Windows Explorer Through The Years

Windows 1.04
Nov 20, 1985

First commercial release (or close enough.)
Explorer had not been coined yet; this is MS-DOS Executive.
Very simple interface. You can see basically everything it does.

Windows 2.10
May 27, 1988

Basically identical except for screen dimensions. This version of Windows has overlapping windows but you can't open multiple Executive windows.

Windows 3.0
May 22, 1990 Windows 3.1
Apr 6, 1992 WFW 3.1 
Oct 1992 Windows NT 3.1
July 27, 1993 Windows NT 3.50
Sep 21, 1994

3.50 is essentially identical to 3.1. I include it because I'd already taken the screenshot before I realized there was really nothing to distinguish it.

Windows NT 3.51
May 30, 1995 Windows 95
Aug 24, 1995 Windows NT 4
Aug 24, 1996 Windows 98
Jun 25, 1998 Windows 98 SE
May 5, 1999

There are no notable changes I can find in SE. I include it only because they changed the throbber between First and Second Edition.

Windows 2000
Feb 17, 2000 Windows ME
Sep 14, 2000 Windows XP
Oct 25, 2001 < Windows Vista
Nov 30, 2006 Windows 7
Oct 22, 2009 Windows 8.0
Oct 26, 2012 Windows 8.1 
Oct 18, 2013 Windows 10
Jul 29, 2015