LGR 486 Upgrade! Installing & Enjoying Windows 95
video description
For me the most exciting thing was the preemptive multitasking of Windows 95. I made a point of upgrading from for megabytes of ram to eight, and installing a Creative Labs Soundblaster and CD-ROM; it was a whopping 2X.
I bought the CD ROM kit because there was no way I was going to install the upgrade off of floppies!
My upgrade hardware was a 486 dx2-66, 8mb of ram, a Matrox Millennium card, and SB audio. The upgrade from CD-ROM was fairly painless.
Watching Edie Brickell & Weezer on my computer tripped me out. Recall I was used to Desqview/386, which was text based.
Bought the Plus! pack; may even still have the disk. I was especially happy to get Arcade. Always have been an Asteroids nut. Tempest was a pleasant bonus.
The neat thing about Windows 95 is that it was NT console compatible. This meant I could use my entire BBs set up without change. All I had to do was drop the NT executable in over the DOS executable, and it worked perfectly. Still had my US Robotics 56k modem. Installed Netscape as soon as I learned about it. Began my long voyage of never using Explorer if I couldn't avoid it.
Spent a lot of time at the MS-DOS prompt at first, before 95 finally weaned me away from it.
Date: 2022-11-19
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Comments and reviews: 14
Philip
Hi Clint - long time watcher, first time commenter. Thanks for all your videos!
My first exposure to Windows 95 was in late February or early March of Windows 95. I'd just gained my first full-time job at a call centre in Sidcup, south-east London. But they wouldn't tell us what we were supporting. We'd built our call logging PCs (with DOS 6/Windows 3. 1) and were wondering what to do next, and were then told to build new PCs but leave them blank. Then a guy from Microsoft turned up with install media, and our training started. My first job turned out to be supporting Windows 95 during its Public Preview (a kind of beta) and at launch!
We had a deep dive on the Windows 95 architecture, then started focusing on install & uninstall, then the general interface & features. I was something of an idealist and compared it to OS/2 - unfavourably! But supporting it paid my wages, so I wasn't going to tell customers that!
Then we had to build our reference PC which we'd use to help during calls, and started waiting for people on the Public Preview to call in with their problems. The Public Preview went fairly well, but we did have issues with some hardware and software that we were never able to resolve, and that got fed back into the final installer & README for the release version of Windows 95.
They added DOS/Win3. x support duties to our team after the launch rush for Windows 95 had finished, and I think I worked on that desk for about a year before moving onwards and upwards to a different support helpdesk. But I made some great friends on that team, and showing I could cope with the fast moving world of OS support is what gave me the opportunity to move on, so I guess I owe my career in IT at least in part to Windows 95. Plus a few interesting memories! ;-)
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Hi Clint - long time watcher, first time commenter. Thanks for all your videos!
My first exposure to Windows 95 was in late February or early March of Windows 95. I'd just gained my first full-time job at a call centre in Sidcup, south-east London. But they wouldn't tell us what we were supporting. We'd built our call logging PCs (with DOS 6/Windows 3. 1) and were wondering what to do next, and were then told to build new PCs but leave them blank. Then a guy from Microsoft turned up with install media, and our training started. My first job turned out to be supporting Windows 95 during its Public Preview (a kind of beta) and at launch!
We had a deep dive on the Windows 95 architecture, then started focusing on install & uninstall, then the general interface & features. I was something of an idealist and compared it to OS/2 - unfavourably! But supporting it paid my wages, so I wasn't going to tell customers that!
Then we had to build our reference PC which we'd use to help during calls, and started waiting for people on the Public Preview to call in with their problems. The Public Preview went fairly well, but we did have issues with some hardware and software that we were never able to resolve, and that got fed back into the final installer & README for the release version of Windows 95.
They added DOS/Win3. x support duties to our team after the launch rush for Windows 95 had finished, and I think I worked on that desk for about a year before moving onwards and upwards to a different support helpdesk. But I made some great friends on that team, and showing I could cope with the fast moving world of OS support is what gave me the opportunity to move on, so I guess I owe my career in IT at least in part to Windows 95. Plus a few interesting memories! ;-)
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Per
I bought Windows 95 the day it came out here in Norway. Think it was in November.
