Windows NT was originally designed to be used on high-end systems and servers, but with the release of Windows 2000, many consumer-oriented features from Windows 95 and Windows 98 were included, such as the Windows Desktop Update, Internet Explorer 5, USB support and Windows Media Player.

In 1996, Windows NT 4.0 was released, which includes a fully 32-bit version of Windows Explorer written specifically for it, making the operating system work like Windows 95. NT 3.1 introduced NTFS, a file system designed to replace the older File Allocation Table (FAT) which was used by DOS and the DOS-based Windows operating systems. Unlike the Windows 9x series of operating systems, it is a fully 32-bit operating system. 'NT' is an initialism for 'New Technology'. In 1993, Microsoft released Windows NT 3.1, the first version of the newly developed Windows NT operating system. It introduced System Restore, Help and Support Center, updated versions of the Disk Defragmenter and other system tools. Windows Me, the last DOS-based version of Windows, was aimed at consumers and released in 2000. Windows 98 included USB support out of the box, and also plug and play, which allows devices to work when plugged in without requiring a system reboot or manual configuration. The inclusion of Internet Explorer 4 and the Desktop Update led to an antitrust case in the United States.

In 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98, which also included the Windows Desktop Update and Internet Explorer 4 by default. It aimed to integrate Internet Explorer and the web into the user interface and also brought many new features into Windows, such as the ability to display JPEG images as the desktop wallpaper and single window navigation in Windows Explorer. In 1997, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4 which included the (at the time controversial) Windows Desktop Update. Windows 95 introduced many features that have been part of the product ever since, including the Start menu, the taskbar, and Windows Explorer (renamed File Explorer in Windows 8). Windows 95 also had a significant amount of 16-bit code ported from Windows 3.1. Windows 95, though still being based on MS-DOS, was its own operating system, using a 16-bit DOS-based kernel and a 32-bit user space. The first versions of Windows (1.0 through to 3.11) were graphical shells that ran from MS-DOS. The product line evolved in the 1990s from an operating environment into a fully complete, modern operating system over two lines of development, each with their own separate codebase. Microsoft introduced Windows as a graphical user interface for MS-DOS, which had been introduced two years earlier. Microsoft Windows was announced by Bill Gates on November 10, 1983. See List of Microsoft Windows versions for a tabular view of releases and editions.

Windows 7 32bit usb 3.0 creator utility