I have upgraded to Microsoft's latest and greatest

[Bounty]

Postin' from Windows 95, baby . Yes, I finally took the jump from DOS 6.22 and installed me'self one of them new-fangled Gee You Eye operating systems. They've now got this thing where you see your folders as little icons, a bit like Dos Shell but prettier. It might be a bit too gimmicky for most people. This new "start button" looks pretty neat, though. Now I've just got to get Arachne to work and we're all set, IE 3.0 is cool and all but it's a huge resource hog.



I wonder if The Microsoft Network will ever take off. It's got integrated mail and messaging, but I hear those yahoos at Yahoo are working on something similar. This might get interesting.

[MKSheppard]

This needs to be saved. Move it out of testing damn it

[Bounty]

Goddamnit, networking borked out. It still boots reliably but installing the SVGA driver killed the ethernet adaptor or something.

What's weird is that 95 isn't that different from XP SP2. It's got a slightly worse default interface (let's spawn a new window whenever you click a folder!) and it doesn't run Firefox but apart from that I can see someone skipping a decade and hardly noticing a difference.

Next project: WFW 3.11. I've found the handbook but disk #3's AWOL.

[Bounty]

I still like 95, and have my original OEM CD that came with my first computer in the box next to me right now. It really was pretty decent, and oh wow, the interface is pretty. clouds.bmp to this day remains one of my favourite wallpapers.

I installed this from my original CD. Hover, remember that? Or the Weezer video?

I was just surprised about all the little things that have stayed the same even after more than a decade. When you look at 3.11, it's a completely different aesthetic and a far more crude design. Windows 95 however is pretty much XP with the classic interface, UI-wise.

[Bounty]

I do not recall the video though; it has been too long.

Spike Jonze's video of Weezer's Buddy Holly, the one that spliced archive footage of Happy Days with the band. The very first video I ever saw on a computer, in fact, unless you count Stunts replays

Did you ever even figure out how it would be useful? I kept it there for ever, but never knew how to make it useful. I think it was removed entirely from 98.

You image is broken, but if you're referring to *the* Briefcase, it's alive and well and useless as ever.

I used to say with pride I got my Windows 95 install down to like 40 megabytes hard drive space (which is good since my HDD at the time was 1 gig, huge back then, but small to today), I might have to try that again.

My experience with W95 is limited - I have the default install right now (130-ish). Where are the days when an entire Microsoft OS took up half the disk space of a single TV episode

[Bounty]

(Linux, but that is one thing I won't complain about; I love case sensitive file names)

Until you 're trying to find a folder on your mounted Windows disk and tab completion won't understand that yes, Video and video are one and the same. It's the biggest difference I've had to adjust to, actually.

Amazing it is still there.

I wonder why they even bother putting it on the CD. I don't know anyone, anyone who's ever used it. If you need to sync data you use something better or nothing at all.

Was Active Desktop an update for 95 or is it on the install CD? I remember having it at some point but it's not there on the new install and I don't remember being prompted for it during setup...

[Drooling Iguana]

And just last week I tried to get OS/2 Warp 4 back up and running through qemu, but quit after I was unable to make the install floppies.

[Bounty]

And just last week I tried to get OS/2 Warp 4 back up and running through qemu, but quit after I was unable to make the install floppies.

I smell a Project

So far I've done

Windows XP
Windows 95
Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (since deleted, I'm going to redo it with networking if I can find the missing disk)
Dos 7.1
Dos 6.22
DSL (HDD install)
Ubuntu
Kubuntu
Xubuntu

Mucking about with operating systems is fun. I suck at it, but Google helps.

[Uraniun235]

Windows 95 is incredibly light. You can get it to run on a 486@33MHz with a tiny 8 MB of RAM. I ran just such a machine for a few years as a hand-me-down from my dad when he upgraded to an awesome Pentium running at 133MHz

I remember MaximumPC had on their site at one point an article about a guy who loaded a computer with six hard drives and thirty-seven operating systems! Unfortunately that old bookmark I had is now dead.

