Which Microsoft operating system was the first to support Plug and Play?

Windows 95 was the first Microsoft operating system to support Plug and Play. Released in 1995, it attempted to detect connected hardware automatically and configure suitable drivers and resource settings with less manual intervention.

Before Plug and Play, installing a sound card, modem, or expansion card often meant setting jumpers or DIP switches and manually assigning IRQs, DMA channels, and I/O ports. Windows 95 introduced configuration components and Device Manager that helped identify devices, allocate resources, and report conflicts.

The feature was revolutionary in practice but not perfectly automatic. Hardware support varied, older devices still required manual settings, and incompatible drivers could cause installation problems. Windows 98 is sometimes given as the answer because it improved USB and hardware support, but it came later. Windows 95 is the conventional and canonical answer for Microsoft’s first operating-system implementation of Plug and Play.