Windows 2.0

Windows 2.0

An upgrade to Windows 1.0, introduced in 1987. Supporting overlapping, resizable windows and more color options, it was later renamed Windows/286 after Windows/386 was released. Windows 2.0 was still very DOS oriented. All display elements were two dimensional, and the "MS-DOS Executive," which was the starting window, displayed directory lists not much different than the Dir command in DOS.

Windows 2.0 was more popular than Windows 1.0, but was not widely used. In addition, it did not solve the one megabyte memory barrier in DOS, and PCs of that era were too slow to run a graphical interface with reasonable performance. See Windows, Windows 1.0 and Windows 3.0.

Windows 2.0
The second version of Windows supported resizable windows that could overlap each other, which made it a bit more appealing. (Image courtesy of Ian Albert, www.ianalbert.com)