History
Today, Microsoft’s Windows operating system is virtually synonymous with personal computing. According to NetMarketShare, a company that collects statistics on internet technologies, as of August 2013, 91.56 percent of desktops ran some version of Windows. The second largest system, Macintosh, occupied only 7.19 percent, which may seem trivial, but that was actually up a few percentage points from previous years.1 Linux, the “revolutionary” free operating system that some thought would finally give Microsoft a run for its money, had only a tiny 1.18% piece of the pie. Like it or not, Microsoft Windows has become the industry standard operating system for home and office computers; the question when buying a new PC isn’t whether to buy Windows, but rather which version of Windows you want installed.
Bill Gates showing off Windows 3.0, the first commercially successful version of the software. http://microsoft.com.
However, back in 1983, when Microsoft first announced it was working on a GUI, or Graphical User Interface, for its fledgling MS-DOS operating system, the landscape of home computing was much, much different. As you’ve seen in previous chapters, the field of personal computing was fiercely competitive, with companies such as Apple, Commodore, Tandy, Atari, and Texas Instruments (just to name a few) fighting tooth and nail for control of the desktop. If you think buying a personal computer is intimidating today, imagine what it was like back before MS-DOS, when making a bad choice could leave you with an obsolete machine with little-to-no software to run on it.
When the IBM PC showed up in the early 1980s, it made a huge impression, but it wasn’t so much the technology itself than the clever licensing arrangement between Microsoft and IBM that made the real difference (see Chapter 1.6). This arrangement made possible the huge array of “IBM PC compatibles,” which, although owing little to IBM, were able to sell cheaper (and even superior) machines that, thanks to MS-DOS, were just as good as the “real thing.” The strategy worked well for Microsoft, who was soon the undisputed king of the desktop.
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn.
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000, BioWare)
The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license had fallen into disrepair, at least as far as videogames were concerned, when BioWare released the first game in this series in 1998. While that game is inarguably a classic that every fan of role-playing should experience, BioWare was able to greatly refine the formula in this epic masterpiece. Who could forget Minsc’s obsession with his hamster, Boo, or the eerie chambers of the Illithids? Many fans of the genre, including the authors, consider this game to be the best of its kind, with a richness and depth that are simply timeless. Check out Planescape: Torment (1999) for a brilliant single-player variation on this game engine.
However, by the mid-1980s, the old command-line interface of MS-DOS was showing its age. Compared to the sleek new interfaces of an Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, or Commodore Amiga, it looked painfully antiquated. It was the opposite of user-friendly. In 1986, even the humble Commodore 64 had a GUI! Even though today it’s easy enough to find diehards who still prefer the old command-line interfaces, most of us couldn’t imagine computing without icons, mice, and, of course, windows. So far, these competing systems hadn’t managed to make much of a dent in Microsoft’s enormous user base, but the future was apparent. Text-based interfaces were about to go the way of text adventures.
In the early 1980s, Microsoft began working on a product called Interface Manager, but this boring name was soon replaced by “Windows.” In 1983, Microsoft announced the product, but it was a full two years before they were able to ship the first version. In the meantime, several GUI-based packages had been developed, including VisiCorp’s Visi On (1983), Quarterdeck Office Systems’ DESQview (1984), and IBM’s TopView (1985). While ambitious, all of these systems were expensive, slow, and poorly supported by external developers. Reviews were harsh—stick with DOS if you want anything resembling performance. Indeed, there was significant skepticism that even Microsoft would be able to deliver on its promises.
IBM’s TopView was an early competitor of Windows, but was a commercial flop. Source: Wikipedia.
When Windows 1.0 finally shipped, it wasn’t a stand-alone product. Like the older GUIs, it ran from MS-DOS. If you had a powerful computer with enough memory, it could run more than one program simultaneously, but reviewers weren’t impressed with the speed. Erik Sandberg-Diment of The New York Times put it this way: “Running Windows on a PC with 512K of memory is akin to pouring molasses in the Arctic. And the more windows you activate, the more sluggishly it performs.”2 Getting most software to run in Windows was a complex, painful process. Finally, few PC users at the time owned mice, which were bundled with the Macintosh. Try to imagine moving your mouse pointer with a keyboard—it’s no wonder so many people preferred to stick to DOS. Windows 1.0 is notable, however, for including the first-ever Windows game: Reversi.
Windows 1.0 was slow and compatible with very little software. Shown here is the Control Panel screen demonstrating the customization options for window preferences. Image courtesy of Marcin Wichary at www.guidebookgallery.org.
