Microsoft working on fix for nasty NTFS corruption bug

[DanceswithUnix]

EDIT - windows 95 struggles with 4K.

Does it even find a modern USB mouse and keyboard? I would have thought you wanted 98SE these days.

Having said that, I notice my wife's new B550 motherboard has a PS/2 socket for either mouse or keyboard. So could probably run DOS on that if I could find that USB to PS/2 adaptor that I probably never threw out

[Pob255]

Hey some of us are quite happily running PS/2 keyboards I'll have you know.

PS/2 is still a very good interface with low latency, you really don't need superhigh bandwidth to push the small amounts of data that keyboards or mice send, latency is a far bigger issue.
The main advantages usb has over ps/2 is that it's hot swappable, not having to reboot your system because you've plugged something in is so good, and wireless adaptors, at least I don't know of any wireless receiver dongles that plug into ps/2.

oh and to anyone pottering about with win98 please please do yourself a favour and dig around for an old copy of netscape navigator or (esp) Opera if you think edge/IE is bad, the early versions where hot garbage

[DanceswithUnix]

Hey some of us are quite happily running PS/2 keyboards I'll have you know.

Not dissing PS/2, just that I'm very certain my last PS/2 mouse failed years ago and I *might* have a PS/2 keyboard in the loft but they have mostly fallen victim to some drink spillage or similar over the years and are similarly gone.

[fend_oblivion]

Worst OS ever made. What is Microsoft thinking by keeping this monstrosity alive via the SaaS (software as a service) model? Other than money of course...

[dannyboy75]

I keep meaning to try that. Was that on bare metal, and how old is the PC? People keep talking about PC backwards compatibility, but I have to wonder if my and old WIndows 3.1 install would still run on a modern PC.

Windows 95 should be pretty nippy though, given modern CPUs have more L3 cache than PCs back there had main system ram

Would have thought there would be third party USB 2.0 drivers though, people were running 95/98/Me for years. Perhaps only drivers for the right old hardware though.

This is the PC. A fellow PC geek friend of mine cobbled it together as a present for my 30th birthday (which was 15 years ago now, depressingly) and I've kept it ever since. It originally had XP installed, but I stuck 98SE on it a few months ago to play an old flight sim from that era (A-10 Cuba), and also just for the nostalgia.

As you say, I think USB 2.0 was gradually becoming mainstream around the turn of the millennium, but this mobo definitely doesn't support it. It's a Gigabyte GA-7DX+ which has a weird hybrid AMD/VIA chipset. CPU is a Cyrix 1600 MHz, IIRC.

[philehidiot]

I installed it on a VM. I suggest this is a good idea unless you're exceptionally bored and masochistic. When I installed Windows 95 originally it took four hours and multiple attempts.

Internet explorer can open google (it even looks like back in the day, part of me thinks that's some kind of easter egg as there's no reason to do that...) but anything on HTTPS will error. Most of the internet then.

That PC is a beauty. I miss ISA. I had an awesome ISA sound card back in the day (AWE 32).

If you're installing Windows 95 on a newer computer with a CPU faster than 320MHz (ish, I'd been drinking last night and I only remembered what I'd done with Windows 95 when I saw this thread...) then you need to patch it as it'll just fatal exception error or something on boot.

640x480 was so annoying as I used a 1024x768 monitor (which made me wet myself when "HD" at 720 lines was all the rage and such "high resolution" for games) and every graphics bug (of which there were many) would ditch it back to 640x480 and ruin my desktop chaos.

If you do this, it'll ruin Windows 10 for you. Honestly, everything just does with sensible keyboard shortcuts and no silly animations. Windows 10 is like wading through treacle in comparison.

EDIT - observation. Thread on a story about yet another Windows 10 bug that hasn't been patched devolves into installing a 26 year old OS. There's a takeaway for Microsoft there.

[ik9000]

Worst OS ever made. What is Microsoft thinking by keeping this monstrosity alive via the SaaS (software as a service) model? Other than money of course...

data mining on users and monetising it. We are the product now, not the OS.

[philehidiot]

data mining on users and monetising it. We are the product now, not the OS.

