Andrew T.

The last NT 4.0-compatible version of DirectX is either 3.0 or (unofficially, in a pinch) 4.0, while Windows 95 was good all the way through DirectX 8.0. All in all, I think it's really an apples-and-oranges comparison: For a business with standardized hardware configurations, multiple users on computers, and stability valued for days on end, Windows NT 4.0 would no doubt be a more functional choice than Windows 95 or 98. For a typical home user, however, 9x is generally more versatile.

I'm curious: What is the opinion among other Windows 9x users of Windows NT 4.0? It seems that people sometimes forget about this release, in between software vendors "dropping support" for the 9x line and concentrating on the newer Windows 2000/XP versions only. In any case, Windows NT 4.0 is my second-favorite version of Windows: The user interface and performance are admirably similar to that of Windows 95; there's no IE shell integration, and it's very stable. There are a number of reasons why I'm a 95 user and not an NT4 user, however: No native compatibility for DOS programs; The complications of administrative rights and user accounts; No device manager or plug-and-play support, making it more difficult to configure drivers; The potential to "kill" the OS with incorrect drivers; NT's lack of FAT32 support (and 9x's lack of NTFS) make it inconvenient for the two to share a dual-boot installation; More open ports and targeted security vulnerabilities than Windows 9x. Any other thoughts?

"Win9x" includes Windows 95 as well as 98 and ME. This is the way things seem to break down: Winamp-- Last 95-compatible version: Somewhere after 5.07 (I tried a more recent version once, and couldn't get it to work right) Last 98/ME-compatible version: 5.35 RealPlayer-- Last 95-compatible version: 8 (The last usable version too, IMO; at least after unchecking options and cleaning up the interface.) Last 98/ME-compatible version: 10.5 Windows Media Player-- Last 95-compatible version: 7.0 (although 6.4 is the last version I'd consider usable.) Last 98/ME-compatible version: 9.x? QuickTime-- Last 95-compatible version: 5 Last 98/ME-compatible version: 6 Media Player Classic-- Last 95-compatible version: ? (It claims to be compatible with Windows 95, but it prompts a kernel32.dll error on my system.) Of course, the "media players" that exist don't exactly afford a direct comparison: Different pieces of software do different things. I personally use Winamp to play WAV and MP3 audio files; Media Player, RealPlayer, and QuickTime for their own respective proprietary formats, and the ordinary CD Player accessory for audio CDs. Works for me...

I'm guessing that they also squeezed out NT 4.0 compatibility when I wasn't looking? I'm not sure what active media-player development remains for Windows 9x, but at least with a program like Winamp the functionality and format-compatibility have been stable for some time. I happen to have version 5.07 installed myself, and it still works like a charm.

Since I don't have anything close to 4GB of files stored unless I select every single file on my computer, I can't say I've ever found the counter limit to be a problem...

Not to go off on yet another tangent, but I get the impression that ironically a lot of "NT/XP guys" don't look highly on Windows NT 4.0, either...

If you can't get Movie Maker running and are desperate to edit video content, try looking for an old Microsoft app called videdit.exe. It's a rather simplistic AVI editor from the Windows 3.1 era with a few bugs, but for what little video-clip editing I do it works fine.

Congratulations! What version of Paint Shop Pro did the Zoomcam come with? I've found a few cheap peripherals over the years myself. Among them: * A Creative Video Blaster WebCam II camera (which I haven't gotten as much use out of as...) * A Visioneer PaperPort 6000B scanner (which is a bit slow, but was a great buy nonetheless for $5) * An Iomega Buz video-capture device (One of these days, I ought to get around to finding proper drivers for its built-in SCSI card...)

This is hardly breaking news: Any tool that checks URLs for phishing pretenses needs to send them somewhere on the web...and a blacklist of sites is too large and too volatile in terms of data change to store locally. And the tool is already in Firefox 2. At the same time, I shy away from anti-phishing tools for this very reason (not to mention the performance hit that results). You really only need two eyes and a brain to determine that a URL of something like "http://bank-of-ethel.suk0rz.tv/l0g0n" is something other than what it purports to be. I think it's good that the feature is disabled by default. Is Firefox getting bloated? While it's a far cry from Netscape 3.04, it's arguably a featherweight and bastion of usability compared to IE 7, and the download size for Firefox 2 is smaller than it was for version 0.8.

