History of Windows: Windows 3.0.

Welcome to another post in our ever growing History of Windows series of posts.

Today for the last post in our "Part 1" of our three part voyage, we will be looking at Windows 3.0. So without any further ado, I give you History of Windows: Windows 3.0. Hope you enjoy it.

On May 22nd, 1990, Microsoft released a new version of Windows called Windows 3.0.

This version of Windows was received very well by the general public at large. This was mainly because of several new features added to Windows that really made it more of a competitor to Apple's Macintosh.

The most notable new feature were the icons above file names. So now you would be able to somewhat discern what something was without having to read a cryptic file name.

And another new feature which quite a few people enjoyed and still do to this day was the inclusion of games such as Minesweeper and Solitaire.

Now about Solitaire. For computer users who want to waste time do something while waiting for something, this piece of software allowed you to play a card game called Solitaire. But the main idea behind including this game in Windows 3.0 was to teach people how to use a mouse. Fast foreword 23 years, and we still have Solitaire, albeit updated. And I would wager anything that to this day, Solitaire is the most used program in the workplace.

Another reason why Windows 3.0 was well received was that with Windows 3.0, Microsoft started to move away from MS-DOS. While the DOS prompt was still in Windows, an average user really did not have to use it that much.

On April 6th, 1992, Microsoft released an update to Windows 3.0 called (what else?) Windows 3.1.

The main improvement over Windows 3.0 was that you could now browse the internet with Windows 3.1. You could use Internet Explorer up to version 5 of it.

Windows 3.1 soon branched out into a consumer product and a separate business product called Windows 3.1 for Workgroups.

On August 11th, 1993, Microsoft released Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. And while this update did not bring much in the way of new features, Retail marketplaces upgraded to Windows 3.11 for Workgroups from the older DOS 6.02.

All versions of Windows 3.0 and 3.1 had their support ended on December 31st, 2001.

Even though the operating system has been unsupported for over 10 years, we still see the imprints that Windows 3.1 left on the world and ourselves.

Windows 3.1 found a niche market as an embedded operating system after becoming obsolete in the PC world. As of November 2008, Virgin Atlantic and Qantas Airways Limited still used it for some of the onboard entertainment on long flights.

It also sees continued use as an embedded operating system in retail cash tills. And on July 14th, 2013, Linux 3.11 was officially named "Linux for Workgroups" as a nod to Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.

From over 20 years ago to today, Microsoft made a hit with Windows 3.0 and with Windows 3.1. But this was not the end of Windows. Far from it. Windows would evolve into a better product.

Windows 9x laid some of the Windows groundwork that is still in use today. And we will discuss each operating system in detail in Part 2 of our Windows voyage.