It was possible to get it on floppies, CD-ROM but also a box with Windows 95 bundled with a CD-ROM drive.
I got it on floppy disks, and installed it the same evening. It worked just fine. I hated it for about a week before I really started to like it. I got the upgrade version, but it was possible to do a clean install. In that case, somewhere in the installation it asked for one of the Windows 3. 11 floppies.
I had a Pentium 75 with 8Mb RAM. It ran OK, but in my opinion 8Mb is the minimun you need for Windows 95. From what I was told, if you installed it on computer with 4Mb RAM, it would configure it in a different way. Not sure what it was.
Before I got some kind of 3D accelerator, the OpenGL screen savers would run just as bad as in the video.
The TCP/IP stack had a very annoying bug if you didn't krnow what caused it. If you installed TCP/IP for your network card and set the IP to DHCP, and you had no DHCP server, it would every few minutes completely freeze the system for a second or so four times in a short while. If you set the IP address manually it worked.
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I bought Windows 95 the day it came out here in Norway. Think it was in November.
It was possible to get it on floppies, CD-ROM but also a box with Windows 95 bundled with a CD-ROM drive.
I got it on floppy disks, and installed it the same evening. It worked just fine. I hated it for about a week before I really started to like it. I got the upgrade version, but it was possible to do a clean install. In that case, somewhere in the installation it asked for one of the Windows 3. 11 floppies.
I had a Pentium 75 with 8Mb RAM. It ran OK, but in my opinion 8Mb is the minimun you need for Windows 95. From what I was told, if you installed it on computer with 4Mb RAM, it would configure it in a different way. Not sure what it was.
Before I got some kind of 3D accelerator, the OpenGL screen savers would run just as bad as in the video.
The TCP/IP stack had a very annoying bug if you didn't krnow what caused it. If you installed TCP/IP for your network card and set the IP to DHCP, and you had no DHCP server, it would every few minutes completely freeze the system for a second or so four times in a short while. If you set the IP address manually it worked.
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ket2291
I can not for the life of me remember what the actual hardware was; my mother found a decommissioned set (tower, monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse) sitting next to a dumpster where she worked. I was only ten at the time (this was the year 2001) and we had one family computer running XP. Even though it (95 machine) had no internet, having the freedom to copy software via floppy or CD in the comfort of my own bedroom was absolutely insane. Crash n' Burn pinball ran great, and it was the first time I heard it with music. Can't sleep? Try running through the Starsiege TRIBES tutorial for the 3000th time offline. Explore those awesome maps with absolutely nobody in them; the music and atmosphere ruled. And yes, the 3d maze was going whenever I wasn't actively using it. Was still great for playing audio cd's, drawing in paint, and general foolery. This video brought me back, too. Thanks.
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I can not for the life of me remember what the actual hardware was; my mother found a decommissioned set (tower, monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse) sitting next to a dumpster where she worked. I was only ten at the time (this was the year 2001) and we had one family computer running XP. Even though it (95 machine) had no internet, having the freedom to copy software via floppy or CD in the comfort of my own bedroom was absolutely insane. Crash n' Burn pinball ran great, and it was the first time I heard it with music. Can't sleep? Try running through the Starsiege TRIBES tutorial for the 3000th time offline. Explore those awesome maps with absolutely nobody in them; the music and atmosphere ruled. And yes, the 3d maze was going whenever I wasn't actively using it. Was still great for playing audio cd's, drawing in paint, and general foolery. This video brought me back, too. Thanks.
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Dave
If there's anyone here who things this looks like a clunky mess, there's two things to remember - the first being that at least this is the floppy version. The CDROM version might have been quicker - but didn't come with out of the box drivers for the CDROM for Windows. Meaning - you could install it using your MSDOS cdrom drivers, but once it'd loaded windows? No CDROM. That was fun.
