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Windows 95 brought together the features of MSDOS and Microsoft Windows products into one operating system. The user-interface upgrade at the time blew the competition away. The 32bit operating system paved the way for Microsoft’s firmer grip on the PC/Desktop market. Robust sales and reception laid the groundwork for the company’s future OS installments. Relish the nostalgia and run Windows 95 on PC without having to install it on your partition. There are few ways to do that, some involve online on your browser, and others rely on your PC’s emulation capabilities. Best Windows 95 Emulator Windows 93 Winodws 95...

Who, Me? Another week is upon us, and while April continues to be an uncertain beast, we will always have Who, Me?, and another story from the more sinful niche of The Register's readership. Today's tale comes from "Sam", who whisks us back to his teenage years in the 1990s, and a network of Windows 95 machines in the school library. Doubtless suspicious of what shenanigans the students might get up to, the CD-ROM readers had been disabled, although a single floppy drive remained in each. The restriction made the loading of "nefarious files", as Sam put it, a tad...

The arrival of Microsoft Windows 95 on 24 August 1995 brought about a desktop PC boom. With an easier and more intuitive graphical user interface than previous versions, it appealed to more than just business, and Bill Gates’s stated aim of one PC per person per desk was set in motion. This was a time of 320MB hard drives, 8MB of RAM and 15-inch CRT monitors. For most home users, the Internet had only just arrived. Windows 95 introduced the Start menu, powered by a button in the bottom-left corner of the desktop. This gives a central point of entry...

When Windows 95 was being developed, Microsoft executives commissioned music legend Brian Eno to develop a "piece of music" to play when the operating system started up. This music would become known as "The Windows Sound." Eno is probably most renowned* for his ambient music -- long tracks with deep sound beds and drifting melodies. But this track had to be a little shorter. Eno related the story: The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom...

In the largest award of its kind in the US, ousted InfoSpace chief Naveen Jain has been ordered to pay $247 million to the company that he founded as penalty for violating laws against "short swing trading". The order by a federal judge is a body blow for a man who took his Seattle-based Internet company to great heights in a space of four years before it crashed like most of its peers during the dotcom bust. The company board fired Jain last December. But Jain, who went ahead and founded Intelius after the ouster, is not giving up just...

A lot has changed since 1995. Our best candidate for President was only the First Lady. O.J. Simpson was not in jail. No one was using DVDs. Saddam Hussein was in power. “Friends” and “ER” ruled the airwaves. Seinfeld was funny. The NHL was in the middle of a full season. Hootie and the Blowfish had the best-selling album. People were still buying albums. And Windows 95 was released. Back then Windows mattered, both to consumers and small business people. We relied on it heavily to run our computers. So each release of Windows was a big event. And the...

Microsoft's Bill Gates took the witness stand Monday in a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit accusing the software maker of duping a competitor prior to its rollout of Windows 95. Gates began his testimony with a history of Microsoft Corp. and was expected to remain on the stand throughout the day. He said he was just 19 when he helped found the software giant. “We thought everybody would have a personal computer on every desk and in every home,” he said. “We wanted to be there and be the first.” Gates, wearing a gray suit and a yellow tie, was the...

With Windows 95's Debut, Microsoft Scales Heights of Hype By David Segal Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 24, 1995; Page A14 You can hide under a bridge, row a boat to the middle of the ocean or wedge yourself under the sofa, cover your ears and then hum loudly. But get near a newspaper, radio, television or computer retailer today and you will experience the multimillion-dollar hype surrounding the launch of Windows 95. Microsoft Corp. is spending about $300 million to trumpet the arrival of Windows 95, an upgraded operating system, the software that tells the machinery inside your...