The launch of Windows 95

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In August 1995, Microsoft released a new operating system - Windows 95 – following one of the computer industry’s biggest and most expensive marketing campaigns.

Queues formed outside shops at midnight as people around the world waited to be among the first to buy it.

The new software was designed to be more user friendly, easier to understand and aimed at ordinary people not professional programmers. Connecting to the internet would also be more straightforward.

More than 40 million CD Rom copies were sold in the first year, introducing a boom in personal home computing.

Sarah Leary who demonstrated the software on launch day – alongside Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and US talk show host Jay Leno – talks to Jane Wilkinson.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

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(Photo: Bill Gates at the Windows 95 launch. Credit: Bill Nation/Sygma via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Greg Jenner. I'm the host of Your Dead to Me, where the best names in comedy and history join me to learn about and laugh at the past.
0:08.7	You are a traitor. And in the new series, we'll meet Aristotle.
0:12.0	I think he might have been a time traveller. Someone who's like almost a glitch.
0:15.2	We'll dive into the causes of the British Civil Wars in the 1600s.
0:18.3	In England at this period, there's people can't get on the housing ladder.
0:21.4	This sounds familiar. And we'll discover the arts and crafts movement. I love the clothes. I love
0:26.4	the vibe. Yes, we're a comedy show that takes history seriously and then laughs at it. You're
0:30.6	dead to me. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:36.9	Welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC Will Service with me, Jane Wilkinson.
0:43.5	Recognise this.
0:48.1	Well, for millions of people, that was the distinctive sound of Windows 95 starting up on their home computer.
0:55.0	And this is the story about how that revolutionary technology was launched around the world.
1:02.0	There was literally this concept of midnight madness, where people were lining up in the hours leading up to the strike of midnight on August 24, 1995,
1:15.6	so they could be the first ones to buy Windows 95 in their country.
1:21.1	Meet Sarah Leary, the project manager chosen to demonstrate the new tech,
1:26.4	alongside a billionaire philanthropist and an
1:28.9	American talk show host.
1:30.3	Now let's welcome the chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates.
1:34.0	Ladies gentlemen, Jay Leno.
1:37.0	But first, the basics.
1:39.4	What exactly is Windows 95?
1:43.0	It's an operating system that makes it possible to easily move around the computer and give
	...

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