Re:Viral 'I'm not a cat' filter is decades-old software
by yardie on Thursday February 11, 2021 @11:08AM
(#26103136)
Winsock was included with 95 so they had networking available by default. And network has been in Windows since 3.1 so I wouldn't say it was a lack of forethought. They just did not practice basic security and left it to the rest of the world to protect themselves.
To be (somewhat) fair, those Operating Systems were intended to run on standalone consumer machines that weren't permanently attached to a network. The most likely means of getting infected with a virus/malware back in the Win95 days was via the floppy drive.
Though always-on internet connections was clearly the direction things were moving toward the end of the 90s - there was no excuse for going back to the trough with WinME rather than pushing everyone to NT.