[gyrgrls]

I am however starting to think x64 is the new windows ME, a stop gap
until Vista is released. There hasn't been a huge migration to it, and hardware
manufacturers aren't exactly busting out drivers for it.

I wouldn't say that x64 is the ME of NT OS'es. Look at Windows 2000.
Before about SP2, it was quite useless for gaming, but I use it with SP4,
and it works fine. Yeah, I do get a few STOP: errors, mainly 0x0A, but
that's due more to marginal RAM and clunky drivers, than anything else.

Don't forget, Vista will come out in at least 7 (seven) flavors,
right off the bat. Just more confusion for the average consumer,
if you ask me.

[2226Ocean]

I've enjoyed reading your experiments with older computers and Windows 95. I've been using Windows 95 on a 233 MB Pentium II since 1996. Over the years I've made some changes. I added a card to update the bios which changed the LBA allowing me to use large Hard Drives. It is running two (2) 120 GB Western Digital 7200Rpm drives. Each drive has four 30GB giving me eight (8) partitions. I've also added some memory 512MB of RAM. I added an Ethernet card which I use for networking instead of USB since Windows 95 has limited USB support. There is over 1000s apps installed on it and I've saved all the installation exe and zip files over the years. Some of the apps don't run on my XP computer and I wound hate to give up using them. I've also added a dvd rw combo optical drive and BHA B's Gold and B's Clip softwave which fully supports UDF format, very convenient. My security come as follows: each drive has it's own operating system Win95. By changing the boot drive in my BIOS I can start up on either drive. The two HD drives are identical. If one has a problem I can copy individual files or even a partition from one drive to another. Each C drive has 2 copies of Windows the other I call Windy. I created a .BAT file so I can switch their file name easily at a command prompt in DOS. If there is a problem with Windows I just use the other one, and I can syncronize or copy anything on one drive when I am booted up on the other. I also use sycback to store zips of all the exe, com, scr, bat all executable files on cd or dvd. It has the ability to us a checksum and replace any file that has changed. I've tested it by changing one file with a hex editor. I only changed one bit from a 0 to a 1, and it rewrote the file. What virus can beat that. I guess I should start collecting some older computers just in case my hardware fails.

[Stoner]

Good to hear there are still users getting their monies worth out of their investment.
Interesting setup you have. Sounds well thought out.
I normally use a drive image as my safety net.
Haven't had to use it yet on the 95 machine. I'm posting right now from a 98se box as I needed to use my usb scanner this evening.
I'll probably go another couple weeks, do a securtiy scan, and revert the comp back to a Linux box .

I have made a drive image on cd so I can revert back to 95 in the future just for kicks

[Stoner]

I've had this win95 computer on line now for 5 weeks and used it almost exclusively during that time for Internet usage, with only a few rare times when it was more convenient to have access to USB peripherals.
Many member see me post frequently at TSG, but I also use the Internet for news and financial information quite often, too.
While 5 weeks may not seem like a fair test for what I've been doing, I have spent a lot of time online and using this comp.

I chose Abiword as a word processor.
That worked out very nicely for me.
Spread32 was good for some simple spread sheets I needed to make.
I found plenty of anti virus apps and relied on Firefox's extensions for added browser security. And I am behind a firewall router that also helps enormously, IMHO.
I chose not to bother with IE as the last version to run on the 95 platform was IE5.5 . Same with the IE based Avant browser. FF works well, why settle for less

I ran all the av and trojan apps previously mentioned, this morning. No problems. One MRU in Adaware, but it was not a threat.
Nod32 threw complaints again, for about 20 password restricted files in Adaware and Spybot folders and complained about not being able to read the swap file....although with the amount of memory (192mb), I never saw Windows make a swap file.

I ran Hijackthis. Nothing there that I can see threatening.


Win95 would be a very suitable OS for what I do online, if it just had USB.

Well, this was just an unscientific test to see how 95 would hold up for me.
I think it did very well.
No BSODs since first trying to get Adaware to run in regular Windows.
Most of the software I installed I have known and used for some time without conflicts and this computer is an Intel CPU on an Intel motherboard with integrated sound and video, so I suspect there were fewer potential conflicts to deal with, there.

I'm about to go back to using this machine as a Linux box. I never intended to stay with 95....just curious about all the claims of it's durability
For what I intended, It worked very well,IMO.

To those that have been using Win95 with success and does all you need...__


I have an older Toshiba CDT410 with Win95 on it. If I ever find a cheap PCMCIA ethernet card, I might just post to this thread for the Hell of it



smilin' Jack.

[ekim68]

Thank you so much for this conversation, Stoner....
It's been a great read, and adventure...I thought, however,
that the 4th update, or version, of Win95 corrected the USB thing...

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Thank you so much for this conversation, Stoner....
It's been a great read, and adventure...I thought, however,
that the 4th update, or version, of Win95 corrected the USB thing...

Thanks ...was interesting to go back and see what I just missed in my computing experiences.


USB was listed in the Device Manager. But the coverage is so minimal,none of the USB peripherals I use were supported. I tried hooking up my flash drives, scanner, an IDE to USB converter and card reader, but the drivers wouldn't instal. There was the common 'complaint' that the drivers weren't compatible with the OS. I think usb printers might work, but I'm still using an old HP parallel port printer.


Here is some information on the issue:
http://www.usbman.com/Win95%20USB%20Guide.htm

[hewee]

Yea very limited USB on the 95 and only some version. I have 95a so it would not work at all.

Hey Stoner what about Firewire? Can you put a card in the 95 PC and then it would work on everything that you have as long as you can hook up to it.

[Stoner]

Hi hewee

Hey Stoner what about Firewire?

I took a look at the firewire cards for sale over at Newegg. The furthest back they went, seemed to be for a few win98s and the rest win98se and newer.
Kinda doubt they will work in win95.
As I have no firewire equipment, it's a rather expensive experiment

Anyway, I've already wiped 95 off the harddrive ( But I did save a drive image for future use )

[hewee]

I did not know that. Was thinking it was like SCSI card.

I see the firewire 800 on some PC's and yes the Mac's too and they are super fast.

Hey great you can always go back to playing with 95 the easy way now.

[~Candy~]

I'll bet 95 screams on a P4 2.8 huh?

May have to test it again.

Interesting shots Jack.

You guys sound worse than me, I have a couple of closets full of crap, err, I mean valuable computer antiques

[Anon23]

Anyone have a install set of floppies for win3.1.......LOL!....(j/k)

I have a copy!! (no jk)