Andrew T.

Yes, I'm back. B) After a bit of digging, it turns out the breadth of this prompt is actually narrower than I thought. Google is apparently doing useragent sniffing only for Firefox 3.x, which primarily impacts post-9x (and KernelEx) users. I had selectively spoofed my useragent on Google as Firefox so that I wouldn't be redirected to their redesigned photo search, so it showed up on Opera as well. No such message appears on Firefox 2.x, which is the last 9x-compatible version by default. (Does Google implicitly want people to downgrade from Firefox 3.6 to 2.0?)

Today, this banner started to pop up when accessing Gmail's Basic HTML view on any browser capable of running on Windows 9x (and even some that aren't, like Firefox 3.6): Google has been using banners like these to push Chrome and other untenable browser upgrades for AJAXy services for some time...but its appearance here is absolutely ridiculous. The Basic HTML view is perfectly viewable in any browser, and had been what users were referred to when they WEREN'T using a browser on Google's list of modern "upgrades." Moreover, there's no link anywhere on the page to make the banner go away. Fortunately, this obnoxious scrawl is simple to banish with a CSS override file containing just this: #bm {display: none;}This can be done with an extension such as Stylish on Firefox, or natively on Opera (Edit Site Preferences > Display > My Style Sheet).

If a critical mass of users refuses to upgrade from Windows XP, there would be no competitive reason for hardware that doesn't work with XP at all to exist. The "inevitable" aspects of technological obsolescence often boil down to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Just to lay the issue to rest, I have used Firefox 2 on Win95. (Some of the various instructions for doing that make mountains out of molehills: No version spoofing or (choke) IE is required; the only out-of-the-ordinary step is to delete the two incompatible .js files; disabling the search box in the process. Because the functionality of Firefox 2 in the light of that seemed crippled compared to 1.5, I stuck to 1.5 on W95 until after it reached EOL, then switched to a combination of Opera and SeaMonkey 1.1.) Of course, it's all a moot point. For Flickr rendering...

I don't know if anyone's successfully used KernelEx (or portions thereof) on a W95 system; but for this particular issue I reached an acceptable compromise by hacking Opera 10.6 to run.

While I'm sure that a hacked copy of 10.6 will have issues, Opera 10.1 and earlier versions weren't without their shares of Win95-dependent bugs either. I've noticed a few issues with Opera 10.6 that I didn't experience in (unhacked) 10.1: Google Maps causes the browser to hang, and it will crash outright if I load the Acrobat Reader plugin in more than one tab at once. Version 10.1 soaked up virtual memory on script-intensive sites like Flickr and would stall and swap like crazy if the swapfile exceeded the amount of memory I had installed (128MB). 10.6 also soaks up virtual memory, but it allows the swapfile to become as big as needed, so performance is actually better for me than 10.1. It clears the swapfile faster on closing than 10.1 as well. After some effort at testing and tweaking, I've been satisfied enough with Opera 10.6 to use it as my regular browser. Since it's intended explicitly for Windows 98/ME systems, I've never used KernelEx. I'd be curious if anyone's found a way to do anything interesting with it on Windows 95 (or another non-98/ME operating system), though!

Success! To clarify, these are the only steps required on an installation without multiple user profiles: 1) Extract opera.dll with the designated tool (UPX). 2) With hex editor (I personally use XVI32), change "DuplicateTokenEx" reference in opera.exe to "DuplicateToken." 3) Change "InterlockedCompareExchange" in opera.dll to "InterlockedExchange," and "GlobalMemoryStatusEx" to "GlobalMemoryStatus." In all cases, I added null characters to the strings to retain the original byte lengths. While I can't vouch for the virtues of Opera 10.6's default interface (What happened to the menu bar?) or performance (Strange effects happen when the program runs out of virtual memory, which happens fairly quickly)...it runs!

Yahoo's Flickr service has been frustrating me a lot recently. The website went through a major, script-heavy photo-page redesign a month ago; breaking compatibility with wide swaths of systems in the process. Officially, the site developers limit "full support" to Firefox 3.6, Safari 4, Chrome 4, and IE7-8. Of course, none of these browsers work (by design, at least) on Windows 95, 98, ME, or NT4; and functionality with other browsers is a crapshoot. This is what I've seen: Firefox 1.5: Performance reasonable, but many features (map, notes, set navigation, "Actions" menu) non-functional. SeaMonkey 1.1: "Actions" menu works, but broken otherwise. User icons don't display, and performance slows to a jerky crawl whenever a photo page is open. Opera 10.1: Full functionality; apart from a bit of flakiness. But...the browser soaks up virtual memory like a sponge when browsing the site, to the point where I'm often compelled to force-quit the application after viewing more than a dozen photo pages. I'm not sure if this is an Opera or Flickr problem, but I've only seen this behavior when viewing one with the other. Opera 9 behaves similarly, plus "notes" are broken in that version. Flickr's own support forums were packed with negative comments for several weeks after the redesign went live (many from paying users who felt as if they had been conned into a bait-and-switch), but there's absolutely no chance of the old site coming back. With that in mind, is there any browser or hack that would enable Windows 9x users to achieve satisfactory functionality on Flickr once again? I haven't tried Firefox 2 extensively (though from what I've seen, it displays many of the same problems as 1.5 and SeaMonkey), and post-10.1 Opera versions have given me nothing but problems on Windows 95.

