NotHereToPlayGames

My "upgrade" install of 95 way back in the day *required* a boot disk that you had to have a previous version of Windows already installed in order to create that boot disk. The world is VERY different nowadays (you can download a boot disk [or the entire OS, for that matter]). But yes, "many" in the US and "most" outside the US were using 95 illegally. Mine was legit! :) I'd claim that to be MUCH worse nowadays! Whatever "percentage" of computer users were "illegal" in 1995, it's MILLIONS worse nowadays. *MILLIONS*

No. Mine is an *upgrade* that was *NOT* sold "with a pc". It was purchased at my college's/university's campus bookstore. Here in the USA (30yrs ago), that is a *retail* purchase (Microsoft is located in the USA). What the word "retail" (and "oem") means is different today than it was 30yrs ago. 30yrs ago, you had to be HP, Dell, Packard Bell, Gateway, etc in order to buy an "oem" disc of Windows. You could NOT walk into a BOOKSTORE to buy the "oem" version of Windows. In order to obtain an "oem" disk, you had to buy the WHOLE COMPUTER and the disc was in the box that contained that computer. **ONLY** "retail" versions were available as a standalone purchase. **ONLY** "retail" versions were available at BOOKSTORES. I don't doubt that there were "retail" versions that were UPGRADES and there were "retail" versions that did NOT require a PREVIOUS version of Windows to be already present. So there were "retail upgrades" AND "retail standalones".

I have to think that the answer is technically different from one country to the next. Especially THIRTY YEARS ago. I guarantee that what was *available* to me here in the USA is not the same as what was *available* in other countries THIRTY YEARS AGO. Commerce is more "global" nowadays. But it really wasn't as "global" in the mid-90s when Toyota's and Honda's were still a bit of a rarity in many parts of the US.

The Better Business Bureau lists "USTech Support" as located in Pasadena, CA.

You act as if that is "accurate". It isn't. I can do a "whitepages.com" lookup of my parents' phone and it has them listed about 140 miles away. And they have had the same number for 30yrs. A different "lookup" has that phone listed as being TWO HUNDRED FIFTY SIX miles away. I'm telling you, all 8xy numbers in the US are CALL CENTERS that are networked and rerouted and move all over the place. Call that number. You will be speaking with somebody in INDIA or CHINA, not Washington, USA or Oregon, USA. That's how "800 numbers" are here in the USA. Call centers and you never know what "accent" you will have to listen to.

You can not go by "phone number". They can (and always are!) rerouted. ESPECIALLY any 8xy number! 99 times out of 100, when "we Americans" call an AMERICAN company, we are rerouted to "call centers" *NOT* in the US. 60 times out of 100, you have to HANG UP and call again so that you can get somebody whose "English" can be UNDERSTOOD.

Let me guess - the company is in "America" but the PHONE SUPPPORT is *NOT* !!!???

So I was hoping to get a pic of my 95 *upgrade* cd (would be very FIRST version sold at college campus bookstore, there were "A", "B", and "C" releases of 95). I have three prime-suspect locations to search in my "small hoard", but I could not find it Online reading seems to label releases as RTM, Plus, SP1, OSR1, OSR2, OSR2.1, OSR2.5, but I simply *do not remember* them being called that when being sold at the college bookstore, I remember them being called 95a, 95b, and 95c and I know mine would have been the VERY FIRST and that it was an "upgrade" and does *NOT* have the "for sale only with new pc" on its label. Online reading also seem to suggest that the difference between "retail" and "oem" is whether it *includes* Internet Explorer and/or which *version* it includes. From memory, I guess I do not remember it rolling out that way. Here in the USA, the largest (be it "good" or "bad" is a discussion for another day) consumer market, we-in-the-US think of the word "retail" as a distinction of WHO can BUY the item. *Supply Chains* are broken down into classifications like "Tier 1", "Tier 2", and "Tier 3". In the vane of an *OEM* (Microsoft) building/creating Win95 and SELLING it, if Acer, IBM, NEC, HP, Dell, Packard Bell, Texas Instrument, and the like could BUY them to INCLUDE in their manufactured-then-sold computers, that is not (at least here in the US) considered as *RETAIL*. If Amazon, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Tiger Direct, Costco, Walmart *retail stores* were allowed to BUY them and turn around and sell to people like you and me, THAT is considered a *RETAIL* item. I guess I see things that way. But maybe the rest of the world doesn't?

Our college campus sold Win 95 *upgrade* cd-rom in the bookstore. ie, it did NOT have the "for sale only with new pc" printed on the disk. Not sure if that helps you, but to me, if it was sold SEPARATE from a new pc and sold at a college campus bookstore, that tells me "retail". You might try looking through *EBAY* listings, that may be a better source than any source including "fake cd-rom images".

Will experiment. On the computer I am on now, all four are UNCHECKED. I would assume that if the bottom three are UNCHECKED that it doesn't matter if the top is checked or not (I'm not hearing any difference). The bigger test will be on my other computers.

Sweet! I'm so huge into *everything* PORTABLE that I have never installed *any* C++ runtime. None. Naughta. Zilch. I prefer to manually place the SMALL HANDFUL of .dll's that some programs require to be SELF-CONTAINED within that program's OWN ROOT DIR. It's almost always the same two or three or four .dll's and even though my setup has those existing as "duplicates" across my hard drive, it's still MUCH LESS space than the full runtimes. Kind of like how several .dll's land in the root dirs of things like Supermium, Mypal, Serpent, etc.

Oh, and I didn't think about asking this earlier, but when you tried to uninstall Malwarebytes and it resulted in your computer REBOOTING itself (prompting a Safe Mode uninstall of Malwarebytes), was Firefox OPEN when Malwarebytes uninstall crashed your system into a reboot?

If it does NOT launch, then clench your fists, pound one sternly but in full control of anger level on desktop but make sure you miss keyboard and mouse, grab something in the other hand and controllably throw something without breaking it or anything it hits, raise your voice level approx 15 decibels (whereas 30 decibels is the increase of a raging uncontrolled shout), and shout out this phrase, "Curse You, Malwarebytes, You Did This!"

If it DOES launch, then you should be able to REPLACE all of the .exe/.dll/etc root dir files/folders of your "installed" version and it should now also launch.

Try the PortableApps Portable Legacy 52 and see if it launches. It will not affect other Firefox installs/profiles. https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox-portable-legacy-52