The first version of Windows was released for sale at shops on 20 November 1985, and was about to be installed in hundreds of millions of desktop computers in the coming 30 years.
However, the very first Windows that made it to store shelves had the version number 1.01 and not 1.0. Initially, the launch of Windows was planned for 1983, but there was a two-year delay, and in the meantime version 1.0 was replaced by 1.01. Version 1.02 was an international release in May 1986, but for a great part it was useless in Europe because of the poor keyboard drivers. Problems were only resolved with the release of 1.03 in 1986.
The operating system was initially named Interface Office Manager before it was renamed Windows, a name invented by Rowland Hanson, Microsoft’s marketing executive at the time.

After the release of Windows 2.0, Apple filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for patent infringements in 189 elements. The court ruled in favour of Microsoft in all 189 instances. Bill Gates famously refers to this by saying to Steve Jobs, “I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”
The first two versions of Windows were a failure both in terms of criticism and business. Only two million units were sold worldwide in five years, while MS-DOS ran on nearly 150 million PCs all over the world. Success only came along with Windows 3.1, which sold 3 million units in the first month.
Solitaire was first introduced in the product line with Windows 3.0. Originally, it was included to help users to familiarise with the use of a mouse and drag&drop technique.
Microsoft started to use town names as internal codenames at the stage of development with Windows 3.1 for the first time. 3.11 was codenamed Sparta, Windows 95 Chicago, 98 Memphis, XP Whistler (a small town in Canada), XP Vienna. Microsoft’s Budapest project was eventually published as Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access 2005.
Windows 95 start-up sound was created by the world-famous composer Brian Eno for 35 thousand US dollars. He made 84 versions for a sound that would play for 6 seconds. He disclosed later in an interview that he had used a Mac, because he couldn’t stand PCs.
The Codex Leicester, a collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific writings, was purchased by Bill Gates for 30 million US dollars at an auction. The scanned pages of the Codex was to be used as wallpaper and screen saver for Windows 95.
Windows 95sold 40 million units in the year of release, but even so it was the second most used software on PCs, with the legendary computer game, the Doom, being ahead of it.
The famous wallpaper for Windows XP came from one of the photographers of National Geographic. The photographer’s contract did not allow the disclosure of the price Microsoft paid, but the photo was the second most expensive one ever sold in photography.
Windows XP was released just one and a half months prior to the terror attacks on 11 September. The slogan of the advertisement campaign would have been “Prepare to Fly”. The terror attacks put an end to the 200-million campaign.
One of the new features of Windows 10 is the voice of digital assistant Cortana, voiced by actress Jen Taylor, who also gave voice to Princess Peach (who constantly needs to be rescued by Super Mario) in 22 Nintendo games.