DEVELOPER MICROSOFT PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE
Microsoft’s Windows OS was transformative for PC gaming, offering a level of stability, compatibility, and accessibility that simply didn’t exist in the days of DOS. Gone were the days of typing text commands to install and boot games, getting it wrong several times, then throwing your keyboard out the window.
Although Windows 95 represents the key turning point from command lines to icons, Windows XP is Microsoft’s crowning achievement in OS design. Its UI replaced the unsightly grey boxes of old with a sleek, colourful, and above all intuitive design. It overhauled the Start menu introduced in Windows 95, adding the two-column layout. It also introduced a bunch of new features like taskbar window grouping and fast user switching.