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Windows 96

windows96.net

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Re: Windows 96

#321

Post by collinmanderson »

wccrawford wrote: post #281
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 believe I only had a Windows 98 'Upgrade' CD, which could not be used to install on a bare system. As I recall it, there was actually a minimal set of files needed to trigger the CD to install and you didn't actually need a full 95 install. I worked at a shop at the time and remember doing a lot of reinstalls from those upgrade disks and we definitely didn't spend the time to reinstall both OSs. I tried searching…

Yes, I believe you only needed to insert the old install disk to prove you had the original.

Re: Windows 96

#322

Post by JonathonW »

_michaelll wrote: post #194
JonathonW wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Windows 11 Settings icons are pretty fantastic— full color and lots of distinctive shapes. Unfortunately, we’ll probably be at Windows 20 before the last of the Windows 8-style monochrome icons finally finds its way out of Windows, because that’s how things go at Microsoft. (It’s harder than it used to be, but I’m pretty sure you can still find a few Windows 95-era icons hanging around, and there are definite…

You can find much more than just windows 95 icons, check this out https://ntdotdev.wordpress.com/2021/02/06/state-of-the-windo...

moricons.dll (and a lot of the stuff you'll find in shell32.dll and elsewhere) is a compatibility relic; those icons are no longer used by Windows itself. There are still some lingering old icons in the UI, though.

Also, many of the DOS applications with icons in moricons.dll probably still run in 32-bit Windows 10. NTVDM and DOS application support don't exist in 64-bit Windows, but they're still alive and well in 32-bit Windows (albeit an optional install, because MS would really rather people not still be using DOS applications in 2021).

Re: Windows 96

#323

Post by jamal-kumar »

pjerem wrote: post #193
jamal-kumar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned computers because in 1996 I was completely ignorant and a little kid who decided to drag everything into the recycle bin because I thought it would be 'recycled' back into place but really it just destroyed windows enough that I had to learn how to reinstall from floppies created in DOS

I like how old OSes let you place anything in the recycle bin, or remove system files without permission (because the concept barely existed). Simplicity at the extreme. I miss those times where hacking and learning was as easy as breaking things and repairing them. But I think this also was a source of fear against computers for most people : if I click on the wrong place, it will break and cost money. Nowadays syst…

Hahaha yeah I was freaking out. My whole family was pretty pissed off at me.

Good thing I had a copy of "PCs for Dummies" which told how to fix the catastrophe

Re: Windows 96

#325

Post by exikyut »

joedoejr wrote: post #265
thomasz wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that would have been really helpful advice a quarter of a century ago :)

funny fact - freedos does not support smartdrv even in 2021

Wow. Why not?!?!

...Hmm, probably undocumented API stuff :/

Re: Windows 96

#326

Post by WaitWaitWha »

BizarroLand wrote: post #317
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to quietly grumble, like an appropriately crotchety old man... '3.5" floppies? Bah! Try 8", and they were really floppy! Try installing AT&T Unix from those...'

When I was a kid you had to grease your own hard drives! But kids these days, they got no appreciation!

I do not recall greasing HDDs (the 70's Control Data drives, the ones that looked like top loading washing mashing inserts, yes you had to lube those), but the Seagate 40MB HDDs (to me the first real consumer HDD) had a bearing lubricant problem, where it would get too thin over time and mess up timing.

The solution was to put it in the fridge for a few minutes, read as much as possible off before the lube got thin again.

The tribal knowledge why we put very specific HDDs in the fridge got lost, but people still stick failing HDDs into fridges... go figure.

Re: Windows 96

#327

Post by bayindirh »

thomasz wrote: post #189
koyote wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pretty sure it stopped being helpful with Windows 2000.

Unless abused, Windows 2000 was pretty robust, but it was nowhere impossible to bork it, especially with subpar drivers.

Re: Windows 96

#328

Post by PostThisTooFast »

zwaps wrote: post #244
PostThisTooFast wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

hmmm dark mode gives me headaches. Why would dark text on light background be dumb?

Because it's equivalent to reading text off the surface of a light bulb all day. Why would you want to do that?

Re: Windows 96

#329

Post by PostThisTooFast »

hulitu wrote: post #185
PostThisTooFast wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now they have light gray on white or dark gray on black. Talk about progress.

MS, which advanced UI more than anyone else in the '90s, is now out wandering in the weeds.

Sad.

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