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Inside Windows 95

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This book is a great one for those who are into the history of computing in general and the history of operating systems specifically. If you are taking a course in computer science and you need to write a paper on such subjects, for less than a dollar, there is a wealth of information here on how operating systems transitioned from the unstable state they were at in the early 90's to today. I'm not singing Windows 95's praises as a product that fixed everything, but it was a product that started down the road to stabilizing home and business computing platforms so that you didn't cross your fingers every time you added hardware or software to your PC. In 1994 my husband and I spent two months just trying to get a sound card to talk to the rest of our computer without "screeching"! This involved pouring over documentation about every component in our machine.

The following is the table of contents:

1. The Road to Chicago - Chicago was the codename for Windows 95. This chapter talks about the mission of Windows 95 - to make every aspect of the PC running on Windows 95 easier for users, support staff, hardware manufacturers, and software developers.

2. Intel Processor Architecture - Talks about the history of the Intel processor architecture through the 80386 and how Windows 95 intended to capitalize on the features of the now ancient 80386.

3. A tour of Chicago - Looks at the structure of the system and associated terminology. It's just a brief overview.

4. The Base System - Examines the programming interface and the 80386. It also talks about true threading - something that was new to Windows.

5. The User Interface and Shell - Takes a lengthy tour through the most visible part of the system, which is the user interface. The chapter does a pretty good job of highlighting the differences between 3.1 and 95.

6. Applications and Devices - Looks at the implementation of the Windows User and GDI modules and at a few of the device drivers and subsystems associated with the User and GDI modules.

7. The Filesystem - Talks about the advantages gained in terms of performance, multitasking, and reduced memory requirements in a full Windows 95 protected mode driver.

8. Plug and Play - Talks about how Windows 95 made it much easier to add a new device adapter card to your computer.

9. Networking - Windows 95 came out when the internet was in its infancy. Thus, here the emphasis is on getting different computers within a confined environment to talk to one another versus internet computing. Remember that Novell was still top dog when this book came out.

10. Mobile Computing - Again, mobile computing did not mean in 1994-5 what it does today. Thus this chapter looks at the capabilities that the author loosely groups under this heading of mobile computing - communications support, electronic mail and fax support, and portable systems support.

Finally, there is an interesting epilogue in which the author interviews those heavily involved in the design of Windows 95 about its various functions and plans for the future. It's very interesting from a historical perspective.

I bought this book when it first came out, and I'll probably always keep it, along with a handful of similar books, just because it is so interesting to look back on computing history from time to time, particularly when it is written by those that were in the trenches.

Dear Amazon.com Readers,

"Inside Windows 95," by Adrian King, is a very good base for understanding the design considerations Microsoft undertook when it set out on its Chicago (later named Windows 95) project. Adrian King, a Windows expert himself, looks at each step of the development of Windows, all the way to the new 3d-controls, such as dialog boxes. There are illustrations of how each control looks, and explanations of why Microsoft chose the interfaces it did.

I read this book, and was very impressed by it. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know the WHY of the Windows 95 interface. This book also covers a bit of the Cairo project that Microsoft worked on. Cairo went through many phases and changes, and eventually evolved into the Windows 2000 of today.

Inside Windows 9