The second was the copy protection. If you had new disks, it'd make you write to the first disk to mark it'd been used. This wasn't so bad with W95 - but office 95 came on about 40 disks. And if that knew it had been installed previously, it threw up a anti-piracy confirmation dialog box. For every single file it copied. Off all 40 disks. And kept randomly swapping the OK / Cancel buttons. Not fun.
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If there's anyone here who things this looks like a clunky mess, there's two things to remember - the first being that at least this is the floppy version. The CDROM version might have been quicker - but didn't come with out of the box drivers for the CDROM for Windows. Meaning - you could install it using your MSDOS cdrom drivers, but once it'd loaded windows? No CDROM. That was fun.
The second was the copy protection. If you had new disks, it'd make you write to the first disk to mark it'd been used. This wasn't so bad with W95 - but office 95 came on about 40 disks. And if that knew it had been installed previously, it threw up a anti-piracy confirmation dialog box. For every single file it copied. Off all 40 disks. And kept randomly swapping the OK / Cancel buttons. Not fun.
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OneTruePing
My father was a beta tester for Windows 95 when it was first being developed (and also for 98, 2000, and NT, so I got to experience the OS in its earliest, jankiest forms. Considering how our other systems were a Mac running System 7 and an old but upgraded ][gs, there were other GUIs to compare to, and yeah, at the time it didn't hold up as well. That said, he also picked up some decent games as extras with a CD drive and a sound card, so I got to enjoy the very earliest parts of both Wing Commander III and Ultima 6, as well as MANTIS Space Superiority Fighter, which I managed to get decently far in. Good times. Space Cadet was, of course a family classic, alongside Littlewing pinball games on the Mac and Raster Blaster pinball on the ][gs.
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My father was a beta tester for Windows 95 when it was first being developed (and also for 98, 2000, and NT, so I got to experience the OS in its earliest, jankiest forms. Considering how our other systems were a Mac running System 7 and an old but upgraded ][gs, there were other GUIs to compare to, and yeah, at the time it didn't hold up as well. That said, he also picked up some decent games as extras with a CD drive and a sound card, so I got to enjoy the very earliest parts of both Wing Commander III and Ultima 6, as well as MANTIS Space Superiority Fighter, which I managed to get decently far in. Good times. Space Cadet was, of course a family classic, alongside Littlewing pinball games on the Mac and Raster Blaster pinball on the ][gs.
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Graeme
Hi, When windows 95 came out, I was working in Community training centre.
We had 132 computers on Windows 3. 1, and got windows 95 on 13 floppy disk, as we didn; t have cd drive yet.
Now, enjoy my fun, when i had to install 95, on 132 computers, with 13 disks, and then update to office with 32 floppy disks.
I Wrote a cript in dos. on a bootable sys disk, and autoated the install, from the host computer on the windows 3. 1 computer on each network. tutor computer, the host, i copied all disks in a folder. then ran install. then went down line to each, to each computer, and ran install. my tutor expected me to take 5 days, to update to 95, and update office to all the 132 computers.
I completed it in one Day.
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Hi, When windows 95 came out, I was working in Community training centre.
We had 132 computers on Windows 3. 1, and got windows 95 on 13 floppy disk, as we didn; t have cd drive yet.
Now, enjoy my fun, when i had to install 95, on 132 computers, with 13 disks, and then update to office with 32 floppy disks.
I Wrote a cript in dos. on a bootable sys disk, and autoated the install, from the host computer on the windows 3. 1 computer on each network. tutor computer, the host, i copied all disks in a folder. then ran install. then went down line to each, to each computer, and ran install. my tutor expected me to take 5 days, to update to 95, and update office to all the 132 computers.
I completed it in one Day.
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Matt
In 1995 I was 9 years old and went over to my neighbors with my mom while she upgraded their computer to Windows 95. I remember seeing the CD-Rom and asked her if we could upgrade our 286 and she said no, it wouldn't work. Shortly after we upgraded to a Pentium and had a fresh install of '95. I still remember the awe at the whole thing, the internet, CD-Rom's, Windows 95, the speed of the pentium. The entire world changed and I was lucky to be part of it. I'm part of the last generation to witness the paradigm shift that occurred at this time and I feel so lucky to have witnessed it first hand. Windows 95 will always be the vehicle that represents that shift for me.
