On November 20, 1985, Windows 1.0 shipped for the first time, marking the beginning of a Windows era that reshaped personal computing. Today, on November 20, 2025, Microsoft is celebrating 40 years of the operating system and using this milestone to reflect on one of the company's most enduring features, the Start menu.
Introduced with the release of Windows 95, the Start menu rapidly became a defining interface element. Over each successive release, the software giant has refined how users launch apps, access settings, and organize workflows.
