advice/tips for windows 95?

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are there comon errors that are fixable?

how do you use it?

how do you run games on it?

(im thinking of getting a old windows 95 laptop ...dont ask lol) i need to know how to use it, mainly i want to play some old games.

i have a HP netbook that i use for normal computer stuff so im not buying a windows 95 laptop for genral use, i dont want to alter my HP netbook in any way or form for it to run windows 95 i doubt that is possible anyway.
so im buying a old laptop that comes with windows 95 which kind would you recomened? could you send links with pictures and information of the best windows 95 laptops, also what kind of computer mouse would i need to buy?

im not "a smart computer person" my brother is, but i doubt he would touch a windows 95 PC.

thanks

I recommend you do not spend very much money on it ($0 sounds about right), and do not connect it to the internet.

Any games you could play on it could also be played on your current computer using some kind of emulator.

Most windows 95 games run on windows xp or higher. My old puttputt games and others worked on my parents (pretty much) new laptop and my sister was able to play it

i found a prety good old laptop barley used that going to be buying.

the games i am after to play are windows 95/98 only, and i use a USB dongle that only has 250 MB of data on it for a £5 ( $1o US ) top up you top it up like a phone expecpt its especialy for PCs is a vodafone one. bascicly that means if i was to download anything my data would go instantly. (has before from the smallest downloads) .

£5 is a fair price (£5 than I would spend, though) so long as you look on this as a fun hobby, and not a computer websurfing/schoolwork/etc.

LOL!

That's an amazing drawing you have as your avatar, btw.

virtualbox.org has this to say about windows 95:

So you might give VirtualBox a try first (this would allow you to run Win 95 as a "guest" operating system) before you buy any additional hardware.

i have no idea what you mean ,
it would be nice if pepole treated me a little more seriously i mean the laptop i want is £40 odd, but it is a very old fully working barley used laptop that at the time was worth £2000, i have alot of memories from using the old windows. i am not after to use it for everything like a averege computer, just fun old games that i miss playing from when i was little. like zoombinies, babyz, a bunch of other old games that i loved..... most games i want are windows 95/98 only and there are alot like that i see in charity shops that i often want but unable to buy becuase of being not compatible, and there are a lot of PC games they usualy sell. i just remember using it and the memories of using it in nusery/fisrt school and at home (before it got upgraded by my dad to 98, then XP .. my dad loved computers (he died last year) , )

VirtualBox is an application that allows you to run another operating system inside a "virtual" software machine.

So whatever your current version of Windows is the "host" and then you can have 1 or more "guest" operating systems and switch between them like application windows.

In other words it is a way to run more than one operating system on the same computer at the same time.

http://virtualbox.org

However as I posted above, their wiki is not super-enthusiastic about Windows 95 support.

I fully agree with the advice others have offered, but just to expand on that a bit...

A couple of issues you may have here are (1) Lack of drivers for newer hardware, and (2) Lack of security updates to protect against newer threats. (That second one - not having security updates - is most likely why Mushroo suggested that you do *not* connect this computer to the internet. It simply isn't safe.)

As for the lack of drivers... A "driver" is what tells Windows how to use any hardware you plug into your computer, such as a mouse, or a game controller. Most new hardware either comes with a driver, or that driver may already be in Windows 7 or Windows XP. However, with Windows 98, it is likely that no driver exists for much of the hardware that's out there now. Therefore, Windows 98 won't know what to do with it, and you won't be able to use it. (Don't even bother with Windows 95. Windows 98 Second Edition will give you much better hardware support, and will run any game made for Windows 95.)

There are two possible solutions to the driver issue:

(1) If you're dead-set on using that laptop, you will need to make sure that the laptop itself fully supports Windows 98. The same goes for anything you want to plug into it. Don't assume you can plug any newer hardware into it. (Including that USB dongle you have.) Anything made before 2003 will probably be ok.
If you need a gamepad, here's one I know supports Windows 98 (but not 95):
http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-WingMan- ... 69-4454406
And again... Don't connect that laptop to the internet.

(2) The other option would be to use Virtualbox, as Mushroo suggested above. This is a program that will let you install and run Windows 98 as a program on your regular computer. (In other words, you could be using Windows 7, Vista or XP, and just open up Windows 98 in a window.) Google "virtualbox setup", or "virtualbox setup windows 98" for help with this. The downside to this approach is that some 3D games may not work with it. (Check your 3D games' system requirements. If they require "hardware acceleration", they may not work with Virtualbox.) However... Virtualbox is 100% free, you don't need a separate computer, and you won't need to worry about having Windows 98 drivers for your mouse, keyboard, or video card. (You may still need one for a USB drive or a gamepad, though.)

