20 Years of Windows Solutions

摘要

In perusing nearly two decades of Microsoft Windows tips to bring you this selection, we were confronted with the detritus of the past: discarded features and forgotten names such as PIF Editor and RAMDrive. Many components have been superseded by newer apps; File Manager by Windows Explorer and Windows Write by WordPad, for instance. Most of these tips aren't directly applicable to Windows XP, but a few (on Alt-Tab, double-clicking, icon and wallpaper creation) are still usable more or less as written, and all highlight intriguing aspects of the development and evolution of this dominant operating system: A look back at what readers were asking us about Windows/286, Windows/386, Windows 3,0, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95 reminds us—despite the security problems and other complaints about Windows XP—how far this operating system has come, so that today it is a platform for applications of a power and complexity barely imaginable to early users.