5 ms·

These posts are fun, but they are in jest right? Does win95 have true advantages over any modern OS? ( I currently use debian for most of the day )

ams6110 9y ago
A lack of feature bloat. It would probably be fast as lightning on modern hardware. Though I don't use Windows regularly anymore, I always liked Windows 2000. It was stable, but only slightly more bloated than '95 from a GUI standpoint.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  I have more nostalgia for Windows 2000 than practically anything else from that era. I use mostly Mac and Linux these days but wow do I feel something for win2k.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    For me it's XP. That thing was perfect - and would be even today if it had 64bit and 4K support - and of course modern apps and drivers.
    - IncRnd 9y ago
      There was a 64bit version of XP. The tiny little whispers on a 4k were unworkable, though. Besides, if an app can't run on 64bit XP, what's the point of running it, anyway?
  - lowtolerance 9y ago
    Windows 2000 is far and away my favorite Microsoft operating system of all time.
    - jlgaddis 9y ago
      Same here. I wish I could still run it today. As a desktop, it was awesome: separate user accounts, much more stable than previous versions, etc. I stayed with Win2K Professional as long as I could, holding out until the very end, only switching to XP when I had to. On the server side, Win2K introduced many new features, including, of course, Active Directory, which was amazing (at the time). Windows 2003 Server brought with it some cool new stuff as well, but (just like with my desktops) I had Win2K Server machines that I held onto as long as possible. I really did miss it. The stability (compared to its predecessors) was simply amazing. I've still got the ISO images around here somewhere.
fredley 9y ago
It has the one genuine advantage over any current consumer-oriented OS that it is not tracking your actions in any way and reporting them back to the vendor. Even Ubuntu includes some basic tracking of its users.
- eatonphil 9y ago
  Perhaps check out TrueOS, the desktop-oriented distribution of FreeBSD.
- Sylos 9y ago
  There are many consumer-oriented Linux distributions that do not track the user. I'm also pretty sure that Ubuntu does not. You might be thinking of the so-called "Search Lenses", which sent your search terms from the system search to Canonical's server, then they proxied that to prominently Amazon by default, optionally to others as well, to gather product results for your search term. Their privacy policy was perfectly straightforward that they do not store the search results or use them for anything else and it's disabled by default since Ubuntu 16.04, and is effectively unavailable from Ubuntu 17.10 onwards, as they switched to GNOME for the desktop environment, which does not support this.
  - fredley 9y ago
    I'm aware that almost all *nix distros don't track, but they might be for us, but they certainly aren't for 99.9% of consumers.
    - mindslight 9y ago
      Neither is Windows 95, because essentially the only feature that makes an OS "for [most] consumers" is that it comes pre-installed on the appliances at Best Buy.
  - hedora 9y ago
    > There are many consumer-oriented Linux distributions that do not track the user. Can you name one?
pavlov 9y ago
Certainly there's no point in using Windows 95 today. These posts are more like software archeology. If you want to use a Microsoft OS from that era, Windows NT 4.0 is much more solid.
- organsnyder 9y ago
  Windows 2000 is the best Microsoft OS I've ever used. Perfect blend of consumer-oriented convenience (and compatibility) on a truly stable core.
  - beamatronic 9y ago
    I like it a lot but for me Windows 7 (ultimate edition) is the pinnacle of Windows. It just works and it pleasant to use.
    - acct1771 9y ago
      After three service packs, and all this time to get the drivers in place, be disappointing if it didn't.
  - bartread 9y ago
    In many ways I agree, and I very much liked Windows 2000, although there's no denying it was shot through with security holes. Granted much of that fault probably lies with IE6 but, regardless, those were bad times.
- mhd 9y ago
  The first NT that included potentially volatile graphics drivers into kernel-space?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
beefhash 9y ago
I'm not 100% sure if I understand you correctly, but I think you're asking about the title? As far as I can tell, the title is called that way because there was an icon literally called "Switch to Chicago"[1] in the Windows 3.x "emulation" feature of a Windows Chicago (95 beta) build. The OP is a follow-up that ports the feature to a newer build of Windows 95, repeating part of the title. [1] https://blog.krnl386.com/index.php?post/2017/11/19/Switch-to-Chicago https://blog.krnl386.com/index.php?post/2017/11/19/Switch-to...
- Stratoscope 9y ago
  Thank you. The article is exactly as you say, and it certainly isn't advocating that anyone should run Windows 95 on their computer today. It's much more interesting than that. I don't know if I would call it a Windows 3.1 emulation, it was actually running a standard build of Windows 3.1 in a Chicago/Win95 window by using some special drivers. Interestingly, the "port" consisted mostly of removing a version test in WIN31.EXE that checked that it was running under Windows 4.0. As described in the Raymond Chen post the article links to, Chicago originally reported itself as Windows 4.0 in the GetVersion() API, but this was rolled back to 3.95 before the Win95 release because many apps had bad version checks. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040213-00/?p=40633 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040213-00/?p=...
ronsor 9y ago
It's more trustworthy than Windows 10 and it's much smaller than any modern OS. I wouldn't use it on anything newer than 2004 though :)
userbinator 9y ago
I suppose some would consider the inability to run any recent software an advantage because it reduces distraction, much like some writers continue to use a DOS text editor. Having used 98SE daily, well into the XP and even Vista era, I can say that despite the reputation for the 9x series being unstable is almost completely due to the other software you run on it; since it has minimal memory protection, badly written apps will eventually crash the OS, but good ones will work continuously.
IncRnd 9y ago
> These posts are fun, but they are in jest right? Does win95 have true advantages over any modern OS? ( I currently use debian for most of the day ) The author wasn't recommending the use of Windows 95 in 2018.

