Microsoft Office 95

Microsoft Office 95

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300px Clockwise from top-left: Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint on Windows 95
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Initial release	24 August 1995 (1995-08-24)
Last release	7.0b
Development status	Discontinued
Operating system	Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95, Windows 98
Platform	IA-32
Type	Office suite
License	Proprietary commercial software
Website	{{#property:P856}}
Standard(s)	OLE 2.0

Microsoft Office 95, also known as Microsoft Office for Windows 95, released on 24 August 1995, was a version of Microsoft Office designed specifically for Windows 95, succeeding Office 4.3. Office 95 was replaced by Office 97.

Features

Microsoft Office 95 includes six applications: Word (a word processor), Excel (a spreadsheet), 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 also 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 was 16‑bit. With Office for Windows 95, all components in the suite were 32-bit. All the Office 95 apps are OLE 2-enabled, meaning that they allow interoperability between themselves, as well as all other applications that support this data interchange protocol. Binder used this protocol to bind OLE objects together.

Office for Windows 95 bears version number 7.0 to match Word's version number. Other components also bear the same version numbers to show that they are contemporaries, although their predecessors were not version 6.0. The previous versions of components were Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0, Schedule+ 1.0 and Access 2.0. Binder was a new app at the time with no predecessor. Microsoft Outlook was not included and used to be bundled with Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5.

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

Contemporary components

Several additional programs were "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

Other contemporary Microsoft products were:

• Microsoft Works 4.0
• Microsoft Money 4.0

Editions

Computer icons of the components Microsoft Office 95 Pro: From left to right, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Schedule+ and Binder

Office 95 was available in two versions. They contained the following applications:

Application	Standard Edition	Professional Edition
Word	Yes	Yes
Excel	Yes	Yes
PowerPoint	Yes	Yes
Schedule+	Yes	Yes
Binder	Yes	Yes
Access	No	Yes
Bookshelf	No	On CD-ROM version only

Updates

There were no downloadable service packs or service releases for Office for Windows 95. Instead, two updated versions, 7.0a and 7.0b were released to fix bugs in the application. The updates could be ordered from Microsoft Support. A downloadable update was released in 1999 to address minor year 2000 problems. All support for Microsoft Office 95 ended on December 31, 2001, the same day as Windows 95.

Versions of Microsoft Jet database engine, 3.0 and 3.5 used by Access for Windows 95 (Access 7.0) and the later released, Access 97 respectively, had a critical issue which made these versions of Access unusable on a computer with more than 1 GB of memory. While this problem was fixed for Jet 3.5/Access 97, it was never fixed for Jet 3.0 or Access 95.

System requirements

Microsoft Office 95 requires a 386DX or higher CPU, and either Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows NT 3.51. It also requires 8 MB of RAM for typical use. Regarding hard disk space, compact installations require 28 MB, "typical" installations require 55 MB, and full installations require 88 MB.