Relive the mid-1990s on your Apple Mac with a standalone app that runs Microsoft Windows 95. Relive the mid-1990s on your Apple Mac with a standalone app that runs Microsoft Windows 95. Relive the mid-1990s on your Apple Mac with a standalone app that runs Microsoft Windows 95. Time for solitaire!
Felix Rieseberg, a developer for Slack, has created a Windows 95 environment in an Electron app that can run on the aforementioned operating systems. When it launched, Windows 95 was seen by many as the pinnacle of computer user interfaces. Nowadays, it looks amusingly dated. But it’s still fun to play around with. All of the old school apps you may be familiar with — from MS Paint to Minesweeper — are available. Unfortunately, while Internet Explorer is present, it reportedly doesn’t work. Amazingly, the Electron app only takes about 200 megabytes of RAM with all of the apps, games and Windows 95 utilities open and running.
If the system glitches out for any reason, you can simply start a new instance of the operating system. As Rieseberg put it in a tweet, “It’s a terrible idea that works shockingly well. I’m so sorry.” I put Windows 95 into an Electron app that now runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux. It’s a terrible idea that works shockingly well. I’m so sorry. Go grab it here: — Felix Rieseberg (@felixrieseberg) The Slack developer has made the source code and app installer for the Windows 95 Electron environment. All in all, the app is 129MB in size and is fairly easy to get up and running, depending on which OS you’re using.
Once you download and install the app, you just need to run it and it’ll open the Windows 95 software in a new window. It won’t have access to any of the files on your actual machine, but you can play around with the apps we mentioned previously. Comment It’s worth noting that this isn’t a sanctioned app from Microsoft. As such, you’re downloading and running it at your own risk. That being said, it’s probably worth the nostalgia. This isn’t the first time that someone has taking painstaking measures to bring Windows 95 back. Back in 2016, an intrepid developer got the old school OS to.
This is, of course, software piracy. The developer of the app has no rights to distribute Windows 95 like this, and I'm a little surprised that the app hasn't been yanked from GitHub yet.
And for now, the app is just a toy; there's no real reason to run Windows 95 like this, other than the novelty factor of it actually working. Windows 95 is, however, built for the hardware of the mid-1990s. Compatibility with disk controllers, video cards, and other essential devices is already essentially non-existent. Using JavaScript for the emulator provides a good degree of longevity, too: the emulator isn't tied to any particular underlying hardware capabilities, and it can run more or less anywhere. And yet, there's no effective way to develop and distribute them without disregarding copyright law. As silly as the Windows 95 emulator is—it was put together as a joke, essentially—it's serving a purpose that is increasingly important.
Rights holders and legislators should be working to ensure that work like this is legally protected at minimum.