Hello everyone, this marks my first post here (so please forgive me if this is the wrong category, as my post is not exclusively about beta versions of MS-DOS or Windows - sorry!).

For myself, the oldest Microsoft operating system that I own and have used is MS-DOS 2.0.

Here's a picture I snapped of the diskette (360k 5.25" floppy, it looks like it used to say 2.12 but someone crossed it out and wrote 2.0 on there. I have no idea why this was done): http://www.betaarchive.com/imageupload/ ... .16453.JPG

You can check out MS-DOS 2.0 in action through this video I made, where I tested some viruses on it for fun (one of my favorite hobbies and the point of my main YouTube channel):



So how about everyone else? It doesn't matter if it's in a virtual machine, testing purposes or you legitimately used them in a real-life situation, just post about it! Bonus points for pictures of original installation media.

The oldest OS I have had on a physical machine was Windows 2000, on a VM it would have to be Windows 1.01 with Ms-Dos 4.0.

Windows 95 on a real machine, and on a virtual one, Windows 3.1.

It must have been Windows 95, like 15 years ago... And I still remember the excitement of using Windows !
...Pentium III, 128 MB of RAM and a 20 GB HDD just to fit everything and still have plenty of space to spare, Internet was just sprouting out...
Aaah... what a great time it was!

The oldest MS OS I have ever owned was Windows 3.1, from my family's first computer in 1993 when I was 7 years old.

The oldest MS OS I have ever used was MS-DOS 5.0. In 2002 a client asked me to replace a very very old PC that was using a very old version of DOS to run the software to control their heating and cooling system. I went to a used software store in town and bought the only copy of MS-DOS they had: MS-DOS 5.0. It was an interesting experience to install such an old OS. Unfortunately I don't think I kept the floppies for it.

Windows 98 SE.

I feel I need to stand up for the "middle-aged" users of this forum. Hope some of the "old-timers" will add, also, and make ME feel like a kid.

In real life -
Whatever variation of TOPS-10 was running on Compuserve in 1980
TRS-DOS 1.3 - about 1981 or so
MS-DOS 2 - 1983

In virtual/simulated systems -
CTSS - IBM 7094 - circa 1964
IBSYS - IBM 7090 - circa 1964

Even Older, NOT true OS -
Edsac Initial Orders 1 - circa 1949

The oldest Microsoft OS I've ever used on a physical computer is Windows 95 around 1996 when I was just 3 years old.

The oldest MS OS I've used in a VM though, I think was DOS 2.0 and Windows 1.01.

windows me was the oldest ms os i have ever used

MS-Dos 3.1, but it was on my workplace computer, so I didn't actually own it.




Hmmm, I thought the question was about MS OSes. If we drop that condition, the oldest OS I used (for work again; on a real machine) was IBM OS/360 (MVT/TSO) for the System/360 mainframes, Wikipedia tells me that it's from 1971

Well, at least I am not the only old person here.

It seems that I may be the only person who cannot read, however....

MS DOS 1
if you can call it that

I had a unusual Siemens PC-D 2 computer with Win 1.03 running back in 2003/2004.
The oldest VM was 1.0 DR5.

Oldest MS OS I've used is MS-DOS on a Tandy 1000 EX, which version I'm not sure, but think it was 2.0

Windows 98 SE

Windows 3.0 on a school machine. back in the day aha.
Windows 3.1 at home running on MS-DOS 5.
Other than that thats as old as it goes for me unless u count virtual machines!

DOS6 on my PCPOS box. Possibly earlier on an old all-in-one IBM PS/2 that I loved to death in first grade... it's a damn shame the school tossed 'em. They were the quirkiest PS/2s out there. The Model 25.

When I was young my dad had a tower with Windows 95 running on it as his "good" computer and had another tower with MS-DOS 6.2 that he used for work. I was occasionally allowed to use the Windows 95 tower.

windows 98 with a very slow,slow pc.: 0 no internet. OMG! playing very dos games.

I got a Windows 95 computer as a birthday gift when I was a young boy (can't remember age though)
That's the first and only copy of Windows I've "owned"

Hey Dan!

DOS for me...

I talked my mom into buying a Leading Edge computer (386sx, 2x256mb ram sticks, 40mb hard drive, iirc) running DOS, and remember upgrading it to DOS 5. Never really used Windows 3.x (it needed more ram), but I knew my way around DOS .

MS-DOS 6.0, later upgraded to 6.22.... I vaguely recall using some sort of text-mode program manager originally, but I can not recall the name of it (it had a largely blue background, two columns of programs listed). Later had Windows for Workgroups 3.11, but still used mostly DOS, never used windows more than maybe half of the time.

I used win 3.1 as a kid in my dad's office. I used to love it because of the GUI. I hated dos mode

Windows 98 SE on a real machine, and Windows 1.01 on QEMU.