ams6110 9y ago

A lack of feature bloat. It would probably be fast as lightning on modern hardware. Though I don't use Windows regularly anymore, I always liked Windows 2000. It was stable, but only slightly more bloated than '95 from a GUI standpoint.

cryptoz 9y ago
I have more nostalgia for Windows 2000 than practically anything else from that era. I use mostly Mac and Linux these days but wow do I feel something for win2k.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  For me it's XP. That thing was perfect - and would be even today if it had 64bit and 4K support - and of course modern apps and drivers.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    There was a 64bit version of XP. The tiny little whispers on a 4k were unworkable, though. Besides, if an app can't run on 64bit XP, what's the point of running it, anyway?
- lowtolerance 9y ago
  Windows 2000 is far and away my favorite Microsoft operating system of all time.
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    Same here. I wish I could still run it today. As a desktop, it was awesome: separate user accounts, much more stable than previous versions, etc. I stayed with Win2K Professional as long as I could, holding out until the very end, only switching to XP when I had to. On the server side, Win2K introduced many new features, including, of course, Active Directory, which was amazing (at the time). Windows 2003 Server brought with it some cool new stuff as well, but (just like with my desktops) I had Win2K Server machines that I held onto as long as possible. I really did miss it. The stability (compared to its predecessors) was simply amazing. I've still got the ISO images around here somewhere.

fredley 9y ago

It has the one genuine advantage over any current consumer-oriented OS that it is not tracking your actions in any way and reporting them back to the vendor. Even Ubuntu includes some basic tracking of its users.

eatonphil 9y ago
Perhaps check out TrueOS, the desktop-oriented distribution of FreeBSD.
Sylos 9y ago
There are many consumer-oriented Linux distributions that do not track the user. I'm also pretty sure that Ubuntu does not. You might be thinking of the so-called "Search Lenses", which sent your search terms from the system search to Canonical's server, then they proxied that to prominently Amazon by default, optionally to others as well, to gather product results for your search term. Their privacy policy was perfectly straightforward that they do not store the search results or use them for anything else and it's disabled by default since Ubuntu 16.04, and is effectively unavailable from Ubuntu 17.10 onwards, as they switched to GNOME for the desktop environment, which does not support this.
- fredley 9y ago
  I'm aware that almost all *nix distros don't track, but they might be for us, but they certainly aren't for 99.9% of consumers.
  - mindslight 9y ago
    Neither is Windows 95, because essentially the only feature that makes an OS "for [most] consumers" is that it comes pre-installed on the appliances at Best Buy.
- hedora 9y ago
  > There are many consumer-oriented Linux distributions that do not track the user. Can you name one?

pavlov 9y ago

Certainly there's no point in using Windows 95 today. These posts are more like software archeology. If you want to use a Microsoft OS from that era, Windows NT 4.0 is much more solid.

organsnyder 9y ago
Windows 2000 is the best Microsoft OS I've ever used. Perfect blend of consumer-oriented convenience (and compatibility) on a truly stable core.
- beamatronic 9y ago
  I like it a lot but for me Windows 7 (ultimate edition) is the pinnacle of Windows. It just works and it pleasant to use.
  - acct1771 9y ago
    After three service packs, and all this time to get the drivers in place, be disappointing if it didn't.
- bartread 9y ago
  In many ways I agree, and I very much liked Windows 2000, although there's no denying it was shot through with security holes. Granted much of that fault probably lies with IE6 but, regardless, those were bad times.
mhd 9y ago
The first NT that included potentially volatile graphics drivers into kernel-space?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

beefhash 9y ago

I'm not 100% sure if I understand you correctly, but I think you're asking about the title? As far as I can tell, the title is called that way because there was an icon literally called "Switch to Chicago"[1] in the Windows 3.x "emulation" feature of a Windows Chicago (95 beta) build. The OP is a follow-up that ports the feature to a newer build of Windows 95, repeating part of the title. [1] https://blog.krnl386.com/index.php?post/2017/11/19/Switch-to-Chicago https://blog.krnl386.com/index.php?post/2017/11/19/Switch-to...

Stratoscope 9y ago
Thank you. The article is exactly as you say, and it certainly isn't advocating that anyone should run Windows 95 on their computer today. It's much more interesting than that. I don't know if I would call it a Windows 3.1 emulation, it was actually running a standard build of Windows 3.1 in a Chicago/Win95 window by using some special drivers. Interestingly, the "port" consisted mostly of removing a version test in WIN31.EXE that checked that it was running under Windows 4.0. As described in the Raymond Chen post the article links to, Chicago originally reported itself as Windows 4.0 in the GetVersion() API, but this was rolled back to 3.95 before the Win95 release because many apps had bad version checks. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040213-00/?p=40633 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040213-00/?p=...

ronsor 9y ago

It's more trustworthy than Windows 10 and it's much smaller than any modern OS. I wouldn't use it on anything newer than 2004 though :)

userbinator 9y ago

I suppose some would consider the inability to run any recent software an advantage because it reduces distraction, much like some writers continue to use a DOS text editor. Having used 98SE daily, well into the XP and even Vista era, I can say that despite the reputation for the 9x series being unstable is almost completely due to the other software you run on it; since it has minimal memory protection, badly written apps will eventually crash the OS, but good ones will work continuously.

IncRnd 9y ago

> These posts are fun, but they are in jest right? Does win95 have true advantages over any modern OS? ( I currently use debian for most of the day ) The author wasn't recommending the use of Windows 95 in 2018.