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When was control C and control V added to windows?

I understand the basic history but I’m looking for the date added to windows.

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  • I don't think this is on topic here, but it should be for Retrocomputing (see this question about the earliest clipboard).
    – Laurel
    Jun 10, 2022 at 22:10
  • Copy and paste is far older than windows so it was probably always a part
    – moot
    Jun 12, 2022 at 7:10
  • A bounty? This isn't a UX question
    – moot
    Jun 14, 2022 at 6:22
  • Note: "Copy and paste" (title question) is not identical to "control C and control V" (body question), you should clarify which one you want to know. Early versions of Windows used other keyboard shortcuts for copy, paste, and cut. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl+X were added later.
    – Bavi_H
    Jun 14, 2022 at 7:03

1 Answer 1

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+50

Technically, it was November 20, 1985. And I mean technically, because it was there from the beginning when Windows was introduced. Remember, Windows inherited most of the capabilities of MS-DOS, except that it uses a graphical user interface.

This may not be the answer you are looking for, but it's a good question to introduce one of the legends of UX (and specifically Human Computer Interaction): Larry Tesler. He invented copy and paste while working at XEROX PARC, as well as the concepts of user friendly, browser, and WYSYWYG among many other inventions and developments.

The above concepts were used by Microsoft and Apple for their products (he even led Apple's development team), so copy and paste was included by default in both operating systems (as well as in all other existing OS), which answers your question.

However...

The first copy and paste commands belonged not to OS, but to text editors, and they date from the early 1960s. What Tesler invented was the "OS -wide" functionality (copy text across applications)

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