The beloved Windows 95 is now a downloadable app for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, showing just how far computer operating systems have come in 23 years.
Windows 95 has been tweaked to run on a variety of platforms, but this may be the first time that the operating system has been converted into an app.
Windows 95 App Now Available To Download
Slack developer Felix Rieseberg is behind the project to create Windows 95 as an Electron-based app. The app is now available to download for free from GitHub, with sizes of about 100 MB on any platform. Once launched, the Windows 95 app will take up only 200 MB of RAM, even if everything within the operating system emulator is running.
The Windows 95 app will take users on a trip down memory lane with Notepad, Wordpad, MS Paint, Solitaire, and Minesweeper all operating perfectly. Unfortunately, not everything works, such as Internet Explorer, as it is unable to break out of the virtual machine and go online.
In case the Windows 95 app encounters an issue, users may simply reset the Windows 95 instance within the Electron app and start anew. The Windows 95 app has actually been already upgraded to v1.1, which adds floppy disk support.
The question now is whether Microsoft will consider the Windows 95 app as copyright infringement. It does not help that it acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion earlier in the year, so Microsoft may be keeping a watchful eye on its new asset.
Windows 95 On Other Devices
Windows 95 has appeared on a variety of other devices, such as on the Apple Watch. Developer Nick Lee achieved the feat in 2016, made possible by the fact that the Apple Watch packs a processor that is 25 times faster compared to the Windows 95 computers in the 1990s.
The obsolete operating system has even found its way into the Nintendo 3DS, though the portable gaming console did not have enough RAM memory to keep Windows 95 running. The method, however, raised the possibility for anything DOS-based to be ported to the Nintendo 3DS.
The closest thing to getting Windows 95 back into computers before Rieseberg's Electron app was when the operating system was brought to internet browsers. Users simply had to visit the homepage of the Windows 95 browser version and wait for it to load.
The Electron app by Rieseberg, however, is the best attempt so far at Windows 95 nostalgia, for whatever reason that users may want it.
