Category: Science & Technology Key figures: Bill Gates (Microsoft co-founder and CEO), Steve Ballmer (Microsoft executive), Steve Jobs (Apple CEO, plaintiff in subsequent lawsuit)
Microsoft released Windows 2.0 on December 9, 1987, as the successor to Windows 1.0 (1985). The new graphical operating environment introduced overlapping and resizable application windows — the most significant functional improvement over its predecessor, which had confined applications to tiled, non-overlapping panes. Windows 2.0 also added desktop icons, keyboard shortcuts, support for 16-color VGA graphics and expanded memory (EMS), and standardized the “Minimize” and “Maximize” button terminology that would persist through subsequent Windows generations. Purpose-built GUI versions of Microsoft Word and Excel shipped with Windows 2.0, positioning them against the dominant text-mode applications WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3.
The product was released in two variants. The standard edition targeted 8086 real-mode processors. Windows/386 — available from September 1987 — was an enhanced edition for Intel i386 processors that introduced a protected-mode kernel with fully preemptive multitasking, allowing multiple MS-DOS programs to run simultaneously in virtual 8086 mode; this architectural approach foreshadowed the protected-mode design that would make Windows 3.0 a mass-market success in 1990.
Windows 2.0 sold over one million copies by 1988, but remained a niche product: the broader market for graphical environments did not materialize until Windows 3.0. On March 17, 1988, Apple Inc. filed suit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, alleging that Windows 2.0 violated copyrights Apple held on the Macintosh’s “look and feel.” The court ultimately ruled largely in Microsoft’s favor, finding that only 10 of the 189 GUI elements Apple challenged were potentially problematic, and then ruling that even those elements were not protected expression. The ruling established an important precedent that the general concept of a graphical user interface — icons, overlapping windows, a pointing device — could not be owned by any single company. Microsoft officially supported Windows 2.0 until December 31, 2001, a period of fourteen years.
Windows 2.0 was a transitional product that moved the Windows platform from an experimental curiosity to a credible graphical environment, even if it reached mass adoption only with its successor. Its architectural decisions — particularly the Windows/386 protected-mode variant — established design patterns that carried forward into Windows 3.0 and beyond. The Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit it triggered became one of the defining intellectual property cases of the computing era, settling the legal question of whether “look and feel” could be copyrighted and clearing the path for Microsoft to pursue its Windows interface without encumbrance.
In the broader context of 1987, Windows 2.0’s release reflected a pivotal transition in personal computing: IBM-compatible PCs running MS-DOS were displacing earlier platforms, and the race to provide those machines with a graphical shell — competing with the Apple Macintosh’s established GUI — would shape the next decade of software development. Windows 2.0 marked Microsoft’s clearest commitment yet to winning that race.