Microsoft Office 95

It is the successor to both Office 4.2 and 4.3 including their Windows NT versions. While designed specifically for Windows 95, it is compatible with Windows NT 4.0, which debuted in 1996. As it is a 32-bit program suite, it does not run on Windows 3.x or earlier versions of Windows, which use a 16-bit architecture. It is not officially supported on Windows NT 3.1 or Windows NT 3.5. It is officially supported on Windows NT 4.0, Windows Me, and Windows 2000. Support for Windows XP or later versions of Windows was never officially provided.

Microsoft Office 95

Wiki English
Wiki English Clockwise from top-left: Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint 95 on Windows NT 4.0, with the Office Shortcut Bar
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Initial release	August 24, 1995; 28 years ago (1995-08-24)
Final release	7.0b / October 7, 1999; 24 years ago (1999-10-07)
Operating system	Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me
Platform	IA-32
Predecessor	Microsoft Office 4.2 (1994)
Successor	Microsoft Office 97 (1996)
Standard(s)	OLE 2.0
Type	Office suite
License	Proprietary commercial software
Website	technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc760145.aspx

Office 95 was succeeded by Office 97 on November 19, 1996. Support for Microsoft Office 95 ended on December 31, 2001, the same day as Windows 95. It is the last version of Microsoft Office to support Windows NT 3.51 RTM–SP4; as the following version, Microsoft Office 97 only supports Windows NT 3.51 SP5 or later.

Microsoft Office 95 includes six applications: Word (a word processor), Excel (a spreadsheet editor), PowerPoint (a presentation program), Access (a database management system), Schedule+ (a time management app) and Binder (a program for binding the work of the mentioned apps together). The CD-ROM version includes Microsoft Bookshelf.

True to its namesake, this suite is designed specifically for Windows 95. Previously, Microsoft had released Office 4.2 for Windows NT for several architectures, which included 32‑bit Word 6.0 for Windows NT and Excel 5.0 for Windows NT, but PowerPoint 4.0 and the Office Manager were 16‑bit. With Office for Windows 95, all components in the suite were 32-bit. All the Office 95 programs are OLE 2-enabled, meaning that they allow interoperability between themselves and other applications that support the protocol. Binder uses this protocol to bind OLE objects together.

Office for Windows 95 moves the version number of its applications to 7.0 to match Word's version number. Other components bear the same version numbers to show that they are contemporaries, although their predecessors are not version 6.0. The previous versions of components are Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0, Schedule+ 1.0 and Access 2.0. Binder had no predecessor at the time.

The Office 95 programs utilize a two-tone gradient in the title bar at the top of the window, gradually turning from black at the left side to dark blue at the right. At the time, this was unique to Office 95; no other program running under Windows 95 or Windows NT utilized gradient title bars. This feature was eventually incorporated into the shell of Windows 98 and later, which would allow customizable gradient colors and extend the feature to include dialog boxes as well.

Microsoft Excel contains an easter egg, a hidden Doom–like game called Hall of Tortured Souls crediting the application's writers.

Contemporaneous components

Additional programs have been marketed as "compatible with Microsoft Office 95":

• Microsoft Project for Windows 95 (Version 4.1a)
• Microsoft Publisher for Windows 95 (Version 3.0)
• Microsoft FrontPage 1.1
• Office Small Business Pack for Office 95
• Small Business Financial Manager for Excel

Other contemporaneous Microsoft products include:

• Microsoft Works 4.0
• Microsoft Money 4.0

 

Office 95 is available in two versions. They contain the following applications:

Two updated versions, 7.0a and 7.0b were released to fix bugs in the applications, including a fix for a screen redraw problem in PowerPoint. The updates could be ordered from Microsoft Support. A downloadable update released in 1999 addresses issues related to the Year 2000 problem.

Versions 3.0 and 3.5 of the Jet Database Engine, used by Access for Windows 95 (Access 7.0) and the later released Access 97 respectively, have a critical issue which makes these versions of Access unusable on a computer with more than 1 GB of memory. While this problem has been fixed for Jet 3.5/Access 97, it has never been fixed for Jet 3.0 or Access 95.

Microsoft Office 95 requires a 386DX or higher CPU, 8 MB of RAM, and either Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.51 for typical use. Regarding hard disk space, compact installations require 28 MB, "typical" installations require 55 MB, and full installations require 88 MB.