The first version of Windows to provide a graphical user interface (GUI) was Windows 3.0.
Windows 3.0, released in 1990, marked a significant advancement in the development of Windows as it introduced a fully functional and user-friendly GUI that allowed users to interact with the computer through graphical icons and visual indicators instead of text-based commands. This version was a major improvement over its predecessors and helped to popularize personal computing by making it more accessible to everyday users.
While Windows 3.1 (released in 1992) built on this foundation with additional features and improvements, it was Windows 3.0 that first established the GUI environment that most users recognize today. Windows 95 and later versions further enhanced the GUI, but they came later in the timeline.