Microsoft Windows 95 owes a lot. Not only was it so one of the best operating systems throughout history, but he was also the one who caused the company to experience tremendous growth, allowing it to acquire all the resources needed to lay the foundations that transformed it into the technological giant it is today.

The first computer I had came with this operating system and the truth is that in general my experience with this operating system has been so good that I have a very special affection for it. In all my years as a tech and computer enthusiast, I have read many interesting things about this version of Windows, but there’s one I didn’t know and that surprised me a lot.

Raymond Chen, a software engineer at Microsoft, answered a very interesting question: why do the Windows 95 installation process display three different user interfaces. This is because during this installation process three different operating systems are used, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1 and finally Windows 95.

Why does Windows 95 use three operating systems to install?

Because the installation interface was designed to update systems from three different reference pointsone was MS-DOS, the second was Windows 3.1, and the last was Windows 95 itself.For compatibility reasons, Microsoft had to maintain these three different computing environments, otherwise problems could arise.

Basically, the installation process of this operating system has evolved as we see in the picture, that is:

• Start in MS-DOS and install a mini version of Windows 3.1.
• Run this mini version of Windows 3.1.
• Collect information.
• Detects hardware.
• Copy Windows 95 drivers and files using a 16-bit application.
• Migrate settings and configure drivers.
• Start Windows 95 and perform the final installation.

The hard core, the most important part of the installation process, was the 16-bit Windows application because it was the one that performed most of the necessary tasks to install the final version of the operating system. The user interface gradually adapted during the process, ending up with the version expected by the user, which was Win32.

Interestingly, the mini version of Windows 3.1 was a specialized variant developed only for run one program. It was not the only one of its kind developed by Microsoft, we know that the original version of Microsoft Excel for Windows came with a Windows 2.1 variant that allowed those who did not have Windows installed to run Excel.