Windows 2.0 debuted in 1987, and offered some nice features that had been sorely lacking in the first iteration, including overlapping windows, desktop icons, and keyboard shortcuts. Advances in PC technology, particularly Intel’s beefier processors, helped make the Windows experience much smoother than before. Microsoft later released special versions of Windows 2.x called Windows/286 and Windows/386, which could take better advantage of Intel’s respective processors. Still, even when all tallied together, by 1990 Microsoft had still managed to sell fewer than 2 million copies of its Windows operating systems.3
Diabolo II.
Diablo II (2000, Blizzard Entertainment)
Before World of Warcraft, there was Diablo. It introduced gamers to the concept of an “action role-playing game,” that is, a game with the addictive leveling, gearing up, and stats of a traditional RPG, but with real-time combat sequences. They also featured procedurally generated maps, greatly upping the replay value. For the sequel, Blizzard pulled out all the stops, with a huge world, intricate leveling system, and awesome online multiplayer options. The long-anticipated third game in the series was finally released in 2012, earning perfect or near-perfect scores from almost every major critic despite some infamously oppressive DRM.
During this time, Microsoft had been working with IBM on OS/2, a new operating system for IBM’s upcoming PS/2 line of personal computers. The idea was to learn from the “mistakes” of the previous generation, when hundreds (if not thousands) of “IBM PC compatible” manufacturers had ripped into IBM’s profits. Gates and business manager Steve Ballmer were adamant about Microsoft’s support for the new system. Gates declared it the “environment for office computing in the 1990s,” and Ballmer promised that “Microsoft would cease development of its Windows software after the release of Windows 3.0… IBM’s OS/2 would become the main PC operating system of the 1990s.”4 They cut the Windows team down to a skeleton crew, shifting the bulk of their resources to the OS/2 camp.
IBM’s OS/2 represented the company’s concerted effort to introduce a new, more tightly controlled PC architecture (PS/2) and operating system. Shown here is a portion of a multi-page Microsoft ad from the December 1988 issue of Byte magazine, describing Microsoft’s key role in supporting Windows-, Macintosh-, and OS/2-based computers, like the one shown here. Of particular interest is Microsoft’s obvious need to still talk up the value of a mouse.
Fortunately for Microsoft, David Weise and Murray Sargent were still part of the crew—and they had a radical new idea. One night at a party, Murray told his friend Weise that Windows 2.x was a joke. “What one really should do,” said Murray, “was get Windows into protected mode and blow away the 640 KB RAM barrier altogether.” The original IBM PC reserved the memory addresses above 640 KB for I/O and ROM—the rest, called “low memory,” was what operating systems like Windows had left to work with. When Intel developed its 80286 processor, it introduced “protected mode,” which allowed access to more memory, but it wasn’t widely used. The problem was that the processor had to be reset whenever a program switched back to “real mode,” which gave it direct access to hardware, but without the safeguards necessary to keep it from crashing when accessing the greater memory.
Not realizing that Murray was joking, Weise said, “Sure!” When? “Right now!” So the two left the party and immediately went to work on the project. Over the next two weeks, the pair made enormous progress, but kept their mission secret—“OS/2” was the buzzword at the office, after all. But the team was successful—the 640 KB RAM barrier that had reduced earlier versions of Windows to “pouring molasses in the Arctic” was shattered. Still, the team was worried that Gates and Ballmer would reject their new approach.5 Although firmly in the OS/2 camp at the time, the heads at Microsoft were excited about their team’s breakthrough, and gave it their full support.6
It’s a good thing they did. The new version of Windows sold over 10 million copies in just two years. Gates had never made a better decision. The new Windows was everything the old version had wished it could be. It was also the first to come pre-installed on PC compatibles, a strategy that has served Microsoft well ever since.
Meanwhile, IBM’s new PS/2 line of computers were creating a different kind of buzz. Still smarting from the “IBM Compatible” phenomenon that had stolen sales, IBM built a proprietary bus architecture called Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), and insisted on draconian licensing terms for anyone else hoping to build compatible hardware for its PS/2 line. The companies that had made so much money with the older “open” architecture balked. The PS/2 had plenty of great innovations, some of which would become standard in DOS and later Windows machines, such as VGA graphics, the 1.44 MB floppy disk format, plug-and-play BIOS management, and new keyboard and mouse ports. IBM lavished funding on the platform’s marketing, but it was to no avail. PS/2s were selling, but few were buying.
The Windows 3.x series of operating systems was Microsoft’s first commercially successful GUI and marked the turning point for the chances of competing computer systems to remain commercially relevant. Screenshot from Windows 3.0 courtesy of Marcin Wichary at www.guidebookgallery.org.
Grim Fandango.
