Today’s personal computers in millions of homes have many things in common; however, one of the oldest constants is definitely Windows. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for the popularity of a particular version that, whether you’ve used it or not, you surely know about. Of course, we are referring to Windows 95. Did you know that you can install it on Windows 10 or Windows 11 with Internet, programs and else? Here we will teach you how to do it.
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What is Windows 95 and why is it so remembered?
Windows 95 it was the OS that led Microsoft to finally dominate the market for graphical interface operating systems (those that use a mouse and keyboard for almost everything). In fact, its launch was perhaps the one that popularized the habit of camping outside the stores to be the first person to buy it, since it was a highly anticipated product for a long time (rumors started in 1991).
W95 introduced many new paradigms that survive to this day and even meant a great improvement over previous systems of microsoft (even the celebrated Windows 3.11): the start menu, the file explorer, long file names with spaces, internet connectivity and much more.
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It sold 3 million copies in three days and a total of 7 million in just five weeks. After its exit from the market (its support ended in 2001) it had already sold more than 40 million copies and led Microsoft to almost complete domination of the PC industry, which left its direct competitors IBM (with OS/ 2), Linux and Apple.
How to install Windows 95 on Windows 10 or 11?
If you remember something of what we have mentioned lines above, it is most likely that you also have memories using Windows 95. Installing it on a modern machine is easy and you won’t need to sacrifice your own system (Windows 11, 10 or other) to do it. All thanks to the fact that you can use a virtual machine.
Now, before going into detail about how to install Windows 95 with programs and the internet on your computer, we must clarify that getting a product key for this system is almost impossible nowadays, but you can find original second-hand discs all over the world. Web.
Regarding the programs, although many of the applications originally designed for W95 are no longer available for purchase, they have been saved in repositories and digital preservation museums such as Archive.org and Winworldpc.
Follow these steps to install and configure Windows 95 in a virtual machine. For this tutorial we will use Oracle’s popular VirtualBox application:
- Download the latest version of VirtualBox from its official page (https://www.virtualbox.org/).
- get a source CD of Windows 95 or an image of it to do the installation.
- It is common for Windows 95 installation discs to arrive with a boot floppy ‘boot’, make sure you get one for this purpose.
After having the three main requirements (original Windows 95 CD, startup disk and Virtual Box), you just have to configure the system. To do this, you can follow the steps in this video:
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How to configure internet and install programs in Windows 95?
configure internet
Fortunately, setting up the Internet in a virtual machine within Windows 95 is easier than usual because Virtual Box has a bridge adapter feature. All you have to do is set your virtual machine network to NAT and select ‘AMD PCnet-II network’ in the virtual machine settings. After this, reboot the machine and the network card will be automatically detected by W95.
Set 256 color video
One of the first things you’ll notice after installing Windows 95 is that you’ll be shown the most basic (16-bit) video settings, which can be very small and cumbersome. To solve it, you can choose to install the SciTech Display Doctor (version 7) drivers, which you can get on the web. You can review this video with Spanish subtitles and imitate the steps:
install programs
While most software for Windows 95 is no longer available for purchase, there is little point in remembering an operating system without its applications. Fortunately, you can still get many options from yesteryear, such as winamp and Opera, which are still compatible with the system. The only thing you will have to do, in the best of cases, is to mount a disk image in the virtual machine to be able to access them from Windows 95 and continue with the installation.
The latest version of Opera (10.0) compatible with Windows 95 shows the La República website. Photo: The Republic