Best thing you can do? Change as many metadata fields on files, etc to the word "penis" and rename as many folders as possible to "horse stuff".

They won't pry ever again.

[Corky34]

Best thing you can do? Change as many metadata fields on files, etc to the word "penis" and rename as many folders as possible to "horse stuff".

They won't pry ever again.

I think that may just cause lots of Viagra adverts popping up in your browser.

[Core2Extreme]

640x480? That is what I ran on Windows 95 back in the day, but provided your GPU can handle it, I bet it would handle 1080p just fine. I know Windows 98 First Edition handles 1920x1200 over VGA quite well, at least in 2D with a quality Matrox accelerator card.

I've also watched DVDs on my 98 FE box. I can't say it matches a mid-2000's XP box, and I'm not sure if the bigger problem is the first-gen DVD software or the 8 MB of VRAM, but it's doable if you're dedicated. Gotta upgrade to at least XP if you want Blu-Rays though... maybe 2000, haven't really tested that combo.

Really though the combination of challenges running on modern hardware, sparse USB support, and outdated browsers mean even for old times' sake I haven't used 98 in quite awhile. XP x86 is only 3 years newer, but feels a decade newer.

But what I really run (and would recommend, should Win10 bugs be too scary) is 8.1. More stable than 10, fewer changes, and still runs almost anything, the main exception being recent games published by Microsoft. And 4K UHD Blu-Rays I suppose, but I'd have to upgrade my TV to be able to tell the difference anyway.

[dannyboy75]

I installed it on a VM. I suggest this is a good idea unless you're exceptionally bored and masochistic. When I installed Windows 95 originally it took four hours and multiple attempts.

Internet explorer can open google (it even looks like back in the day, part of me thinks that's some kind of easter egg as there's no reason to do that...) but anything on HTTPS will error. Most of the internet then.

That PC is a beauty. I miss ISA. I had an awesome ISA sound card back in the day (AWE 32).

If you're installing Windows 95 on a newer computer with a CPU faster than 320MHz (ish, I'd been drinking last night and I only remembered what I'd done with Windows 95 when I saw this thread...) then you need to patch it as it'll just fatal exception error or something on boot.

I actually tried setting up 98 in a DOSBox VM initially, but it was a massive pain in the A. Installing it was simple enough, but then as soon as touched anything to do with the virtual S3 graphics card, I'd just get 'Windows Protection error' on the next reboot. I found getting it set up on that old bit of tin fairly painless by comparison (once I'd managed to find a spare PATA drive that still worked, anyway)

My only niggle is the old ATi graphics card in that PC doesn't support any 16:9 aspect ratios. I'm actually tempted to pick up a cheap 1280x1024 4:3 monitor from Gumtree when lockdown's over.

I found an old ISA sound card in my box of old crap too, Aztech something or other. I wonder if stuff like this will be worth something one day.

[philehidiot]

I found an old ISA sound card in my box of old crap too, Aztech something or other. I wonder if stuff like this will be worth something one day.

When the nuclear war comes, it'll be worth a fortune as shelter building materials.

[udisy]

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 (not Windows Virtual PC; ignore the warning on Win7/8/10 - works fine) works well with 95 and 98, as it emulates Pentium 3 + has vm additions for drag&drop support..
1. VirtualPC_2007_SP1_setup.exe (6.0.192.0)
2. VPC2007x86-KB969856.EXE (6.0.3790.0)
3. KB958162.msp
(also available in as x64 install, though still x86 guests only)

[Quartz]

Can this be distributed via one of those URL shortener sites? Click on a shortened link and get this dodgy one?

[kalniel]

Can this be distributed via one of those URL shortener sites? Click on a shortened link and get this dodgy one?

URLs don't run commands on your local computer.

[Corky34]

URLs don't run commands on your local computer.

Unless I've made a mistake "file:///" followed by the command mentioned in the article would, it's not the running of a file that causes the problem but simply trying to access it that causes it.

I was trying it last week so i maybe misremembering but IIRC i was able to trigger a chkdsk by using "file:///" followed by the command in the article.