Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

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Andrew Lee
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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#16 Post by Andrew Lee »

And I am glad to report that my assertion 10 years ago:
Not true. Although WinNT and above use Unicode in the underlying system, most applications are still ANSI only. That's what the "Language for Non-Unicode Programs" setting in the Control Panel is all about. If set to the default "English", ANSI applications won't be able to support eg. Chinese, Japanese, Korean filenames and display them as "?????".
can be laid to rest now. :D

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webfork
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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#17 Post by webfork »

Andrew Lee wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:34 am ...glad to report that my assertion 10 years ago ... can be laid to rest now. :D
Heheh ... some standards do get finally set aside :)

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#18 Post by Andrew Lee »

So what are your thoughts on this? Should we finally get rid of Win95/98/ME?

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Midas
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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#19 Post by Midas »

I for one think those OS mentions have historical value so I'd leave them as they are -- but I find it would be alright to no longer include them in new entries, as a deprecation measure, I guess.

E.g., I've been pondering setting up a Win98 VM for some old programs and games -- even making it amenable to be carried around in the smartphone...

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#20 Post by freakazoid »

webfork wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:44 pm Just four days shy of 10 years after I originally posted about old Windows versions: a project I really like talking about intentionally dropping 32-bit: https://www.zettlr.com/post/discontinuing-32-bit ... I'm not sure if this unfortunate or way overdue, but I think other projects are going to follow suit.
I agree with dropping Windows older than XP, but would disagree with dropping 32-bit entirely.

There are still 32-bit PCs, namely Intel Atom CPUs that run Windows 10.
is it stealth? ;)

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Andrew Lee
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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#21 Post by Andrew Lee »

Midas wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 7:17 am E.g., I've been pondering setting up a Win98 VM for some old programs and games -- even making it amenable to be carried around in the smartphone...
In a pinch, if you are feeling nostalgic, you can always fire Win95 up in your browser :D

https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/sys ... /4.00.950/

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#22 Post by Midas »

Yeah, I know. And Archive.org has loads of old programs for one to amuse oneself with...

But, personally, I'm partial to 98, not 95.

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#23 Post by webfork »

freakazoid wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 2:30 pm There are still 32-bit PCs, namely Intel Atom CPUs that run Windows 10.
Very interesting. I guess there must be some substantial power differences to make them hang onto that.

---

Update: I found a post that indicates that Win10 32-bit is on it's way out: https://www.engadget.com/windows-10-32- ... 55990.html


---
Midas wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 4:06 am But, personally, I'm partial to 98, not 95.
Agreed -- Win 98 SE was a big turning point for me.

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#24 Post by Midas »

webfork wrote:Agreed -- Win 98 SE was a big turning point for me.
Same here. For one and as I recall it, it marked the end of long nights spent with friends trying to install drivers and making trivial things like scanners work in Windows 3.x.

And then NT arrived... 8)

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#25 Post by freakazoid »

webfork wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 9:16 am
freakazoid wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 2:30 pm There are still 32-bit PCs, namely Intel Atom CPUs that run Windows 10.
Very interesting. I guess there must be some substantial power differences to make them hang onto that.
Yeah, there are still netbooks, tablets and Windows sticks that run 32-bit.

I had a Windows 32-bit tablet, but sold it a few years ago and last year, I picked up a Windows stick that runs Windows 10 in 32-bit. Both ran Windows 8 to begin with.
is it stealth? ;)

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#26 Post by webfork »

Update on this: So there may be a little more life left in the old series software we have listings for. There is a downloadable install: https://github.com/felixrieseberg/

I know this isn't news to many of you but I held off on posting about this simply because I wasn't expecting it to stick around. While it remains entirely possible Microsoft will ask him to shut this down due to any number of legal requirements, so far seems to remain alive. It's also cross-platform and "standalone" which I assume means it's no-install capable. However, I don't expect it's actually portable due to use of the Electron framework.

Maybe even more interesting, we might expect to see other efforts in this space with it's root program v86: https://github.com/copy/v86/
v86 emulates an x86-compatible CPU and hardware. Machine code is translated to WebAssembly modules at runtime in order to achieve decent performance.

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#27 Post by Midas »

webfork wrote: v86: https://github.com/copy/v86/
v86 emulates an x86-compatible CPU and hardware. Machine code is translated to WebAssembly modules at runtime in order to achieve decent performance.
Impressive. While Windows 98 ran like molasses in my Firefox, I was even able to execute programs and all...

Image

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#28 Post by webfork »

Midas wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:15 am Impressive. While Windows 98 ran like molasses in my Firefox, I was even able to execute programs and all...
Nice!

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Re: Removing Windows 95/98/ME?

#29 Post by Andrew Lee »

Works somewhat OK on my machine (i5 6th gen).

Loading speed of included FunPack 3D is OK, and generally playable too.

win95.png

Couldn't get the networking to work though, so couldn't test Netscape!

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