Talk:Timeline of Microsoft Windows

No business posting bitness without knowledge
actually variable bitness; 32bit protected mode programming (32bit registers and address space) with added 16 bit compatibility.

reference Andrew Shulman's "Unauthorized Windows 95". Assume that Linux and Netware are 16bit DOS Shells because they start from DOS command line? Can't run Loadlin or start Netware from DOS after Himem.sys loads processor into 32bit protected mode. DOS memory management, e.g. Himem.sys, is actually a Windows driver.

Windows 3.0 (386 enhanced mode) and newer had 32bit core with callbacks (thunking per MS) into 16bit modules for compatibility with older programs. Windows, q.v. Windows Virtual Machine Manager, VMM.386, can be renamed .exe and run without command.com (or msdos.sys). (Because there was a virus 15 years ago that deleted command.com). Shjacks45 (talk) 07:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Timeline image is wrong
The timeline image suggests Windows 3.1 is from 1994 whereas the article table says it's from 1992. Cogiati (talk) 13:20, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi. It does not explicitly say 3.1 but yes, it is a curious thing. Windows 3.11 was released on 31 December 1993, which is where the label "3.1x" points on the chart. I'll see about it. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 00:44, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi. Please see if you like this new version. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 04:55, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow, I think the new version is so much better separating 3.11 from 3.1 and avoiding ambiguity, thanks for taking care of it! Also, I just learned the ping template from you, I think :) Cogiati (talk) 06:00, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * How are you generating timeline images?--2601:8:B800:25B:5C6E:C5AF:D0E8:B00C (talk) 02:48, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi. Short answer is: With a lot of trouble. Long answer: I used Paint.net to extract existing bits and compose a new image. I do not have access to the CorelDraw 16 project, which the original author used to generate the image. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 05:33, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

In 1989, I installed Windows 1.10 on my HP 150 Touchscreen (with an HP-HIL mouse and drawing tablet!) in order to run Aldus Pagemaker. I'm sure it predated 2.0, but I no longer have the disks so I can't be sure of the exact release date. I remember it fondly because we all played Reversi for hours on end, a game that was particularly well suited to a touch screen computer. - Martin

Table dates
Hi Codename Lisa: ISO 8601 dates used per Acceptable date formats: "Only where brevity is helpful (refs,[3] tables, infoboxes, etc.)". MOS:DATEFORMAT dmy dates looks weird, to me, in the table column, and leads to clunky sorting workarounds mentioned in the article history, etc., no to mention it matching the dates used in the Mobile CE image itself. If disagree, please revert; not a hill to die on, for me. Thanks. --Iokevins (talk) 00:32, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi.
 * Of course I disagree. And at the same time I hate to disagree. This whole date style thing in Wikipedia is like curse. I try to be fair and it seems to me that brevity is not a concern here. But at the same time I wish these problems all went away.


 * I wonder if I should pretend I don't see edits that change dates.


 * Best regards,
 * Codename Lisa (talk) 09:52, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Merge with page "List of Microsoft Windows versions"
As this page does not provide a great deal of additional information compared to the more-detailed page List of Microsoft Windows versions, and as both articles appear to have very similar scopes, what would be your opinions on combining these two pages (most likely by having this page simply redirect to the other page, and possibly adding in any extra information from this article into the other if necessary)? Snowsky Mountain (talk) 00:13, 27 June 2021 (UTC)


 * As there's no response, I'm updating this page to simply redirect to the other page. Snowsky Mountain (talk) 15:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Why not wait for some more discussion first? Now much of the content that many people have created is lost to the History section where nobody will look for it. IMHO, you might at least have taken the effort and merge the content. Ghettoblaster (talk) 16:49, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The content is similar on both pages -- a list of releases of Windows. (If you look at the histories of both pages, you'll see I made a lot of edits to add to both pages, which seem to have been somewhat abandoned, until I realized that the scopes of both were extremely similar.) The only major things that not on the other page are the two images (which don't really add anything new anyway) and the architecture of each version, which may be too specific in scope for these articles. Snowsky Mountain (talk) 00:25, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Pinging a few people who have edited either page recently for more input:, , , , , ,. Essentially the question is this: as the page List of Microsoft Windows versions is extremely similar to this page, and this page is essentially a less-maintained duplicate of the other page, should we instead have this page simply link to the more detailed one? Snowsky Mountain (talk) 19:49, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge - I can see no reason to have two such similar pages.  Onel 5969  TT me 22:16, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge - I wasn't even aware of this page and see no reason for them to be separate. Jtrevor99 (talk) 00:59, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to make this page redirect to List of Microsoft Windows versions now - I've already updated that page to make it more in line with the content on this one. Snowsky Mountain (talk) 18:57, 18 July 2021 (UTC)