How did the first versions of Windows look?

Do you remember when for the first time on the screen of the monitor of your PC the emblem of the Windows operating system was lit? What application then did you start? For many in Russia the version of Windows 3.1, and afterwards Windows 3.11 became acquaintance to products of Microsoft. There was it in 1994. The box with a distribution kit looked approximately so,

and the beginning of work of OS, after loading, looked approximately so:

Microsoft announced a release of the first Windows (version 1.0) on November 20, 1985. According to little-known those years to broad masses of the population of Russia Bill Gates: "Windows bears to users unprecedented power". It is force of DOS (disk operating system) - plus the window graphical interface.

In this operating system there were a lot of things what the user then could only dream of. Pay attention to a screenshot: Microsoft Windows of version 3.1, copyright of 1985 and 46 KB of free RAM. Compare it to the modern smartphone or the PC of initial level which you buy to the child "for school".

A large number of different useful applications was a part of this OS. Here were: calculator, hours, calendar, notepad, queue manager of printing, program of drawing, primitive word-processor and, of course, games. And Windows applications though developed, changed and improved, but the Notepad and Paint endured everything about quarter of the century and even were a part of Windows 7. And then it looked somehow so:

After many years as one of the most popular games on the first Windows, is remembered a solitaire.

A lot of headache arose at users when on the screen something appeared similar:

In the years of emergence of the first Windows, the worldwide network in Russia only "became on routers", and on April 7, 1994 it is considered start date of "procession" of network along open spaces of our country. But some time before this date and some time after it, many users of Windows 3.1, 3.11 OS (and others, later) were forced to work with the switched modems for setup of communication with which it was necessary to open the window very similar to it:

It is interesting that initially the structure of Windows included means for art self-expression of users. As a part of the OS applications there was a Paintbrush program known nowadays as Paint. And to this day it is possible to see the users excitedly drawing something in breaks between workflows.

The notepad - the simple text editor known those years as Notepad, not strongly changed eventually. Nevertheless, the Notepad probably stood at the beginning of a way to more advanced applications – to word-processors, notes of a desktop and others.

And still the Windows 3.1 operating system (as well as 3.11) could brag of existence of this Write word-processor which had more opportunities, than the Notepad. Later the most part of users refused its application for benefit of Microsoft Word.

Today Microsoft Word became a basis of a set of Microsoft Office which resists to the competitor of Google Docs, at the same time being one of the main sources of annual incomes of Microsoft in $60 billion.

The calendar and the calculator were one of the most demanded means of business activity of users of computers in 1994-1998. Today means of synchronization of schedules work at all types of devices, from the home PC to the smartphone.

Technology progress and quarter of the century led Microsoft to release of Windows 7 – the operating system which number of the sold copies in 2011 was about 350 million.

Now more than 80% of users of personal computers of Russia are waited by a meeting with