Grim Fandango (1998, LucasArts Entertainment)
Tim Schafer’s Grim Fandango is one of the last and greatest achievements of LucasArts’ famous graphical adventure game division. The main character, “Manny” Calavera, lives in the Land of the Dead, a strange (and rather comical) version of the afterlife based on Mexican mythology blended with “hardboiled” detective novels and modern art. Players loved the unforgettable characters and clever puzzles, and Peter McConnell’s jazz and bebop musical score complements the themes perfectly.
The problem for IBM was that its name no longer carried the clout it once did in the PC market. Consumers were quite happy to buy a less expensive “IBM PC compatible” from the likes of Gateway, Dell, or Compaq, and no one was eager to leave the older ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) bus that had served the industry so well. Another problem was that the first PS/2 computers were high-priced “premium” models for business. IBM had planned to release cheaper consumer-oriented versions, but problems at the chip factory delayed them. “IBM has clearly lost momentum in the personal computer business,” declared Richard Zwetchkenbaum from the International Data Corporation. Compaq’s president Eckhard Pfeiffer described IBM as “having some troubles… especially [with] its PS/2 position,” lines which he surely delivered with a smile.7 Soon newspapers were reporting the resignation of IBM’s president of its personal computing unit, Robert J. Corrigan. Never again would IBM play a significant role in the personal computer market.
By this point, most computer users had upgraded to at least a 286 or 386-based machine with a CGA or EGA color video card. The better graphics technology allowed Microsoft to build a much nicer-looking interface into Windows 3.x, with sharper icons and better performance. It was at this point that the famous Windows game folder showed up, with the ever-popular Solitaire, Hearts, and Reversi. Version 3.1 hit in March 1992, and introduced TrueType fonts, better stability, and multimedia support to an already popular system. It also replaced Reversi with Minesweeper, a game that is still included for free with most Windows releases. In short, although Microsoft itself had lost faith in Windows along the way, it was now apparent to all that they had finally gotten the product right.
Windows 3.x. Games shown, clockwise starting from top left corner: Minesweeper, Solitaire, and Hearts.
However, despite the breakthrough that was Windows 3.x, it was Windows 95 that really won over the masses. Released in August of 1995, it sold 7 million copies in just five weeks. For the first time, Microsoft had integrated their Windows interface and MS-DOS (you no longer needed to buy Windows and DOS separately), and advanced the underlying architecture from 16-bit to 32-bit. They also added the famous start button, taskbar, and “plug and play” capabilities that made life infinitely easier for folks installing software or connecting peripherals to their computer. They’d also gone to fantastic lengths to hype the new software, including licensing “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones. They bought out an entire print run of The Times of London so they could run their ads on its front page and give it away for free. They also tried to light up the Empire State Building in New York with the distinctive colors of the Windows 95 logo: red, yellow, green, and blue. To everyone’s frustration, though, they couldn’t get the blue light to work, but fans need not have worried. They would have plenty of opportunities to view the bold color on their own machines soon enough.
Of course, the mid-1990s is when America (and the world) saw the first big bursts of the internet revolution. Although Gates had been slow to move to the GUI revolution, he immediately grasped the importance of the internet. In a memo he sent on Mar 26, 1995, he declared the internet “the most important single development to come along since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981.”8 To secure a foothold in this wild and rapidly expanding frontier, Microsoft quickly released its first version of Internet Explorer—for free. This move resulted in immediate action from Spyglass, from whom Microsoft had licensed the technology, promising royalties for each copy sold. Later, when they began bundling the browser with Windows, they brought on more litigation from Netscape and Opera Software, who accused them of violating antitrust law.
Since Windows 95, Microsoft has steadily released new versions of its operating system. Some of these releases, such as Windows 98 in 1998 and Windows XP in 2001, were warmly received, whereas others, especially Windows ME (2000) and Vista (2006), were derided by both critics and users alike.
Game developers were slow to support Windows before Windows 95. Most games for Windows 3.x were low-budget shareware or freeware games.9 Microsoft released its own Entertainment Pack for the system, which included versions of Tetris and a few puzzle games. Perhaps the most important game released for 3.x is SimCity for Windows (1992), which was quite well-suited to the Windows environment. Other notable releases for Windows 3.x were Myst (1993) and Sid Meier’s CivNet (1995).
Most PC gamers, however, preferred MS-DOS, which was viewed as a much better system for gaming. Unlike Windows, MS-DOS had the advantage (for gaming, at least) of monopolizing the hardware, taking direct control of the graphics and sound cards, and doesn’t have to worry about “sharing” its resources among simultaneously running programs. The situation was comparable to games for the Commodore Amiga (see Chapter 2.2), which usually required booting from disk rather than running as a multitasked application in Workbench.