Thanks. EVE runs fine, so I'm sure I'll try fooling around with it. I wish there were more applications nowadays remotely that small and efficient: Anything that fits on a 360k floppy with room left over can't be that bad, in my book! Apparently, Inkscape didn't break all vestiges of Win9x compatibility until version 0.43. I've tried earlier versions, but they prompt a "missing export SHELL32.DLL:SHGetSpecialFolderPathA" error on IE-free Windows 95. (SHGetSpecialFolderPathA is an IE 4 function.) I'd still be curious if I could get it up and running, just for the heck of it...and I am open to hex editing to do so! I also have a very old version of CorelDRAW on hand (version 3, to be specific); although it's a bit too old for my tastes. Nothing like having to manage the clipboard with Ctrl+Ins and Shift+Del shortcuts!

Is there a free (or good, for that matter) vector graphics program like Inkscape capable of running on Windows 95? I'd like to draw some outline maps, so I'm curious what the options for doing so would be.

Version 7.0.70.0 for "other" browsers. I don't have Internet Explorer installed.

Not that long ago, I had Opera 10.5 running on Windows 95. Then I tried upgrading to 10.51, and I started being prompted by the ADVAPI32.DLL error. Then I tried reverting to 10.5, and that started throwing the error at me as well! Eventually I gave up and reverted to 9.64 as the path of least resistance.

Although it's hardly the most ideal or most efficient form of video conveyance, YouTube is a predominant site. And until recently, it was accessible with little fuss via compatible plugins on virtually any system. Since the site redesign a couple weeks ago, however, that's no longer been the case. A few days ago, they began prompting Flash 7 users with a rude "Old Flash? Go upgrade!" message in lieu of the video space. Since Flash 7 is the last version capable of running on Windows 95 and a few other platforms (Mac OS 9 comes to mind), users of these operating systems are now effectively locked out of YouTube content. Any thoughts? Or any possibility of a way around this, for that matter?

Um, because Windows 95 looks and behaves like this; whereas Windows 98 looks and behaves like this? Windows 95 OSR2 was a far more stable and robust operating system than any IE 4/Windows 98 beta. In my experience, Windows 98 wasn't even usable until after the Second Edition came out; and even then only if you had a faster system and didn't mind mandatorily viewing your files in Internet Explorer windows. (I've had nightmares working on Windows 98FE systems.)

Good thing I don't have IE...

Hi Charlotte, I'm fairly sure the bug isn't cache- or disk-related. Note that it affects stated file dimensions, as well as sizes. My assumption was that it was related to a call for some library of functions that isn't there. (It isn't msimg32.dll; though Opera throws an error referencing that when you first run it on pre-WinME systems.) Some versions of K-Meleon displayed similar garbage on the menu bar on 95; though I don't know if it's the same issue at work here. Just for the record, Windows 95 OSR2 has both FAT32 and rudimentary USB support. (Frankly, I'm not sure if anyone nowadays could survive on FAT16 alone...)

Any theories on the "integer garbage" issue on Windows 95?

It sounds like they may be going the way of Mozilla, then. (Firefox 1.x was never officially supported with Windows 95, but ran on it anyway.)

Uh, don't forget me!

When Windows 98 was new, I honestly predicted that it would be cast aside as a fad and would never surpass Windows 95 in install base. That didn't happen; though if '98 and '95 tie themselves at a statistical zero percent, that might as well be the case...

Interesting, yes. For providing the assurance that for every system similar to mine, there are 999 that aren't. By now, I've pretty well reconciled that fact. Given that it was presenting information on my own system, I found it a bit ironic that the site prompted me with a dialogue demanding the installation of an OS-incompatible Flash plugin version to view the statistic charts...

There's an odd bug I've experienced with Opera on my Windows 95B system that's transcended the last few versions of the software; 10, 9, and probably 8 alike. Integer values pertaining to the file size or dimensions of a file (such as on the status indicator, download window and various dialogues) either don't appear, or are replaced with garbage characters: Has anyone else experienced this problem, and is there any way around it? Although it seems like a small issue (the software runs fine otherwise), it's the biggest factor keeping me from turning to Opera as my regular browser.

Thanks for the replies so far... Ah, I was afraid of that. Unfortunately, it feels as though nowadays the developers would rather wash their hands of "Windows versions sans IE" entirely than fix the bug. Talk about sleeping with the enemy! (For what it's worth, the MozillaZine thread is here...)

Has anyone else had any problem running the latest maintenance release of SeaMonkey on their system? After installing the update last night, I was prompted with this dialogue whenever I ran the browser: Reverting to 1.1.17 fixed the problem. Seeing that I use Windows 95 OSR2, might this be an OS version-dependent bug?

Opera 10 runs on Windows 95! There aren't many (any?) other new software releases left that can claim that distinction. Performance is reasonable, too. Lately I've been using SeaMonkey as my regular browser, but I may seriously consider this instead. The biggest issue I have with recent Opera versions is values not rendering properly in image property dialogues. (Any way around this?)