IMO, those sites can go to hell. No site should require a third-party plug-in to be viewed FWIW, the only site I visit regularly that uses Flash for a meaningful purpose is YouTube, and that works perfectly with Flash 7. Flash 8-only content, in any case, is still largely the exception to the rule.

Ah yes, that page. The people on SomethingAwful.com didn't take kindly to it, for some reason.

While I honestly don't care for Windows 98/SE/ME (which I take is the focus of this topic), these are some of my reasons for using Windows 95 OSR2: * Fast performance * Small install size * No Internet Explorer integration * No DRM or "activation" schemes * No annoying animations or button-style menu bars * No unnecessary processes running * No open ports presenting security risks * A clean, intuitive, fully OS-native user interface (thanks to usability research) * Compatibility with all the hardware and software I care to use (yes, including the "old games")

The 386DX and 486 processors were indeed fully 32-bit. You may have gotten a little confused, since the OSes people used were most often 16-bit or less until the era when the Pentium was current. It's kind of ironic, actually, that when an OS capable of using the 386's 32-bit features finally achieved predominance with Windows 95, it was almost too slow to run on the systems in question!

I've long known that it's possible to have Windows 95 boot to the DOS prompt on startup by changing the "BootGUI" variable in MSDOS.SYS. I've been curious for some time, though, whether or not shutdown behavior can be changed in similar ways: * On computers with soft-touch power switches, is it possible to configure things so that you're prompted with the "It is Now Safe to Turn Off Your Computer" screen rather than have the computer turn off by itself, without disabling power-saving features in CMOS? * Likewise, is it possible to configure the shut down option to exit the GUI and leave you at the DOS prompt instead, like the "Exit Windows" option in earlier versions?

My point exactly!

I might as well speak for myself: I have the same problem with the Disk Defragmenter starting over far too often when fulfilling its duty for me to want to use it. I wish there was a way to run DEFRAG on Windows 95 through a DOS interface, like in...well, DOS 6. In my experience, disk tools like Defrag and Scandisk tools are much more reliable when operated outside of the Windows environment.

32-bit CPUs are no longer being manufactured? That's news to me: I guess I live under a rock.

Ah, yes: I do wish Firefox was a bit snappier and more efficient on older computers, although it still runs adequately on hardware back to the Pentium II era or so. What keeps me from endorsing K-Meleon is the fact that the menu bar of the last few versions I've tried displays garbage on Windows 95 and (from what I've heard) NT 4.0.

The official "requirements" are nothing more than recommendations: Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and below run great on Windows 95, assuming you have the DCOM95 update and of course a powerful-enough computer. There's a weird Unicode bug that makes Firefox 2 crash, though. Firefox's close cousin SeaMonkey makes no qualms about supporting Windows 95, although I personally prefer having the e-mail and browser separate.

I hope no one minds me bumping this up, but I have a few additional comments and suggestions: AIM 4.8 works fine, and it's what I use myself. Given how AIM Triton has performance and functionality flaws and bundles known spyware programs by default, I'd personally prefer this version even if I used Windows XP. TerraIM is small, works well on Windows 95 without IE, and even works on NT 3.51 for that matter. I'm not that fond of its hard-coded black interface, though, and AIM 4.8 seems more functional. Trillian worked as of the last time I tried using it three or so years ago. I don't know if the newer versions work, however, and I wasn't all that fond of the older ones, either: It insisted on re-inventing all its UI controls, and there were a few minor visual bugs.

Hi everyone. I just joined, and felt that I might as well chime in: I use Windows 95 OSR 2.1 regularly on my Pentium III-based PC to this day. I've gotten somewhat used to being teased and criticized for using (let alone preferring) 95. By this point I feel that my doing so is more out of silent protest against the web integration, product activation, DRM, and inefficiency of newer versions than any other reason, but its user interface is quick and intuitive; it doesn't take up many resources, and I can do all the tasks I want to do: Word processing and spreadsheet work; browsing the web (with Firefox 1.5); multimedia, and games. I really don't feel any desire to "upgrade" yet, at least out of choice.