Minecraft is as much a set of virtual building blocks as it is a game. Shown here is one of the many fantastic creations possible, this one from Armchair Arcade’s Mark Vergeer.
Minecraft (2010, Mojang AB)
There have been many great indie games in recent years, including Introversion’s Darwinia (2005), Jonathan Blow’s Braid (2010), and Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl’s The Binding of Isaac (2011). None of these excellent games, however, have enjoyed the widespread popularity of Markus “Notch” Persson’s Minecraft. Players mine and build during the day, then defend against monsters at night. While there’s no set goal to the game, players still enjoy building fantastic levels with their friends online, or posting videos featuring narrated tours of their recreation of the Millennium Falcon or ancient Egypt. While Minecraft has been ported to everything from Android to Xbox One, the original PC version is still where the game feels most at home.
Windows 95 marked a turning point largely because of the release of DirectX, a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that made it much easier for third-party developers (especially game developers) to make software for the platform. As its name implies, DirectX allows programs to talk directly to hardware, without any of the speed-cutting workarounds necessary for most Windows applications. Another major advantage is that DirectX would take care of the problems associated with accommodating so many different possible PC configurations (i.e., whether a gamer had an AdLib or Sound Blaster sound card). The development of DirectX is worthy of a feature film, with essentially three brilliant men—Craig Eisler, Alex St. John, and Eric Engstrom, working non-stop to hammer out the first version before the Computer Game Developers Conference of April 1995. The CDs they needed for the presentation arrived just hours before they were on stage touting the software.
Unfortunately for the DirectX team, 3D hardware acceleration was just around the corner, and they weren’t ready for it. DirectDraw, the part of the DirectX suite that handled graphics, was only good for 2D. Meanwhile, OpenGL, a rival API that had originally been developed by Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), had been supporting 3D graphics for some time, mostly for serious or high-end applications like computer-aided design, virtual reality, and flight simulation. Instead of including OpenGL with Windows 95, Microsoft opted to develop its own “lightweight” 3D API called Direct3D. To expedite the process, they bought Servan Keondjian’s company RenderMorphics, who had developed a 3D CAD and medical imaging API called Reality Lab.10 Keondjian worked frantically with the DirectX team to rapidly develop the product in time to ship with the second version of DirectX.
Microsoft’s Hover! (1995) was a game intended to show off Windows 95’s 3D and multimedia capabilities. It still runs great on modern Windows systems.
Reactions to Direct3D were mixed. Famously, John Carmack, the celebrated coder behind Doom and Quake, refused to use it, supporting OpenGL instead. Whereas OpenGL was time-tested and easy to use, Direct3D was overly complicated and downright confusing. Coming from Carmack, this criticism carried a lot of weight, and ignited an OpenGL vs. Direct3D debate that is still a hot topic in some programming circles. Fortunately, Microsoft was able to resolve many of these issues in version 8.1 of Direct3D in 2001, a point at which many programmers feel the product had at last surpassed OpenGL. While OpenGL is still a popular choice for mobile gaming applications, even Carmack now acknowledges its rival’s superiority—although he has no plans of switching anytime soon.11
With DirectX and either OpenGL and/or Direct3D in place, Windows 95 was finally able to hold its own against DOS—although many developers continued supporting the older system for several more years. However, eventually Microsoft was able to leverage its relationship with hardware makers—especially graphic card makers like NVIDIA and ATI—to ensure that DirectX would work seamlessly with their new 3D accelerated products. Without comparable support for DOS-based machines, gamers wanting the latest and greatest games had no choice but to make the move.
We saw in Chapter 1.6 how PC graphics technology had evolved from CGA to VGA and beyond, each time adding tremendous increases in resolution, color palette, and on-screen colors. These advances were great in terms of color and resolution, but 3D graphics were still a tremendous challenge. Early 3D games did this work entirely in software, meaning that the computer’s CPU was taxed to generate the 3D animation in addition to executing all the rest of the game’s code. While some critics felt that CPUs would continue to improve to meet the demands of 3D programming, others felt that specialized devices were needed to help out the CPU.
Starcraft.
Starcraft (1998, Blizzard Entertainment)
Although Blizzard’s Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994) was the company’s first foray into real-time strategy games, it was this science fiction follow-up that turned it into what can only be described as a sport. Offering near-perfectly balanced gameplay and just the right amount of complexity and intensity, Starcraft became a cultural phenomenon—especially in South Korea, where the 2005 Starcraft championship drew a larger crowd than the Super Bowl did in America that year. Indeed, a new unit called “actions per minute” was invented as a metric to test a player’s skill. It also introduced the meme and Google doodle “zerg rush,” named for one of the alien races in the game known for its rapid spawning. Other great real-time strategy games for Windows are Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1996, Westwood), Total Annihilation (1997, Cavedog), and Age of Empires III (2005, Ensemble).
