Is there a relatively easy way to make an application think that Windows 95 is a newer operating system (like Windows XP)?

 

 

 

 

Open the Registry and create a new string value:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]
"CurrentVersion"="5.1"

That applies to ME/98SE (KernelEx) and probably for 95, too. It might work for a few apps, but usually it makes no sense and leads to problems or crashes. I do not recommend that.
 

It doesn't seem to work.

Interestingly, it doesn't even work with imagecfg.exe (found in Windows NT4), e.g. I have a file called systeminformation.exe, it's part of Tune Up Utilities and it shows the OS it's running on and even if I set it to Win XP (using imagecfg.exe) it still thinks it's running on Windows 95.

However, KernelEx's way of fooling the OS seems to work (only on Windows 98 of course).
So they must be doing something different.

I wonder how they achieved that.

 

As I said only a few apps or installer can be fooled with it, also on ME/98SE. Most programs also check the OS elsewhere.
 

You'll need to trace or debug the application to see what it is looking at to determine what OS is on the host.