With all the problems Microsoft (MSFT) Windows 10 has had lately – a few of us of a certain vintage may long for simpler days when we controlled what Windows did, not Redmond. Well, it’s time to relax because Windows 95 is now available as an app for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
The Verge writes that Slack developer Felix Rieseberg is responsible for this ingenious app. The operating system is encased in electron, a framework for building cross-platform apps with HTML and CSS.
Now nostalgia lovers can play around with Windows 95 in an electron app. Mr. Rieseberg has published the source code and app installers for this project on Github, and classic apps like Solitaire, Wordpad, phone dialer, MS Paint, and Minesweeper all run as you’d expect. Sadly, Internet Explorer isn’t fully functional as it simply refuses to load pages. It does have floppy disk support.
As Mr. Rieseberg suggests, if you were hoping to run Doom, you’re probably better off doing it through an actual virtualization app, but it surprisingly does work. He admits it only worked well “by accident and was mostly a joke.”
The app is only 129MB in size. Once it’s running it surprisingly only takes up around 200MB of RAM, even when running all the old Windows 95 system utilities, apps, and games. If you run into any issues with the app you can always reset the Windows 95 instance inside the app and start over again.
Enjoy this trip down memory lane.
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OK – Cut Windows 95 some slack, the 20something-year-old OS is the first step-up from 16-bit DOS to 32-bit Windows NT. But more importantly, it introduced the Windows graphical user interface that so many of us have a love/hate relationship with.
As you’d figure, running Windows 95 these days is mostly just for a laugh. Windows 95 is still popular after 20 years. The OS has appeared on the Apple Watch, Android Wear smartwatch, and even the Xbox One.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.