Windows 95 — How Does it Look Today?
Windows 95 was the “next-generation” OS from Microsoft: redesigned UI, long file names support, 32-bit apps and many other changes. Some of Windows 95 components are still in use today. How does it look? Let’s test it and figure it out.
https://www.aedessa.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be1.html
https://www.aedessa.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be2.html
https://www.aedessa.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be3.html
https://www.aedessa.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be4.html
https://primo-elektro.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be1.html
https://primo-elektro.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be2.html
https://primo-elektro.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be3.html
https://primo-elektro.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be4.html
https://www.isic.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be1.html
https://www.isic.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be2.html
https://www.isic.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be3.html
https://www.isic.be/fhk/video-ron-v-van-be4.html
http://clientenayar.silogistics.org/org/video-ron-v-van-be1.html
http://clientenayar.silogistics.org/org/video-ron-v-van-be2.html
http://clientenayar.silogistics.org/org/video-ron-v-van-be3.html
http://clientenayar.silogistics.org/org/video-ron-v-van-be4.html
I was not going to make a review of Windows 95, it was actually not so many years ago. But once I saw the video, something like “Teens react to Windows 95”, and it’s become clear that there are already not only teens but a whole new generation of 20–30 years old adults who never used Windows 95 in their life or were too young to actually remember it. And anyway, Windows 95 was a great milestone in the computer’s history, the great improvement from Windows 3.1 to a new system, parts of which we are using still now.
Installation
It can be tricky to install Windows 95 to a modern PC, but it’s actually not needed — Windows 95 can run on the virtual machine. Windows 3.1 is running perfectly in DOSBox, it’s a nice and lightweight emulator that even does not require installation and can be executed from any folder. But DOSBox officially does not support Windows, in theory, it can be possible but it’s much easier to use a fully-fledged virtual machine. I’ve used Oracle VirtualBox, which is free and can be installed on any modern PC.
To install Windows 95 we need to find 2 files: bootable floppy disk image and Windows 95 CD image, they can easily be found online. I also created a new virtual machine with 128MB of RAM and 2GB HDD:First, we need to create a disk partition using the fdisk command (it will be our drive “C”), format this disk and copy installation files from Windows 95 CD to this disk (for an unknown reason, the installer cannot find some files when it’s running from CD image directly).It’s a known issue that occurs on processors with a frequency higher than 2.1 GHz. I can guess that the maximum value, that can be stored in the int32 variable, can not be more than 2,147,483,647 — in 1995 nobody was thinking that Windows will be running on a CPU with a so high frequency. Luckily for us, the special patch “FIX95CPU_V3_FINAL.ZIP” was made by enthusiasts to fix it:This feature is not available more, but in Linux, the possibility to boot in a console mode still exists.
In general, the Windows 95 user interface is still familiar even today, it’s fascinating if we think on how many years passed.
Internet
The Internet was the cutting edge newest technology in 90th, and Windows 95 can support both dial-up and Ethernet connectivity.The Start menu. Microsoft tried to redesign it, but it still there now, 25 years later. The first keyboards did not have a special “Win” key, by the way, but the shortcut Ctrl+Esc is still working in Windows 10 today.
- System tray with a clock and icons at the bottom right corner of the screen.
- The Recycle Bin, tasks bar at the bottom and other elements like “Command Prompt”, and so on.
Some components, like the “Device Manager”, literally did not change within 25 years (Windows 10 at the left and Windows 95 at the right):
