WOuld there be any issues running WIn 95 on a modern computer?

[Haervii]

Such as a Duron-based computer? I heard from some guy at a local repair shop that I had to have Win 98 to have the AGP to work..Is this true? Because I'd like to use my old hard drive and not by WIn 98.

 

[Rebels7]

I have an IBM Personal Computer 300GL 266mhz at work that runs Windows 95 and it has an AGP video card. It came from IBM with this pre-installed. (Our company supports Big Blue).

 

[Blayze]

probably not
one of my teachers uses it on his new Micron P3 with no problems

 

[icculus]

You will run into problems with Windows95 but nothing you shouldn't be able to fix. Depending on which release of win95 you have, USB might not work and you might have controller driver issues. All can be fixed with proper software updates.

 

[dkozloski]

For Win95 to work with AGP it has to be SR2 with USB support. There used to be a USB patch floating around.

 

[hungrypete]

haha, theres issues running win95 on any computer.... but as said, nothing that can't be "worked around"

 

[Oyeve]

Only serious drawback would be that 64meg limit that win95 had. It will recongnize more that 64megs but it just wont utilize it.

 

[Haervii]

Maximum 64 megs of RAM??? Can that be worked around, too?

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Oyeve, you don't know what you're talking about. I have a dual boot setup with Win2k and 95 OSR 2.1, 256MB of RAM. Windows 95 uses less RAM than 2k, but has certainly gone over the 128 MB limit, nevermind 64.

AGP works fine. As with any OS, you'll want to install all the appropriate patches/fixes, and since 95 is older, this can amount to a lot.

 

[BurntKooshie]

also, if you have a K6-x at a frequency of 350mhz or greater, you'll need a patch to get windows to be stable. At those speeds, the K6-x family executes the LOOP instruction too fast for windows 95 (corrected in win 98).

 

[Haervii]

Sounds good, Sir Fred... first, where can I get these patches and so forth, and second, why would anyone use Windows 98 or 2000 If they can function basically the same?

 

[Oyeve]

I meant win95 PRE A or OSRX.

 

[NuovoTech]

Never heard bout 64MB restriction in Win95, tho I've run Win95A&B with more
than that. Actually, I think it was the old mobos (with Intel chipsets like the VX) that limited the amount of "cacheable RAM" to 64MB...

 

[Dufusyte]

I'm running Win95 OSR2 because I suspect that Win98 and WinME are really just bloatware with little functional advantage. In fact, as a gamer, I'd bet that OSR2 runs faster than 98 or ME.

My system is an 800mhz Thunderbird and 512MB ram. I do not have IE4 or IE5 on the system because they are just bloatware. The Win95 shell rocks, lean and mean.

Early versions of Win95 used FAT16, which is a bummer, but luckily OSR2 uses FAT32. There are kernel updates and networking updates you can download from microsoft's site, so I really think that my OSR2 has basically the same functionality as Win98/ME minus the bloat. My system is very stable (MSI K7T Pro MB, 12.7GB HD).

It would be interesting to see gaming benchmarks comparing different versions of Windows: the same hardware but installing a different OS. I really think that Win95 OSR2 would yield greater fps than Win98 or WinME because 98 and ME have so much bloat eating up cpu cycles and hogging up memory. The later versions of Windows are just hogs; they require a beefy system just to run the OS! OSR2 rules. I haven't seen any reason to "upgrade".

 

[NuovoTech]

Thought I'd mention a little more on Win95B/OSR2.1. I use it with newer mobos
like Abit KT7, that have AGP 4X, UDMA66, 1GHz Athlon CPUs, etc with no problems. The USB works fine with any peripheral device that supplies it's own drivers, like say, a USB scanner, etc.

But what does *not* work is any input device that relies on built-in USB drivers (as are in Win98), such as a M$ USB InfraRed IntelliMouse or USB joystick. No big deal yet, the mouse works fine with a PS/2 adapter. Now with digital JoySticks, it's more problematic. Some will not work well plugged in to GamePort at 100mhz or higher FSB, some newer ones are USB only & can not B used with OSR2.1 (ie M$ Precision 2). Oh well...

 

[AndyHui]

If you use OSR2.x, there are only 4 possible issues:

USB.....OK with the USB Supplement
AGP.....is OK as long as you have the USB supplement.
AMD K6-x processors over 350MHz.....there's a patch available.

Hard disks greater than 32GB. There is an issue here that is addressed in Win98 called the Large IDE Update, but they did not bother to fix this for Win95, nor will they offer a fix either. All versions of Win95 are affected. This Microsoft KB Article has more information.

 

[Warrenton]

First of win98 has a totally revamped memory management system. It is MUCH faster on modern systems. Secondly, DirectX7 does not work well at all with 95. Really I'd just upgrade.

Since your probably swaping motherboard chipsets, I highly doubt that your win95 install will even boot. You can use your old hard drive with win98 too dipstick! And win98 is readily availible, and in fact should be able to be purchased at a heavy discount when you buy the CPU and motherboard.