Enter the GPU, or Graphics Processing Unit, which, thanks to OpenGL or DirectX, could take over the burden of transforming, clipping, and lighting 3D scenes. Then as now, hardcore PC gamers doled out for the latest and most expensive GPUs to power their systems, but it didn’t always result in noticeable differences unless DirectX or OpenGL and the game in question specifically supported its new features. Fortunately for PC gamers (and GPU companies), high-profile games such as id’s Quake II (1997) and enhanced versions of Activision’s MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat (1995) soon showed off the advantages of the new technologies. Indeed, many new GPUs shipped with special versions of a popular game specifically built to showcase its abilities, a practice still common today. It’s also still an important consideration when buying a GPU to check its compatibility with the latest DirectX version.
Shown here are two Voodoo2 3dfx graphics cards from 1998 intended for a Scan-Line Interleave (SLI) configuration. In SLI mode, two Voodoo2 boards were installed in a PC and ran in parallel, with each unit drawing half the lines of the display, supporting a then-impressive resolution of 1024 × 768. A third, 2D video card, was still required for this setup for all non-3D activities, creating quite the web of cable interconnections between the three cards and target monitor.
Incidentally, Microsoft quickly learned it could use its latest DirectX as a way to goad laggards into upgrading to an unpopular version of Windows. For example, DirectX 10 was exclusive to Vista, and Direct X 11.1 is limited to Windows 8.x. The need for such a strategy reveals one of the unique problems faced by operating system developers: do your job too well, and your users may not care to “upgrade” to your next system. Indeed, as of September 2013, there were still over 500 million users of the 12-year-old Windows XP, which still enjoys a reputation as one of the most stable and reliable incarnations of the software.
Windows 95 coincided nicely with the rise of 3D gaming and the first-person shooter boom. As these games became increasingly complex, they required faster processors and better GPUs—most of which were only supported on Windows. Later Windows versions would continue this trend. Even though today there is more support than ever for gaming on Macintosh- and Linux-based systems, Windows is still the best choice for gamers who want to play the latest and greatest games at the highest possible performance specifications.
Technical Specifications
Since Windows is software rather than hardware, it makes more sense here to talk about the computers it runs best on. Microsoft recommended a 386-based machine for Windows 3.x, with 640 K of conventional memory, 2048 K of extended memory, 30 MB hard drive, and a VGA or higher graphics card. A mouse was, of course, recommended. You also needed to have MS-DOS 3.1 or later.
For Windows 95, Microsoft recommended a 486 (these ran up to 133 MHz), with 8 MB of RAM, 256-color SVGA card, a modem, an audio card, and speaker. Obviously, later versions would increase these specifications as the operating system grew larger, more sophisticated, and more demanding on the hardware. For comparison, Windows 8.1, the latest version as of this writing, requires a 1 GHz or faster processor, 1 GB of RAM (2 recommended), and a DirectX 9-compatible graphics device. As always, upgrading to the latest Windows usually necessitates a subsequent upgrade in hardware, a policy that has worked out well for Microsoft, but also for the supporting hardware industry.
Windows Versions
What follows are some of the major Windows release highlights (and lowlights):
• 1985: The first incarnation of Windows, version 1.x, attracted little fanfare. Its sluggish performance was hardly a match for MS-DOS despite its more attractive interface.
• 1987: Windows 2.x offered some nice innovations, such as overlapping windows, desktop icons, and the Control Panel. Designed for higher performing 286-based machines, it was slightly faster than the previous version, but reviewers and software developers were still quite happy with DOS.
• 1990: With Windows 3.x, Microsoft had finally stumbled upon the right mix of speed and efficiency. The new version offered better graphics, support for 386-based machines, and much greater performance.
• 1995: Windows 95 marks the tipping point for Windows and the end of the DOS era. The new version was perfectly poised to take advantage of the multimedia craze as well as the internet, which was just beginning to take off. The taskbar and start menu make their debut.
To assist novice computer users, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Bob, a suite of applications that included a word processor and email client. It had an interface built on a house metaphor, complete with living room, furniture, and cartoony characters like Scuzz the Rat and Clippy the Paper Clip who helped you with your computing chores. The cutesy product turned out to be a fiasco for the company, harshly criticized (and then lampooned) by the press. Although Ballmer later admitted it was a mistake, Gates remains adamant that “we were just ahead of our time, like most of our mistakes,” and promises that Bob will return.12 You’ve been warned!
