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:02,880 Windows 95 introduced preemptive multitasking, which is the same scheme we use today. In preemptive 26 00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:07,680 multitasking, the OS has much more control over programs because it steps in and divvies up CPU 27 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:11,520 time on its own rather than waiting for the programs to do it. But the problem back in the 28 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:16,880 Windows 9x days was that this was really only implemented for newer 32-bit programs. And there 29 00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:21,840 were plenty of old 16-bit software people were still using that didn't exactly play by the rules. 30 00:02:21,840 --> 00:02:25,760 A huge problem that you would run into was that older code would often access 31 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:30,000 another program's memory space, or even the memory space of Windows itself. 32 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:35,200 16-bit programs and especially DOS mode device drivers were especially notorious for doing this, 33 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:39,360 as during the DOS days, programs and drivers were allowed to access far more of the system's 34 00:02:39,360 --> 00:02:43,520 hardware directly than they are today. So when you tried to get those pieces of software to work 35 00:02:43,520 --> 00:02:46,720 in an environment where there were lots of other programs running at the same time, 36 00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:52,240 it often wasn't a pretty picture. There were other problems as well. Even newer 32-bit device 37 00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:56,800 drivers actually shared memory space with the Windows kernel itself, meaning that the entire 38 00:02:56,800 --> 00:03:01,920 operating system was vulnerable to poorly written software in more ways than one. Windows 9x also 39 00:03:01,920 --> 00:03:06,320 did itself no favors by doing a poor job of freeing up memory that was no longer being used by a 40 00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:10,560 program, a problem called a memory leak, which reduced the amount of memory available to other 41 00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:15,360 programs resulting in slowdowns and eventually a crash. Of course, the Windows versions of 42 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:19,280 today aren't perfect, but they're a heck of a lot more stable than the bad old days we've been 43 00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:24,160 talking about in this episode. So what changed? Well, even before Windows 95 came out, Microsoft 44 00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:28,800 already had an alternate version of Windows called Windows NT. This version didn't have the old DOS 45 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:33,280 code that made 9x so buggy, was built from the ground up for seamless multitasking support, 46 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:38,320 and crucially had the ability to isolate each program's memory space much more effectively. 47 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:42,080 But as an operating system intended for more professional and workstation use, 48 00:03:42,160 --> 00:03:46,640 NT had higher system requirements and wouldn't support a lot of the older programs and hardware 49 00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:52,720 most users still needed. However, in 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, the first version of Windows 50 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:57,600 based on the NT kernel that was aimed at home users. They were able to do this because the Windows 51 00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:02,800 9x family, flawed as it may have been, steered developers toward coding for 32-bit operating 52 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:07,520 systems compatible with newer hardware. After a few years of this, Microsoft finally felt confident 53 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:12,240 enough to ditch those weird DOS Windows hybrids and the NT kernel continues to power Windows to 54 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:16,240 this day. But if you really miss Windows 95, there's nothing stopping you from changing your 55 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:20,720 desktop background to cyan, hooking up a CD ROM drive, and playing some space cadet pinball in 56 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:24,720 your browser. You can even kick your tower once in a while if you missed the instability. Yep, 57 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:30,000 gotta love that. Sometimes I kicked mine to get it to start working again. Usually I just had to 58 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:34,080 unplug it though. So thanks for watching. Like the video if you liked it, dislike it if you didn't, 59 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:38,720 check out our other videos like the one I did on Redbox, that was fun. And comment with video 60 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:43,360 suggestions down below and don't forget to subscribe and follow, follow. Like ring the bell, 61 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:48,720 you mean? Yeah, ring the bell, click the little bell. Yes, thank you, bye.