---
title: "Which came first, Windows or YouTube?"
description: "Windows vs YouTube: Windows came first, by 20 years — 1985 against 2005. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/windows-vs-youtube/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Windows or YouTube?

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

1985 — 20 years before YouTube

Windows came first, by 20 years. Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0.

## Side by side

|  | Windows | YouTube |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1985 | 2005 |
| Date | 1985-11-20 | 2005-02-14 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0. | The domain was registered; the first video followed in April. |

## 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.

## YouTube

The youtube.com domain was registered on Valentine's Day 2005, the first video — "Me at the zoo", 19 seconds of a co-founder at San Diego Zoo — was uploaded on 23 April, and the site opened publicly in the winter. Google bought it in November 2006 for $1.65 billion, about twenty months after the domain was registered. It is younger than Facebook by a year and older than Twitter by one.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Windows or YouTube?

Windows, by 20 years — 1985 against 2005.

### When did Windows start?

1985. Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0.

### When did YouTube start?

2005. The domain was registered; the first video followed in April.

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

## Sources

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