• 1998: Windows 98 was marketed as the system that “works better, plays better,” which was a fitting description. It was more stable than the previous release, and had a cool “Quick Launch” bar. It was also the last Windows based on MS-DOS.
The Last Express.
The Last Express (1997, Broderbund)
Jordan Mechner’s The Last Express is widely considered one of the best graphical adventure games designed, with an engaging story set aboard the Orient Express in 1914, just before the outbreak of the first World War. The game is set in real-time, and was celebrated for its nonlinear approach to the genre. The distinctive art style is “art nouveau,” which was period appropriate for the time in which the game was set. To create the look, real actors were filmed in front of a bluescreen. The resulting footage was converted to black and white and then colorized by hand. It’s truly a remarkable achievement that demonstrates the artistic and narrative possibilities of the medium.
• 2000: Windows ME was a stumble for the company. This “Millennium Edition” was roundly criticized for being slow, buggy, and downright unstable. It was billed as the “home edition” of Windows; serious users were urged to buy Windows 2000 Professional instead. It was marketed as the most secure Windows ever, but was subsequently the target of a series of infamous virus attacks. PC World, who ranked it #4 on their list of the worst tech products ever, quipped that “users reported problems installing it, getting it to run, getting it to work with other hardware and software, and getting it to stop running. Aside from that, ME worked great.”13
• 2001: Windows XP showed up the following year, no doubt rushed to quell the bad press generated by Windows ME. Still preferred by many Windows users even today, XP was fast, solid, and reliable. It was easier than ever to get online, and Microsoft used this feature to roll out regular “security updates” to fight the increasing number of viruses targeting the system. It was so successful that Microsoft took five years before releasing another version.
• 2006: Windows Vista was billed as having the “strongest security” ever, and the interface got a stylistic overhaul with “Aero.” Gates announced the “Trustworthy Computer Initiative” as a way to hype the system’s laser focus on security. Reactions to all this were mixed, at best. The new bells and whistles made Vista slower than XP, and no one seemed to like all the emphasis on DRM (Digital Rights Management). Many programs (especially games) that worked fine on XP would not run on Vista, at least without patches or workarounds. Users also disliked being inundated with prompts asking them if they were sure—absolutely sure?—they wanted to install the software they had just commanded the computer to install. In short, many gamers stuck with or went back to XP.
• 2009: Windows 7 is to Vista what Windows XP was to 95/98: A faster, sleeker, and more reliable Windows. According to Microsoft, 8 million beta testers helped them root out bugs and glitches before release, which seems plausible enough given its stability. Most of the gamers who had stuck with XP were now happy to upgrade to the new system.
Half-Life 2 from The Orange Box.
The Orange Box (2007, Valve Corporation)
This is a collection of five games built with Valve’s “Source” 3D engine: Half-Life 2, its two follow-up “episodes,” Team Fortress 2, and Portal. Half-Life 2, originally released in 2004, is widely regarded as the best first-person shooter ever designed, mostly due to its well-developed characters, unforgettable settings, and thought-provoking story arcs. Team Fortress 2 is a “class-based” multiplayer team shooter with a comical look. Each of the nine available classes has a special skill that, if used correctly, can help the team win the match. Portal is a brilliant puzzle game that introduced us to GLaDOS and the “cake is a lie” meme. You really can’t go wrong with any of these games; get the box and we’ll see you next year.
• 2012: The radical new interface of Windows 8, designed to work smoothly with touch controls as well as the standard mouse and keyboard, had a tortured release, thanks in part to being designed to work with devices outside of traditional desktops and laptops. The addition of the Windows Store, which might have been a boon for game developers, was instead criticized for its strict policies. Features in previous versions that users found convenient, such as the Start button, were missing altogether, causing frustration and making Windows experts suddenly feel like novices again. While competing products from Google and Apple were a hot commodity, tablet and touchscreens powered by Microsoft technology failed to catch on the way the company hoped. In particular, their first generation of high profile Microsoft Surface tablets floundered. Par for the course for Microsoft, the first Windows 8 update, Windows 8.1, released October 2013, addressed many of the complaints about the first version—including the return of the start button, and the second generation of Surface tablets was much better received. As history has shown for Microsoft, dogged persistence, even in the face of obvious failure, pays off, you just have to keep at it.
The PC Windows Gaming Community Then and Now
Considering the massive size of the Windows installed user base, it makes little sense to talk of a community of all Windows users. Even if we focus just on gamers, we find ourselves confronted with an extremely unwieldy mass of disparate elements. No doubt, most Windows users are those who, if they game at all, restrict themselves to the included Solitaire, Hearts, and Minesweeper, or migrate to browser-based offerings, casual hidden-object type games, or the social games genre available on social networks like Facebook.