One more thing to note if you decide to go with Virtualbox: You will automatically be connected to the internet. Any viruses or malware that you may get by having Windows 98 connected to the internet will not affect the rest of your computer. Virtualbox will keep them contained within Windows 98. *However*, if you plug in your USB drive while running Win98, they may be able to spread. It would be safer to burn any software you need to a CD instead, since viruses cannot spread to a CD.

Last edited by scubasteve on 27 Mar 2012, 12:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Redacted

Last edited by nat4200 on 21 Apr 2012, 1:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

Nat, she mentioned she's using a netbook, and wants to run Windows 95 games... DOSBox would be a good suggestion for running DOS games, but much too slow for running WIndows 95 on that machine.

Redacted

Last edited by nat4200 on 21 Apr 2012, 1:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes and its a £250 netbook to. lol.
i have no plans to run windows 95 with any sort of internet, and i cant download anything. downloading uses extreme data on my dongle. i forgot to mention netbook is windows 7 starter. not that it matters. lol.

If you find someone a bit more computer literate, they might be able to install Windows 98 on your netbook, possibly dual boot, so you can have 7 when you want it, then 98 when you want it. XP generally does run any 95/98/DOS programs pretty well, so if you wanna avoid buying stuff, just install XP onto your netbook.

As far as a Windows 95 laptop, well....they're fun for a few minutes. I had a similar experience, my uncle gifted me 3 Windows 95 laptops. They're quite cheap, yeah, but you should really not pay too much for them. Even 40GBP is a bit much, imo (and man, your currency is a lot crappier than it used to be, used to be 40GBP was like 80 bucks.) The Windows 95 laptops I had, only dialup modems in them, but the biggest issue I ran into, most had no CD drives. Basically my advice is, if you wanna like, do anything, get a laptop with a CD drive, and preferably too with USB. Really, all I did with those laptops was word processing and NES emulators. Those computers, imo, if you get one with decent specs, usually run game system emulators OK. I was able to run an NES emulator on even my old 32mhz Toshiba Satellite laptop with a black and white screen. Toshiba Satellite was running Windows 3.1 and DOS, however for Windows 3.1 I had a skin on it to make it look like 98.

Basically, you'll be able to like, do some stuff, if you get a laptop with a CD drive, but without a CD drive, they're pretty much entirely useless, lol and nowadays most computers don't come with floppy drives either. Without a CD drive, you're entirely dependent on floppies, and floppies are a bit hard to get now, and no computer is coming with them built in anymore. That, and any file you'd want is over 1.44 megabytes. With a CD drive, though, you can burn stuff from one computer onto a CDR and use it on the laptop.

Overall, my advice would be to not pay much for a Windows 95 kinda laptop. If you get one for free, take it and play with it obviously, but don't pay much for one. See if you can find a laptop with XP on it, as usually XP will run any older games you'd wanna play, and if you hate XP, you can easily go put Windows 95 or 98 on it, and have much better performance, and you can probably find an XP laptop for the same 40 pounds you're willing to pay for the 95 one. See if you can get your parents or siblings to talk to their friends or whatever, and just ask if they got old laptops laying around, they might be able to find you something for free.

As far as price depreciation, that's life. I had the bill of sale for one of my Toyota Celica Supra cars, 17,000 back in 1984. I bought it for $900. $17K adjusted for inflation is about 33K nowadays. So it was an expensive car, it was Toyota's flagship sport/luxury car. Things just get cheaper with use, and age, and when newer better things come out. My Supra, though being Toyota's high end sports car, and being super fun to drive, 0-60 speed is outclassed by this year's base model Corolla economy/family car. That said, it is sad to see things randomly destroyed for no reason, and I don't like society just randomly devaluing things because they're old, and in cases like a car, it makes more sense to keep them around, but with computers, the speed differences now are insane. Your netbook compared to that Windows 95 laptop is probably 7-10 times more powerful, and it's cheap, probably not over $200 in today's money, whereas the laptop you're talking about cost 10x more to build and was 10x slower. It's just life unfortunately.