[Bounty]

Windows 95 is incredibly light. You can get it to run on a 486@33MHz with a tiny 8 MB of RAM.

In theory, it should run on a 20 MHz 386 with 4MB RAM. In theory.

ETA:

Running with 8MB:



Running with 4MB:

I remember MaximumPC had on their site at one point an article about a guy who loaded a computer with six hard drives and thirty-seven operating systems!

What, so he had GRUB with a scrollbar? At least he had 35 backups in case on of his OS's died.

[Uraniun235]

Actually, he used two separate installations of XOSL (as at the time XOSL had a limit of 24 boot items)

I managed to hunt down the list over at the old Slashdot article about it, as just about all the real articles of it have died out:

Aos|Oberon 2.3.6


DrDOS 7.2
FreeDos 7
MS DOS 5.0
MS DOS 7
OS/2
QubeOS
SkyOS


Conectiva
Debian
Immunix
JBLinux
Libranet
Mandrake
RedHat
Slackware
Storm
Vector


AtheOS 0.3.7
BeOS 5 Personal Edition
BeOS 5.0.3 Developer Edition
FreeBSD 4.4
Minix 2.2
NetBSD 1.5
OpenBSD 2.9
QNX RTP 6.0 (hosted)
QNX RTP 6.1 (dedicated)
QNX Neutrino OS 6.2
SyllableOS 0.4.0


Windows 1.01
Windows 1.03
Windows 2.03
Windows 2.10
Windows 3.1
Windows 95
Windows 98 First Edition
Windows 98 Second Edition
Windows 98 SE Lite (not counted as separate)
Windows Me
Windows 2000
Windows XP

[Bounty]

W95 in fullscreen 1024x768 actually isn't that bad. IE 3.0, however, has become next to useless - it renders half of the pages as garbage and keeps throwing up script errors. Browing on W95 is not a pleasant experience, I tell you.

[aerius]

But we are missing the best thing of all:


My Briefcase

Did you ever even figure out how it would be useful? I kept it there for ever, but never knew how to make it useful. I think it was removed entirely from 98.

Nope, I'm running Windows 98 on my computer and the Briefcase is still there. It's been there for nearly 9 years now and I still haven't figured out what to do with it.

[Ace Pace]

Nope, I'm running Windows 98 on my computer and the Briefcase is still there. It's been there for nearly 9 years now and I still haven't figured out what to do with it.

Nope, I'm running Windows 98 on my computer

I'm running Windows 98 on my computer

I'm running Windows 98

running Windows 98

Windows 98

wat

[fgalkin]

This thread is awesome, and deserves to be saved.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[aerius]

I have a PII-400 which refuses to die, therefore I run Windows 98 on it. If I need a faster computer, I just use my fiancée's.

[Bounty]

Nope, I'm running Windows 98 on my computer and the Briefcase is still there. It's been there for nearly 9 years now and I still haven't figured out what to do with it.

Nope, I'm running Windows 98 on my computer

I'm running Windows 98 on my computer

I'm running Windows 98

running Windows 98

Windows 98

wat

Windows 98SE with a few tweaks and maybe the unofficial service pack is just on the right side of usable. I've recommended it over ME a few times, if you don't mind using obsolete technology it's a perfectly serviceable alternative to Linux for older hardware thanks to still being compatible with a lot of Windows-only software.

[Netko]

Was Active Desktop an update for 95 or is it on the install CD?

It definitely wasn't on the original CD; I think it was part of the extra Plus! pack download. It wasn't until 98 that it became standard with the OS (and it is one thing about 98 I never used; I hated it and turned it off first thing after installing).

IIRC, it came with IE 4.0 - most definitely not part of the base install (but came standard with the last version of 95 - 95 OSR 2.something, which also notably was the first Windows to include, rather pathetic, USB support).

In theory, it should run on a 20 MHz 386 with 4MB RAM. In theory.

