Windows 96

Post by tempestn » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

infogulch wrote: post #159

koyote wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in those days re-formatting and re-installing Windows was a very common thing because usually the system would get into some kind of bad state after several months of usage (or at least mine did). I believe I only had a Windows 98 'Upgrade' CD, which could not be used to install on a bare system. This meant I had to first install a previous copy Windows, which in my case was Windows 95 on floppy disks (and I fee…

I remember the same eventual "system got into broken state" issue on a laptop with XP. After reinstalling everything the third time (including wireless network drivers from a USB drive and at least a billion service packs shudder ) I figured out how to take a disk image with a linux live-cd and save a clean iso of a fresh install with updates and my preferred programs pre-installed onto a separate partition where I a…

Post by M_bara » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 5:15 AM UTC

koyote wrote: post #106

thatwasunusual wrote: post #29

Pretty. :) Gives me PTSD-like flashbacks to the time when I was tasked with installing Windows 95 on 50+ computers on the local school. For the young(er), Windows was on 14-ish 3.5" floppy disks, and I had to do some heavy calculation and logistics copying those discs while installing the OS to make my effort as efficient as possible. IIRC, I managed to keep the installing cyclus going on 28 computers at a time, and…

Back in those days re-formatting and re-installing Windows was a very common thing because usually the system would get into some kind of bad state after several months of usage (or at least mine did). I believe I only had a Windows 98 'Upgrade' CD, which could not be used to install on a bare system. This meant I had to first install a previous copy Windows, which in my case was Windows 95 on floppy disks (and I fee…

Post by hulitu » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

PostThisTooFast wrote: post #117

mopsi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old design makes easier to grasp things at a glance, especially in Control Panel. Each icon has a distinct shape and color, in contrast with Windows 10 Settings app that has much more abstract monochrome icons that are difficult to tell apart. Monochrome vector icons make things like dark mode easier to implement. Such small software shops like Microsoft unfortunately cannot afford to hire designers to do multipl…

And yet Windows 95 (and all Windows from 3.1 to Vista) let the user set up global color schemes that were inherited by all applications. I set up a "dark" mode in the early '90s and used it until Microsoft inexplicably REMOVED the entire color-scheme editor... just as everyone started to realize how dumb inverse (black text on white) color schemes are.

Post by hulitu » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 5:25 AM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #38

Gualdrapo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think usability has to take a part on that. You can scan an interface of this fashion and be almost certain about what is a button, what is a scroll bar, what is a text input, etcetera. While with Windows 8+ the flat UI lets a huge space for ambiguity and causes a bigger cognitive load to the user, who is forced to tell things between flat rectangles and lines.

> You can scan an interface of this fashion and be almost certain about what is a button, what is a scroll bar, what is a text input, etcetera. Bingo. This is exactly it for me, right here. Being able to tell what I can click on and expect it to do something, at a glance and without having to guess is the killer feature, IMO. How did we lose our way so badly that "can I click on this thing?" even became a reasonable…

Post by thomasz » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 5:31 AM UTC

koyote wrote: post #156

bootlooped wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To day I still factory reset my PC and my phone about once a year, just to keep them fresh. I have no idea if it's still helpful with modern a OS.

I stopped doing it around Windows 7 and have not really seen an issue. I have Windows 10 installations that date back to the original Windows 10 release (and have been updated with Windows Update all the way up to the current) and they are running perfectly fine. That being said, I feel like I install much less software than I used to. They used to hand out CDs with computer magazines that were basically dumps of ran…