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In 1995 I was 9 years old and went over to my neighbors with my mom while she upgraded their computer to Windows 95. I remember seeing the CD-Rom and asked her if we could upgrade our 286 and she said no, it wouldn't work. Shortly after we upgraded to a Pentium and had a fresh install of '95. I still remember the awe at the whole thing, the internet, CD-Rom's, Windows 95, the speed of the pentium. The entire world changed and I was lucky to be part of it. I'm part of the last generation to witness the paradigm shift that occurred at this time and I feel so lucky to have witnessed it first hand. Windows 95 will always be the vehicle that represents that shift for me.
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Yoshi348POS
The times when a new version of Windows cost a couple hundred dollars instead of being given away for free, aggressively.
This was just such a revolutionary leap in the Windows line, however. It can be a bit overstated for those of us who grew up mainly playing games on such machines, as that was by far the biggest weakness of 3. X, but there's also no longer having to worry about IRQ ports and other such nonsense with every program and card, and of course the Start menu, meaning you didn't have to devote your entire desktop to just finding and launching your programs, and being one of the few things that just wasn't seen on a Mac in some fashion at all.
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The times when a new version of Windows cost a couple hundred dollars instead of being given away for free, aggressively.
This was just such a revolutionary leap in the Windows line, however. It can be a bit overstated for those of us who grew up mainly playing games on such machines, as that was by far the biggest weakness of 3. X, but there's also no longer having to worry about IRQ ports and other such nonsense with every program and card, and of course the Start menu, meaning you didn't have to devote your entire desktop to just finding and launching your programs, and being one of the few things that just wasn't seen on a Mac in some fashion at all.
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Baktus
This brings back memories! But I have to say that Windows 95 had a completely different impact on me when it came out. I simply hated it! I hated everything to do with Windows as it put too many restrictions on the system. I loved MS-DOS and what it did for me and continued to use it long after Windows 95 came out. I finally upgraded but as I feared I ended up with a system that was terribly unstable and horrible to use.
Windows 95 was a strange Frankenstein monster combined of MS-DOS and a bunch of weird GUI's slapped togheter. What I ended up using was Windows NT Workstation 4. 0 and dual boot with Windows 95 for gaming.
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This brings back memories! But I have to say that Windows 95 had a completely different impact on me when it came out. I simply hated it! I hated everything to do with Windows as it put too many restrictions on the system. I loved MS-DOS and what it did for me and continued to use it long after Windows 95 came out. I finally upgraded but as I feared I ended up with a system that was terribly unstable and horrible to use.
Windows 95 was a strange Frankenstein monster combined of MS-DOS and a bunch of weird GUI's slapped togheter. What I ended up using was Windows NT Workstation 4. 0 and dual boot with Windows 95 for gaming.
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StrangeQuarkStar
The operating system that came with the very first computer my family owned; I was six or seven when we got it. I remember scribbling like crazy in Paint while playing the few classical MIDI files that came with it over and over again. I was battling my father in Space Cadet and really enjoyed Hover as well!
To this day, whenever I have to use a Windows machine I configure it to be as close to Windows 95/98 as possible: all the same sounds, the silvery 3D cursor set, the system font, the Windows 98 mountain lion background (or the classic teal, and the clouds as the login background.
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The operating system that came with the very first computer my family owned; I was six or seven when we got it. I remember scribbling like crazy in Paint while playing the few classical MIDI files that came with it over and over again. I was battling my father in Space Cadet and really enjoyed Hover as well!
To this day, whenever I have to use a Windows machine I configure it to be as close to Windows 95/98 as possible: all the same sounds, the silvery 3D cursor set, the system font, the Windows 98 mountain lion background (or the classic teal, and the clouds as the login background.
