Win95 app: “terrible idea that works shockingly well”

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Do you miss Windows 95? You can now download it as a free app

The vintage OS can now be downloaded and booted in less than five minutes, thanks to being bundled into a 128MB Electron app by developer Felix Rieseberg.

By Nick Heath | August 24, 2018

 
It’s getting easier and easier to indulge in computing nostalgia, with the latest opportunity coming courtesy of a new Windows 95 app.

The vintage OS can now be downloaded and booted in less than five minutes, thanks to being bundled into an 128MB Electron app by developer Felix Rieseberg.

While classic versions of Windows have been available in the browser for many years, the app allows users to run a Windows 95 machine locally and save its state.

The desktop is responsive and runs smoothly. There are limitations, networking doesn’t work and the default desktop software is fairly bare bones, although it includes old favorites such as Minesweeper, Solitaire and Paint among the Accessories.

However, if you want to test out some ancient piece of software, the app now supports floppy disks, allowing users to mount them as .img disk images.
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The app should run on Windows, macOS and Linux-based operating systems.

 
Read the full article here

 
Mind you, mashable.com has a few other comments, such as:

There are, of course, some things that don’t work. Minesweeper doesn’t really let you do the sweeping, and Internet Explorer won’t let you surf the net — as it simply doesn’t connect to the web.

https://twitter.com/felixrieseberg/status/1032642127178547201

About Electron apps

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HiFlyer, SueW, Elly

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Similar articles also appeared on Neowin and ZDNet about the Win95 app:
https://www.neowin.net/news/you-can-relive-your-youth-with-windows-95-which-now-comes-as-an-electron-app
https://www.zdnet.com/article/did-you-love-windows-95-its-now-a-free-app-for-macos-windows-linux/

gwa ha ha ha – running Win95 on Win10? cool 🙂

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Microfix, HiFlyer, SueW, Elly

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also mentioned on Softpedia news as well
https://news.softpedia.com/news/windows-95-is-now-available-on-linux-mac-and-windows-as-an-electron-app-522375.shtml

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How has Microsoft not shut this down yet?

LABS - a family friendly webcomic about scientists, robots and Wisconsin

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Certainly somebody will eventually shut it down for them with a Blue Screen Of Death.

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No need for MS to shut Win 95 down or BSOD it to… well, death: all it can take is for one to try to run it on more than about 480 MB of memory…

For those interested, more details on this old OS here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95

For me, the introduction of long file names and the larger amount of program-addressable random access memory were two huge improvement on the previous versions of Windows. But that was then…

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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For those folk who spent hours and hours on the likes of genealogy software that runs happily under Win95, who didn’t have easy access to that data, or to old-fashioned games that isn’t in production (or usable) in newer OS, I’m sure it will be a blessing.

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Elly

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Windows 95 reborn: Windows 10, Linux, Mac get major nostalgia upgrade
Relive Windows 95 on a Mac, Linux or Windows 10 machine.

By Liam Tung | February 8, 2019

 
The Windows 95 app that first surfaced last year has been given a major upgrade by its maker, developer Felix Rieseberg.
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This new release of old Windows 95 now comes pre-installed with a web browser, not Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, but Netscape 2.0, which appropriately came out in 1995.

But that’s not all. This build also brings support for sound, so all the familiar Windows 95 sound effects can be heard. It also has several pre-installed games and apps and around 500MB of free space in virtual disk. Rieseberg also added ‘Reset’, a machine button, and better support for High-DPI devices.

 
Read the full article here

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Elly

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