History of Microsoft Windows 1

In the September of 1981 Microsoft started work on their first 16-bit graphical operating system with the project name “ interface manager”. In November 1983 the project was renamed to Microsoft windows and presented to the public, but it would be 2 years before Microsoft released Windows 1 on to the world.

With the release of Windows 1 very little interest was shown in the operating system. The market share of windows 1.0 grow very slowly over time, other software was bundled with a runtime version of windows to try to boost sales and give many users a chance to test windows.


Windows 1.0 came with the introduction of many of many of the features we today take for granted these included the Drop down menu ,scroll bars, icons, and dialogue boxes. Windows 1.0 also brought about the ability to switch between windows without the need to end each one.


Windows 1.0 required a minimum of 256KB (KILOBYTES), two double sided floppy disk drives and a graphics adapter card. A hard disk and 512KB memory was recommended for running multiple programs.


Windows 1.02 brought the release of windows in several European languages this led to window 1.03 being a major update to include drivers for European keyboards as-well as additional screen and printer drivers.

In April 1987 Microsoft released their final version of windows 1 in which Microsoft added support for the recently released IBM PS/2 computer. Together Microsoft and IBM developed the Operating System OS/2 which was initially intended to replace both MS-dos and windows but would ultimately never succeed.
The history of Microsoft windows 2.0 can be found here