Talk:Windows 2.0/Archive 1

Significant rework and partial merge
There are several problems with the Windows 2.0/2.1x articles which I have just fixed, and I want to give notice to save time in later discussions in case there are questions about the scale of the changes I made.

First, the 2.0/2.1 article split, while technically valid (Microsoft considers them separate major releases) appears to be based on the incorrect belief that 386 support was introduced in 2.1. There are several websites (including some current sources of dubious merit) that repeat this misinformation, but evidence against this is easily located. A simple Google search for Windows/386 2.01 or 2.03 will yield scans of disks, photos of boxed copies and screenshots of running systems showing the older version numbers.

What in fact occurred is that both 2.0 and 2.1 came in /386 variants, but in 2.0 the 286 variant was simply called Windows (with a version number on the back of the box), while the 386 variant was called Windows/386 directly on the box. All of this should be supported by references.

I think it's clear that the 2.1 article (and I will crosspost some of this to its talk page) misleads a reader into believing that division only occurred in the 2.1 revision by putting all the info about the changes in that article and making no mention of the 386 compatibility in the 2.0 article. I have moved those sections to the 2.0 page and replaced them with a remark that 2.1 retains the same product division as 2.0 with a change of naming.

I removed the comment "Like Windows 1.x, Windows 2.x applications cannot be run on Windows 3.1 or up without modifications since they were not designed for protected mode" because it was not supported by its reference and is provably false (I tested win 1 and 2 apps in 3.1 successfully.) Gravislizard (talk) 23:27, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Configuration question
Someone in the know: Did INI files, specifically SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI, exist and matter in the pre 3.x world of Windows? If so, did sysedit.exe exist at that time? Much appreciated, MrZaius  talk  22:35, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

WIN.INI existed for Windows 2.xx and served all the functions that were split between WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI for Win 3.

SYSEDIT.EXE did not ship with Win 2. I don't know if a version of the Multipad sample program with default loading of system files was offered for free download back then. SYSEDIT was a modified version of multipad. 12.76.139.232 22:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC) krebiz

Price
How much was this at retail? PureLegend 19:42, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Windows 2.x
Shouldn't this article either be named Windows 2.x or be split into seperate Windows 2.0 and Windows 2.1x articles? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.226.3.194 (talk) 17:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

Release date
"Released on 1987-11-23, Windows 2.0 allowed for windows to overlap each other, in contrast to Windows 1.0, which could only display tiled windows (this limitation was imposed due to lawsuits from Apple Computer;"

I remember walking into a Computerland in Canada in the Summer of 1987 (July) and seeing Aldus PageMaker running Windows 2.0. So I doubt the date of November 1987 as the release date, unless they were just Beta testing it. --Jimj wpg 04:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Screen shot?
There used to be a screen shot in this article. Where did it go? All the other Windows versions DO have screenshots! --Krawunsel (talk) 19:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It was deleted for having no fair use rationale. - Josh (talk | contribs) 21:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

*REVERSI.EXE
I'm looking for informations about this programm. I can't start this article, because I don't know enough about this programm. (Pz-engl (talk) 15:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC))

Windows 2.01
This article is rather broken as it completely omits Windows/386 2.01, released in September 1987. See http://www.krsaborio.net/microsoft/research/1987/0923-a.htm for press release and http://www.os2museum.com/wp/?p=541 for box- and screenshots. Windows 2.03 was not the first release of Windows 2.x. Codegen86 (talk) 13:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Techie stuff
Trying to find the version of MSDOS required to run Windows 2. I believe it was MSDOS 3.3 or PCDOS 4. Rem the DRDOS lawsuit re DOS warning, reason was incomplete emulation of "HIMEM.SYS" in DRDOS a requirement rectified in Windows 2 release. Win2 requirements I believe were 512MB RAM, but 1MB could be used on XT/286 and 8086 CPUs (LIMS was a hardware EMS standard so not really a Windows issue). Timeline definitely need review in this article. I'd like to see a note re DesQview and Xenix, cometed with Windows. I remember at cascaded Windows in 1985 but may have been beta. Reason for query is that DOS XMS driver put 286/386 into protected mode to access memory above 1MB. I believe that Win2 was also first to use 286/386 Invalid Instruction exception (Patent by Microsoft to execute 'instruction' at "Copyright IBM" part of BIOS ROM) to switch between Real and Protected Modes (ring 0 and ring 3 security levels on 386). Prior art was to reset the system via keyboard microcontroller (a slow process). IOW, Windows 2 did not run on DOS anymore than running 'LOADLIN' from DOS means Linux is a DOS program. Shjacks45 (talk) 14:22, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Copyright or patent
Copyrights and patents are very different things. Was the fight about patents or copyrights? Probably patents (but not impossible it was about copyright or both). As written, there seems to be no distinction between patent and copyright. Also, if you win 10 patent claims, you're probably doing pretty good---in most cases, you only need to win on one and it's not atypical to file suit over lots of claims but only expect to prevail on a few. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.182.225.236 (talk) 02:34, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Ambiguous line in paragraph about legal battle with Apple
" The judge ruled in favor of Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft in all but ten of the 189 patents that Apple sued for. The exclusive ten could not be copyrighted, as ruled by the judge."

If the judge sided with Apple for the remaining ten patents, how did the judge also say that Apple could not copyright those ten? 75.138.157.244 (talk) 23:38, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation says this: "the court decided that 179 of these elements had been licensed to Microsoft in the Windows 1.0 agreement and most of the remaining 10 elements were not copyrightable&mdash;either they were unoriginal to Apple, or they were the only possible way of expressing a particular idea." - Josh (talk | contribs) 14:03, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Nixa?
From where did this codename came from? What is the proof over it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.205.189.159 (talk) 20:05, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Control panel
"Windows 2.0 was also the first Windows version to integrate the control panel." This is a myth that for some reason also appeared on Microsoft's own history minisite; the Control Panel utility is actually present in Windows ever since the very early development releases from 1984. See https://betawiki.net/wiki/File:DR5-13.png and http://toastytech.com/guis/win1984.html. --93.91.252.108 (talk) 21:46, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Someone blanked the Windows/286 section
Please fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.88.59.121 (talk) 09:27, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

26 reviews?
I was going to try to knock out some of the GA nominations, but I noticed that for the Windows 2.0x, 2.1x, and 3.1x articles, the articles say they have had 26 (!) reviews. Would someone be willing to provide me some context on that before reviewing? I don't want to repeat work that other reviewers have already gone through. Where do I find the previous 26 reviews?

see WP:Good article nominations:
 * 1)  (Reviews: 26) Vacant0 (talk) 14:02, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Caleb Stanford (talk) 16:35, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Pinging for a response -- I would like to review your three GA nominations of Windows 2.0x, Windows 2.1x, and Windows 3.1x. But first, I am wondering where to find the 26 reviews (or if this is an error). Please let me know. I will message on the other two talk pages also. In case of no response I suggest the GA nominations should be removed as obsolete. Thanks, Caleb Stanford (talk) 18:08, 30 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Reviews: 26 means that the editor, in this case it's me, had reviewed 26 GANs in total. It doesn't have anything to do with these three articles. Cheers. Vacant0 (talk) 11:22, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I was quite busy, I'm now open to receive feedback through these reviews. --Vacant0 (talk) 12:54, 1 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Aha, that makes more sense! Thank you for clarifying that. I hope to get to reviewing these sometime soon. Caleb Stanford (talk) 15:58, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No problem. Vacant0 (talk) 16:27, 1 July 2022 (UTC)