They don’t get much attention from the regular gaming press, but here are three of the most popular games ever made for Windows: Solitaire, Hearts, and Minesweeper. Shown here are the Windows 7 versions.
If we narrow our focus just to those described as “hardcore gamers,” however, a more coherent community emerges. This community began forming after Windows 95, as it became clear that DOS could no longer support the cutting-edge graphics demanded by the latest batch of first-person shooter games. This community had initially formed around LAN parties, where dozens (or hundreds, or thousands!) of gamers would lug their heavy PCs and CRT-monitors to a central location, network them together via cable, and play “death match” games until they collapsed from exhaustion. These events were comparable to sports; it was all about skill, teamwork, and endurance. After the internet rose to prominence, these groups could simply meet to frag each other online, an activity that has continued ever since.
Although first-person shooters get the most attention from the popular press, there are plenty of other types of Windows games that have attracted huge communities of dedicated players. Prominent examples include Blizzard’s Diablo (action role-playing) and especially Starcraft (real-time strategy) games. Of course, it’s impossible to imagine today’s Windows gaming landscape without MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) like World of Warcraft, which command tens of millions of paying subscribers. While most fans of these games are happy just to play casually, others take the competition quite seriously, spending hundreds if not thousands of hours playing, researching, and devising strategies to hone their skills.
The Sims.
The Sims (2000, Maxis)
The Sims is a real-time simulation of social and family life; a microscopic view of the “Sims,” the tiny citizens in the earlier hit, SimCity. While the characters go to work or school, work out, and have babies, the player can remodel their home. A classic “sandbox” or “dollhouse” game, there’s no stated way to win The Sims. Instead, the thrill comes from meticulously managing so many different aspects of your Sims, while reveling in all the fun shopping options. The game was a huge hit, especially with previously underserved female gamers.
Compared to their console-gaming cousins, Windows gamers tend to be more obsessed with hardware, often going so far as to upgrade or even build their own gaming rigs to take advantage of the latest components. If asked, they can likely give you a plethora of details about their system, such as the make and model of their processor, and easily slip into impassioned discussions of the ins and outs of SLI-based configurations, liquid CPU coolers, or overclocking. Of course, few, if any, games are available that truly take advantage of such expensive configurations, but that’s not the point. In many ways, the hardcore Windows gaming community is comparable to the “hot rod” culture of the 1950s, when a “souped up” car was a point of pride for many people—regardless of whether they actually participated in any street races.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3, as well as their respective successors, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, have helped further narrow the gap between console and computer games. Except for a handful of high-profile exclusives, most popular games were available on all three current platforms, and it’s often difficult to tell the versions apart. That said, most modern Windows games still offer superior graphics over their console versions, assuming the user has the hardware to take advantage of it—a process called “running at ultra spec.” Windows gamers also enjoy greater access to “indie” games, that is, games made by small developers and sold exclusively online—though again this gap has steadily closed as more of these titles are available via Microsoft’s and Sony’s digital game stores for their respective consoles. Of course, many Windows gamers would still insist that no console could ever match the power of their beloved gaming rig.
Thief II: The Metal Age (2000, Looking Glass Studios)
Mention “stealth game” to anyone of a certain age, and they’ll undoubtedly refer you to the Thief series. The first game, Thief: The Dark Project, debuted in 1998, enriching the adrenaline-soaked first-person shooter scene with a spine-tingling new subgenre. Instead of “running ’n’ gunning” your way through a monster-packed level, you snuck around, sticking to the shadows and trying to avoid detection. The second game ups the ante with better graphics, higher resolution, and some fun new abilities like listening at a door for enemy movement.
Collecting PC Windows Systems
To most Windows gamers, the idea of a “vintage Windows system” is ludicrous. Why would anyone want an obsolete machine? Indeed, there are really no Windows-based systems that are “collector’s items” in any general sense.
There are, however, occasions when a particular game works best on the hardware it was designed for. For this reason, some gamers keep around an older machine running Windows 98 or XP. Occasionally, this blossoms into a desire to create the ultimate “vintage” Windows rig. Perhaps you could not afford the best possible machine back in 2001, but now that those same components are available for little more than the cost of shipping on eBay, it could be time to return to your dream of building that perfect rig. The best part is, if you screw up and damage something, who cares?
The screen that greets the user when Windows 95 is first run. Image courtesy of Marcin Wichary at www.guidebookgallery.org.
Before heading to eBay, though, check your local craigslist, classified ads, and thrift stores to see if anyone local is selling or giving away their old PC. You might get lucky and score a machine for little more than the gas it takes to drive out and pick it up.