I ran it on a 386DX 33Mhz with 4MB RAM. Took forever and a day to boot up, with a frozen desktop for the first 10 mins, but after that it worked satisfactorily for the day and age, as long as you limited yourself to only one app (800x600 on a 14" sometimes purple color tinted CRT FTW!). BSoDs were common of course (max 4 hours unless you're only working on one word document or something like that that doesn't really use anything of the system). Soon after I got a hand-me-down 386DX 40Mhz with (OMG! XBOX HUEGE!) 8 MB RAM. That actually worked rather decently, again as long as you stuck to one app at a time, and it only BSoD every 8 hours or so! Progress!

The soon following 486DX2 100Mhz (or was it 120?) and P5 133 Mhz seemed impossibly fast compared to the 386s, that is until Win98 got its claws into them (active desktop and related technologies for the lose).

Damn, bout of nostalgia calling, where did I misplace those Privateer 2 discs...

[Drooling Iguana]

And just last week I tried to get OS/2 Warp 4 back up and running through qemu, but quit after I was unable to make the install floppies.

I smell a Project

So far I've done

Windows XP
Windows 95
Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (since deleted, I'm going to redo it with networking if I can find the missing disk)
Dos 7.1
Dos 6.22
DSL (HDD install)
Ubuntu
Kubuntu
Xubuntu

Mucking about with operating systems is fun. I suck at it, but Google helps.

I think the problem might be that I'm trying to make the install floppies from XP, and the script probably expects some sort of DOS-based system. If I send you the ISO for my OS/2 CD, do you think you could use your m4d WIN95 5ki11z to make images of the boot floppies and send them back to me?

[TimothyC]

I remember MaximumPC had on their site at one point an article about a guy who loaded a computer with six hard drives and thirty-seven operating systems! Unfortunately that old bookmark I had is now dead.

I have the print version of that article in storage, although my archive-fu is weak right now, I shall try to find it this week.

Edit: The rig was the November 2002 Rig of the Month: "Richard Robbins' Multiboot Menagerie."

Alas I have all but that issue in storage. I wonder where it went to. [Here] is the G4TV page about it.

[Tahlan]

Talk about a walk down memory lane! I can't believe some of the OSs some of you are still using. Well, I can understand if you're running an archaic machine, for which you would need an archaic OS. But at my office, I am running an ancient Pentium and I have XP Pro running on it. It's only function is to tie my copier into the network so that I can use the copier as a printer from time to time. It's up and running all the time, because it takes half a day to boot up. I'm sure the hard drive would crash if I turned it off. I had that happen to a server that ran non-stop for a couple of years. Turned it off and it decided that was all she wrote. I guess it didn't like forced labor 24/7/365.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I have a PII-400 which refuses to die, therefore I run Windows 98 on it. If I need a faster computer, I just use my fiancée's.

Mate, just run anything, anything but Win 98. You may as well have said you run ME, which is what Satan copulating with Bill Gates in a virtual world would produce. If Satan existed and, uh, you could make out and have offspring as an operating system.

But the analogy is sound! Don't touch those OSs.

I intend to get Workbench running on this PC soon. Windows XP, Ubuntu 6.10 and Workbench 4.0. Oh yes.

[Bounty]

I intend to get Workbench running on this PC soon.

Workbench? Amiga Workbench? I've been meaning to try it if I can find the disc somewhere, but doesn't that run only on an actual Amiga?

I think the problem might be that I'm trying to make the install floppies from XP, and the script probably expects some sort of DOS-based system.

You should be able to create OS/2 boot floppies with XP, I've seen it in install guides (like here). Have you formatted the floppies?

[Bounty]

I've replaced IE with something less primitive:



Now if only I could get the sound working I'd dig up my 25th Anniversary disks and finally finish that game...

[Bounty]

A pox on thee, Mike - SDN is almost unreadable for us poor souls who use Windows 3.11! (pics forthcoming because Photobucket is beyond what a 13-year-old OS can handle)

Opera 3.62, WFW 3.11 - I wonder how low you can go before internet access becomes impossible?