Did you love Windows 95? It's now a free app for MacOS, Windows, Linux
Windows 10
Windows 95, the version that made fans queue up for a boxed copy 20 years ago, was for many people the first desktop OS they used.
Thanks to Slack developer Felix Rieseberg, that old PC experience can now be relived whether today you're running Windows 10, a Mac or Linux.
"It's a terrible idea that works shockingly well. I'm so sorry," Rieseberg tweeted, announcing the app.
The app is available on GitHub in a file that's less than 130MB in size.
To get Windows 95 running on other platforms, Rieseberg put Windows 95 into an Electron app, a popular cross-platform development framework that uses web technologies.
SEE: 20 pro tips to make Windows 10 work the way you want (free PDF)
As noted by The Verge, within the app it's easy to run the Windows 95 versions of WordPad, MS Paint, and Minesweeper. The app only consumes about 200MB of RAM when running apps and utilities, and it's easy to restart it if it freezes.
Internet Explorer doesn't work, however according to Rieseberg you can run Doom and other popular ancient games, although you would probably be better off using a virtualization app.
The Windows 95 app is the latest way to enjoy Microsoft's earlier operating systems, such as the Internet Archives recent efforts to bring back Windows 3.1 run through an emulator in the browser.
Within the app, it's easy to run the Windows 95 versions of WordPad, MS Paint, and Minesweeper, seen here.
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