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Alan
Windows 95 was the first time I ever interacted with an x86 PC, prior to that I only ever knew Commodore machines. Started at the VIC-20, went to the C128, then the Amiga 500, and finally the Amiga 1200. The writing was on the wall with Commodore going out of business and the combined circumstances of the internet boom and Windows 95 being such a game changer is really what made finally moving over to IBM-Compatible machines happen for me. That and my best friend's neighbor at the time had shown me Warcraft II and Diablo for the first time and I was completely sold, I just had to have them.
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Windows 95 was the first time I ever interacted with an x86 PC, prior to that I only ever knew Commodore machines. Started at the VIC-20, went to the C128, then the Amiga 500, and finally the Amiga 1200. The writing was on the wall with Commodore going out of business and the combined circumstances of the internet boom and Windows 95 being such a game changer is really what made finally moving over to IBM-Compatible machines happen for me. That and my best friend's neighbor at the time had shown me Warcraft II and Diablo for the first time and I was completely sold, I just had to have them.
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RubyRoks
My first memory is sitting on my dad's lap while he boots up Doom on his older Windows 95 computer (A Gateway 2000 Pentium 1 machine) for me to play so he could go back to playing it himself on his own computer. I was 3. I remember in the years following using that Win95 computer to play Diablo for the first time, playing a bunch of edutainment titles, slowly browsing the web, so on and so on. My main goal as a retro tech collector is to have that same model of Gateway 2000 PC as my Win95 rig and to have one of every console i played growing up (Just need an Atari 2600, NES, and SNES)
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My first memory is sitting on my dad's lap while he boots up Doom on his older Windows 95 computer (A Gateway 2000 Pentium 1 machine) for me to play so he could go back to playing it himself on his own computer. I was 3. I remember in the years following using that Win95 computer to play Diablo for the first time, playing a bunch of edutainment titles, slowly browsing the web, so on and so on. My main goal as a retro tech collector is to have that same model of Gateway 2000 PC as my Win95 rig and to have one of every console i played growing up (Just need an Atari 2600, NES, and SNES)
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Tall
Back when Microsoft supported OpenGL. :D I still tip my hat to OpenGL long after everyone moved to Vulkan. It got us through some rough times. Especially when it comes to getting older 3DFX and DX9 games to run on a newer PC. OpenGL wrappers suddenly make them work. Some time a year ago I got the original offline tutorial for everquest working on window 10 using this method. I appeared on the wooden bridge staring at a dwarf and a tutorial sign, I ran off and fought a skeleton, and I was proud. Then I jumped down the pit that exits the tutorial.
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Back when Microsoft supported OpenGL. :D I still tip my hat to OpenGL long after everyone moved to Vulkan. It got us through some rough times. Especially when it comes to getting older 3DFX and DX9 games to run on a newer PC. OpenGL wrappers suddenly make them work. Some time a year ago I got the original offline tutorial for everquest working on window 10 using this method. I appeared on the wooden bridge staring at a dwarf and a tutorial sign, I ran off and fought a skeleton, and I was proud. Then I jumped down the pit that exits the tutorial.
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Charles
Memories: My wife had a truly horrible Win 3. 1 Packard Bell thing when we got married. I bought, um, 'her' a fancy new Win95 machine from a local specialist PC builder (not a thing these days) that she was quite pleased with when she could get a look in.
. The Plus! pack was a must have for the Puma backdrop (my wife) and 3D Bowling (me, or was that 98? It soon got 98 and a Voodoo card which I still have, mostly used for running UltraHLE the amazing N64 emulator - ah glide wrappers, the need to patch lots of stuff, and only a 56k modem!
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Memories: My wife had a truly horrible Win 3. 1 Packard Bell thing when we got married. I bought, um, 'her' a fancy new Win95 machine from a local specialist PC builder (not a thing these days) that she was quite pleased with when she could get a look in.
. The Plus! pack was a must have for the Puma backdrop (my wife) and 3D Bowling (me, or was that 98? It soon got 98 and a Voodoo card which I still have, mostly used for running UltraHLE the amazing N64 emulator - ah glide wrappers, the need to patch lots of stuff, and only a 56k modem!
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