What Do You Remember About Windows 95?

mary-continuum · 2016-07-21T16:58:33.000Z

It’s Throwback Thursday! For today’s throwback, let’s think back to over 20 years ago (wow) on Windows 95. What are your memories of the system? Are they fond?

We went around the office to see what our employees had to say about it ! We got a pretty good range of the memories from our younger team members who group in the 90s, as well as from some of our IT professionals! So where do you stand? What are your best (or worst) memories of the system?

johndod · 2016-07-21T17:04:24.000Z

Wow. Tough one. Between 95a-c and 98, I can’t separate the fact from fiction anymore. It has been so long! I remember 95 crashing a lot and troubleshooting driver issues because of IRC conflicts. I remember registry corruptions from some video games. Gosh, but which of those OS’? I simply don’t remember!

rekosch · 2016-07-21T17:04:33.000Z

It came pre-loaded on the first desktop my parents bought me, a Compaq Presario. . .I promptly broke it. Windows, not the PC.

techguy75 · 2016-07-21T17:04:56.000Z

Going into MS-DOS to run the games.

rubyneal · 2016-07-21T17:05:00.000Z

I remember standing in line before midnight in front of a CompUSA store in Dallas to get mine.

scottmartens2 · 2016-07-21T17:07:51.000Z

I remember Dad coming home with it and watching him insert floppy after floppy. Running Ms-Dos to run my games and learning all the features of AOL and Windows.

dtapley · 2016-07-21T17:08:28.000Z

I remember when my university roommate got it and sat there rubbing in how great it was while I was still running Windows 3.11.

neko-neko · 2016-07-21T17:09:57.000Z

Loads of install disks. No USB support unless you had OSR2, and even then the support was sketchy.

First time I saw it run was on a 4 MB machine after they stuffed it with floppies for about half a day to get it installed

SBS0518 · 2016-07-21T17:11:46.000Z

Rebooting every few days to refresh resources. Got a little better with 98 but still, what a pain. I remember wishing I could run NT and was so happy when 2000 was released.

glomo · 2016-07-21T17:11:57.000Z

Migrating win.ini into 95. Good memory.

Briefcase. Bad memory.

derek-a · 2016-07-21T17:12:04.000Z

I remember finally thinking that they had an OS that was capable of running well in any place, business or home.

lucas64515798 · 2016-07-21T17:12:40.000Z

I still have one Win 95 machine in operation (standalone running a machine). I hate it. It’s impossible to find hardware to repair it and management says a replacement machine is “out of the budget”.

Consider those emails saved.

Edit: As far as before I had a machine that is vital to production being handled by a 20 year OS, I remember actually liking it quite a bit.

That and stuff like this:

rockn · 2016-07-21T17:13:06.000Z

That would be IRQ conflicts. Yea it has been a long time.

It was a decent departure from Windows 3x though and was much easier to setup and use. The Weezer video was one of the best things about it.

mabek · 2016-07-21T17:13:52.000Z

Installing from all the floppies

billsingleton · 2016-07-21T17:16:48.000Z

I mostly remember transitioning from 95 to XP. I hated the new start menu and that hideous blue and green at the bottom. I was very fond of Win95 by then lol. I refused to update any of my PCs in the office until the first service pack was released

continuex · 2016-07-21T17:17:48.000Z

Since I was was in my single digits for age during that time it was primarily the games haha

seanmdit · 2016-07-21T17:19:13.000Z

I remember it caused me much heart ache and pain at my first job as a helpdesk…

mrbadguy · 2016-07-21T17:23:59.000Z

Lots of crashing, and me being mostly disinterested in computers. None of the games held my attention for long, and it just didn’t seem all that useful. It wasn’t until XP that it really all started to come together into something you could use and it actually worked most of the time.

kip130 · 2016-07-21T17:27:08.000Z

I remember, and I still have 3 Win98 machines that I have to keep running here at work. I am trying to rebuild 1 now. It’s a challenge for sure.

chris0984 · 2016-07-21T17:27:32.000Z

Lucas6451:

I still have one Win 95 machine in operation (standalone running a machine). I hate it. It’s impossible to find hardware to repair it and management says a replacement machine is “out of the budget”.

Consider those emails saved.

I used to support a guy who still uses it. One of the reasons I do not do work from him anymore. Like you said “out of budget”. But yet hes always buying a new/used car, 3 of them this year. I finally told him I cant support him anymore. He still uses XP too. And hes to cheap to replace the battery on the motherboard so every time the power goes out (which is often) he has to reset the date and time on his desktop or he cant go to any websites.

Back on track. I remember buying Win 95 at a Sams Club. And the Weezer video. Ended up not liking it, reinstalled Windows 3.1 and took the Win 95 back to Sams Club and got my money back (back when you could return software).