From Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 – Upgrade Evolution

There was a lot of criticism pointed at Microsoft for its decision not to support Windows XP to Windows 7 upgrades, but only allow Windows Vista users to seamlessly make the jump to the latest iteration of the Windows client.

However, the Redmond company did note at the time that customers could opt to upgrade from XP to Vista, and then from Vista to Windows 7, as both paths were supported.

Some Softpedia readers might remember that back in February 2009 I did a test to see whether this was indeed possible.

I set out to upgrade from Windows XP SP3 to Windows Vista SP1 and then to Windows 7. You can still read my article at this link.

More recently, one user has gone even further back. Andrew Tait proved that customers could have, at least theoretically, upgraded from Windows 1.0 all the way to Windows 7, by simply jumping from one version of the operating system to another.

The task is nothing short of impressive and illustrative of the software giant’s commitment to backwards compatibility.

Windows 1.0 was upgraded to Windows 2.0, which in its turn left room for Windows 3.1. Users should watch the video embedded at the bottom of this article in order to witness the many steps involved in upgrading from Windows 1.0 to Windows 7.

Along the way they’re bound to recognize some old friends such as Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP SP2.

Tait used a VMWare virtual machine to deploy Windows 1.0 and then upgrade to almost all subsequent versions of the Windows client.

And fact is that not only did he managed to get to Windows 7, but after installing Windows Vista’s successor he could also launch and run applications installed ahead of Windows 1.0 in MS-DOS, such as Doom 2.