---
title: "Which came first, Java or Windows?"
description: "Java vs Windows: Windows came first, by 10 years — 1985 against 1995. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/java-vs-windows/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Java or Windows?

**Which came first, Java or Windows?: Windows**

1985 — 10 years before Java

Windows came first, by 10 years. Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0.

## Side by side

|  | Java | Windows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1995 | 1985 |
| Date | 1995-05-23 | 1985-11-20 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly. | Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0. |

## Java

Java was announced in May 1995, having started in 1991 as a project called Oak aimed at interactive television — a market that did not exist yet. Its promise was "write once, run anywhere", achieved by compiling to bytecode for a virtual machine rather than to a specific processor. JavaScript arrived seven months later and was named after it purely as a marketing decision; the two languages are unrelated.

## Windows

Windows 1.0 shipped in November 1985, twenty-two months after the Macintosh, and it was not an operating system — it was a graphical shell running on top of MS-DOS, and remained so until Windows NT in 1993 and the consumer transition with Windows XP in 2001. Version 1.0 could not even overlap windows: they tiled, because Apple's legal position on overlapping windows was unresolved.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Java or Windows?

Windows, by 10 years — 1985 against 1995.

### When did Java start?

1995. Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly.

### When did Windows start?

1985. Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0.

## Related pages

- [Microsoft or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/microsoft-vs-windows/)
- [Apple or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-windows/)
- [Apple or Java?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-java/)
- [the internet (ARPANET) or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-windows/)
- [the internet (ARPANET) or Java?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-java/)
- [email or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-windows/)
- [email or Java?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-java/)
- [the Macintosh or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-windows/)
- [Windows or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/windows-vs-world-wide-web/)
- [Windows or YouTube?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/windows-vs-youtube/)
- [Python or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/python-vs-windows/)
- [Java or Microsoft?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/java-vs-microsoft/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]