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by smitherfield 3356 days ago
>A very first one was Windows Explorer as of Shell update that came with Internet Explorer for Windows 95 (included by default in Win98). All the sidebars of Explorer were HTML based.

That's a stretch; X/SG/HTML user interface APIs are not the same as a whole browser with Javascript VM, full networking and security stack, full-featured/standards-compliant (X)HTML/CSS rendering engine plus support for legacy features, UI assets, multimedia support, sandboxing, resource caching/persistence, and so on.
1 comments
frik 3356 days ago
Win95 with shell update up to Windows Me and 2000 had the full trident engine (same as IE 3-5.5) in the Shell (Active Desktop, Explorer bars, etc.). Windows ME/2000 can play audio and video previews in the side bar (all HTML based).

Also WinXP used a forked Trident engine with some removed features for "Software" dialog and various other features (Windows Help, etc).

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