Almost every Windows gamer has, at some point or another, discovered that a favorite game will not run on the current version of the operating system. In many cases, this problem can be solved within Windows using the compatibility troubleshooter, which can rollback many features that might conflict with an older program. There are also authored and fan-made patches that can update or modify an older game to play friendly with a newer machine. It’s always worth doing a thorough internet search to see if anyone else has had similar problems and found a workable solution.
Sometimes, however, no matter what you do, an old Windows game just won’t run on your version of Windows. If all else fails, the best advice is to acquire an old Windows PC (see above). Older PCs running Windows 98 or XP are plentiful and cheap. There are, however, other solutions.
World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft (2004, Blizzard Entertainment)
The MMORPG to rule them all went online in November 2004, handily crushing the previous champ, Sony’s EverQuest series. While the concept of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game had been well-established since the success of Richard Garriott’s Ultima Online in 1997, Blizzard was able to broaden their appeal to a staggering 10+ million base of subscribers. Beyond just offering better graphics than the competition, Blizzard offered better gameplay, with more intuitive controls and a near-immaculate progression system. They also ensured that you could have (nearly) as much fun playing the game by yourself as with other people. Over the years, newer MMORPGs have been hailed as a “WOW Killer,” but none have come close to even causing a minor wound. Although Blizzard had only released four expansions from 2004 to 2014, the team steadily issued updates and patches to refresh the content and rebalance the stats.
If you’re on Windows 7, you can try downloading and installing the “Windows XP Mode” tool by Microsoft. This program essentially fools your program into thinking you’re running Windows XP, but there’s an important caveat—it’s intended for legacy business applications, not 3D games. If you need something older than XP, you can try VirtualBox. It’s a free third-party “virtualization” tool, but this one also supports Windows 2000—provided you have the installation discs.
A more drastic option is to create a dual boot partition on your PC. A chapter of its own would have to be devoted to describe the process here, but it boils down to creating a special partition of your hard drive. If you’re on Windows 7, this can be done with the “Disk Management” tool available through the control panel. Once you’ve successfully created and formatted your partition, you can install your old Windows version onto it. After this, you’ll need a program such as EasyBCD (free; available at http://neosmart.net) to give you the option of which system to load up when you turn on or reset your machine. This technique, by the way, can be used to install a Linux partition as well. You may run into compatibility issues with your newer hardware, though, especially if you’re installing something older than XP.
If Windows 3.1 is your thing, you’re in luck. Michael Vincent of CrunchGear has put together a great XHTML website that replicates the experience—all in your browser. Just visit www.michaelv.org and click the “games” folder for some classic Minesweeper. It’s also possible to emulate Windows 3.x using DOSBox, though it’s a fairly involved process. If you’re feeling ambitious, check out the illustrated guides at sierrahelp.com.
1 See http://netmarketshare.com for these and other stats.
2 E. Sandberg-Diment, “Personal Computers; Windows are Open at Last,” The New York Times, February 25, 1986.
3 These and the other Windows-sales statistics in this chapter are from Harry McCracken’s “A Brief History of Windows Sales Figures, 1985–Present,” from TIME Tech. 7 May 2013, http://techland.time.com/2013/05/07/a-brief-history-of-windows-sales-figures-1985-present.
4 Paul Ormerod, Why Most Things Fail, Faber & Faber, 2010.
5 Paul Ormerod, Why Most Things Fail, Faber & Faber, 2010.
6 See Murray Sargent’s account of these events in “Saving Windows from the OS/2 Bulldozer,” MSDN Blogs, December 7, 2006, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/murrays/archive/2006/12/07/saving-windows-from-the-os-2-bulldozer.aspx.
7 S.L., “IBM’s Head of PC Unit Resigns Post,” May 3, 1994, The New York Times.
8 www.lettersofnote.com/2011/07/internet-tidal-wave.html.
9 The .x convention is a way of grouping together the various updated releases of a product. “Windows 3.x,” for instance, include 3.0, 3.1, etc.
10 Previously, Keondjian had worked for Magnetic Scrolls, a company specializing in illustrated text adventure games.
11 Kevin Parrish, “Carmack: Direct3D Now Better Than OpenGL,” March 11, 2011, Tom’s Hardware, www.tomshardware.com/news/john-Carmack-DirectX-OpenGL-API-Doom,12372.html.
12 Dan Farber, “Bill Gates Says Microsoft Bob Will Make a Comeback,” C|Net, July 15, 2013, http://news.cnet.com/8301–10805_3–57593736–75/bill-gates-says-microsoft-bob-will-make-a-comeback.
13 Dan Tynan, “The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time,” PC World, March 26, 2006, /www.pcworld.com/article/125772/worst_products_ever.html?page=2.