Whenever I change a major component of my system I always format, makes things much more reliable.

 

[Slugbait]

<< It is MUCH faster on modern systems >>

During BillG's keynote at the W2K launch in S.F., he presented benchmarks comparing it to Win95 and Win98...it was 30% faster than 95, and 38% faster than 98. It's pretty straight-forward which 9x OS is the faster one (of course, 9x would spank W2K on P5 architecture)


<< Secondly, DirectX7 does not work well at all with 95 >>

Works fantastic with 95, actually. Been using it for months, on multiple 95 machines.


<< AGP.....is OK as long as you have the USB supplement. >>

Installing the USB supplement on my home machine forces a format. Tried it three times before giving up. My Marvel functions just fine without it.

There is no 64meg limitation in 95. That is a chipset issue.

 

[Dufusyte]

<< Since your probably swaping motherboard chipsets, I highly doubt that your win95 install will even boot. >>



As for me, I have upgraded motherboards three times on Win95 OSR2; started out with an AMD K5 133mhz friendly motherboard, upgraded to a Pentium233mmx friendly SuperMicro TX motherboard, and recently upgraded to an AMD Thunderbird 800 friendly MSI K7T Pro motherboard, all using the same install or Win95 OSR2. I've never reformatted, though I've switched from AMD to Intel then to AMD again. In fact, I also upgraded the HD once, from an 800MB drive to my present 12.7GB drive, and I just swept all the contents of the old drive onto the new drive using the utility software that came with the drive.

So this install of Win95 has been through quite a number of adventures, but it is remarkably stable and quite snappy. I don't see how people can reformat at the drop of a hat: you'd lose all your tweaks and your email and your special game settings and everything. Maybe formatting is just an easy route for people who do not want to deal with the tricky configuration issues that sometimes crop up during an upgrade. Hardware upgrades can be tricky, especially motherboard upgrades and HD upgrades. Sometimes when I'm in the middle of an upgrade and I am pulling my hair out trying to get everything working right, I say to myself that I should have just formatted for a painless upgrade, but eventually I manage to get everything working again without needing to format.

Win98 is said to have better memory management than Win95. I'm not entirely sure what that entails, maybe it's similar to the way that Intel's pentium's &quot;speed up the internet&quot; (ha!). Seriously, Win98 probably does have better memory management, but it really is a trade off, since anything that is gained by better management is lost in the bogged down bloatware known as IE4 (or IE5). So basically, whatever speed is gained from better memory management is lost due to the bloated IE shell. We really do need gaming benchmarks on different Windows to settle this issue definitely.

My current system gets an average of +80fps when there are 20 players on UT's CTF-Face, and in a regular UT DM map, it gets an average of over 100fps, all of this *with* 3D Audio hardware enabled in the game using my MX300 A3D sound, and a Voodoo3 3000 for graphics. It's quite a snappy gaming rig (especially for any game with the Unreal Engine) and if I installed Win98 I suspect that gaming performance would degrade.

 

[Blackhawk2]

<< Secondly, DirectX7 does not work well at all with 95 >>

I've been running Win95 OSR 2.1 for about 2-3 years and have installed/used every version of Direct X (except 8, which isn't officially out yet btw) without any problems.

For all you Windows 2000 enthusiasts out there saying Windows 2000 is more stable than Win9x check this out, I run Win95 OSR 2.1 on a server which is on 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The magic is I only reboot it every two or three months and only because I want to, it is still running perfectly ever time the monitor is flipped on!

Win95 OSR 2.1 is the picture of perfection :Q. Maybe you guys should &quot;downgrade&quot; to get better performance, not upgrade

 

[ndee]

There, could be some problems if you work with Win95a (really old school). Some magzines reported, that it can really break athlons. Dunno about T-Birds and Durons. I read, that there was a guy with Win95, and I think, because the CPU's too fast, or something like that, Windows causes a serious error which can damage your CPU, I guess. So beware.

Just my $.02

 

[Haervii]

Sounds like its nothing too serious...cool. Well, how can I tell what version of Windows 95 I have? I don't think its a crappy version, or at least it shouldn't be, since this computer was purchased in '98, but by a really crappy company called Multiwave. Thanks for the input tho.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

If you're running 95 now, in device manager, the version of windows should be listed, if it is followed by a B or a C, you're good to go. If you're transferring Windows 95 to a new computer (and not reinstalling), your best bet would be to boot into safe mode first and remove everything from device manager. If you can, however, I'd recommend a reinstall of 95 on the new computer.

OSR2.1 is fairly stable (and fast without IE!), but does not beat my Win2k setup in terms of stability.

 

[DaddyG]

Ndee, I think what you are referring to is a problem with some Kx133 and KT133 based systems that over write the BIOS with WIN95. If I remeber correctly it was the OEM version not the retail. I know that this was a problem for a couple of mobo manufacturers.

The other issue could be drivers, The Win98 based VIA drivers are generally more stable than the drivers in the 4-in-1 but newer versions seem to be getting better (not sure how good they are with 95).