Well I guess I will be joining you guys today in this thread ;-) I just got in something very old and its owner want it restored back in full shine of Windows 95 Glory Gave me its original "restore cd" by Acer, but its Chinese Traditional version and obviously I can't read it LOL useless.
So here is what I did so far:
Partition for W95 is just 256 MB (yes MB, not GB) then there is half gig for NT4 and 1 gig for shared space where he wants to keep his old DOS games etc.
Due to limited space I figured it would be better to start customizing 95's installation to get rid of the old junk that come with it by default and he wouldn't use it anyways (IE3, Mail-News etc). That took it down to just 70MB after WIn95 completed installation.
Then I installed USB supplement from Companion CD (since there is dual USB port) and drivers for all the devices. Im at 75 MB footprint ATM. I know I need to update it with Y2K stuff (w95y2k, corpupd, y2kvdhcp - have them all ready), but Im not sure what else? He probably won't use it for internet access while on W95 (thats what NT4 will be there), but still I'd like to patch it up and secure, so any input and hints are kindly welcome

That's about it, really. No IE, no NetBIOS, and the latest patches. Perfect.

great

Im playing with it ATM, and Im not sure is it just my prejudice againt anything 98 but 95 really feels more stable. I guess removing crap from installation was helpful.
Anyways I will reinstall it, because Im making completely customized Win95 CD for him (with crap removed from disc and from installation .inf and with the drivers and useful soft instead) and I will have to test it on something, so for the sake of testing Im going to inject it with IE5.5SP2 with shell update (I just made nice standalone single executable with options to install with or without "Active Desktop Update" - gotta test it too hehe).

Has anyone notice microsoft's site has nothin left for windows 95?
There are tons of bad links to references etc, you can't even find any old windows update for 95 crap as it used to be - but it is like this only in english, if you choose different language there is still some stuff left, ie euro support is not available on english version, but if you choose other lang. (i went with japanese link) its still there same as before.

/edit/
Im distracted, sorry
What I was going to ask is
1
what firewall soft works on win95
2
how to modify boot image i made from 95's startup disk to work like Win2K's boot - with the prompt to press any key to run bootloader or time out in few seconds and goto/skip to hard disk?
Because using original 95 floppy image is pointless in making bootable Win95 CD since it will always load it automatically and end up on the "A:\ " prompt...


/edit again/
I want to include USB directly in installation too
I noticed that Win95 searches for uhcd.sys and usbd.sys in precopy1.cab - if i add them to the cab (and update its byte size in installation infs of course etc) will that be a problem since it will be rather large for a 'floppy cab', also what reg entries do i need to add as well? and what about openhci.sys and possibly vfwwdm32.dll (which i noticed someone smart added to package for unofficial usb update)?

And about USB - I dont know why installing USB supplement from companin disc doesnt automatically install drivers for "PCI USB", I have to manually select it and navigate it to the usbd.sys and uhcd in windows folders for it to become the "Standard Universal USB Host..." in the device manager, otherwise it stays in the yelllow question mark as "PCI USB". Is it because I removed something too many from installation? Somehow I don't remember doing it manually in the past when I used "full" unmodified Win95 installations...

This post has been edited by no1none: Jun 12 2007, 02:49 PM

I thought that Win95 wasn't going to connect to the Internet? It will only open TCP ports when it needs to, so you don't really need a firewall, at least when it comes to closing ports. Anyway, I believe the good old Kerio 2.1.5 firewall will work on it.

I'm not familiar with the Win2K boot disc, so I'm not sure what you want to do. Some batch wizardry could solve part of it, I guess.

Slipstreaming the USB updates could work. I have no idea what registry entries the updates need, though. Remember that it also installs a different, USB-able kernel. And yeah, I remember something about a PCI USB yellow mark. Not sure what to say about that.

From nt4 today
I never was Win9x fan, even when I had to use it. I never seen worse OS than any of those 95/98/ME series. Reinstalls and crashes on a basically daily basis - I think it sums it up. Im surprised Msoft never shipped it with some ghost/imaging software (so people could quickly and easily 'restore' their win9x harddisk with last saved working config, instead of going thru all that lengthy installation process). IMHO Msoft's reputationsuffered alot after release of win9x (or maybe since win3.x actually).
Except for those old games that need DOS, I really can't see any reason why anyone would use win9x nowadays or in the past since 198/1999 - computers shipped back then already with 64 or memory, enough for NT4 already

Anyways.
What about those DX5 files?
Could anyone kindly check their files and let me know am I missing anything? (see my prev. post)
or give me some hint?

This is what I get when open directx control panel:
mmmmmmmm makes you wonder

Where did that come from? Is that your personal (flawed) opinion, or something?

No not my opinion from http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=97563 just wondered if its a wind up

Whenever I do something, I at least try to be thorough.
Win95 supposedly will not be used to connect to web, thats what NT4 will be there for. But I want to play safe now, rather than hear a complaints later. AFAIR as soon as any ethernet card will be installed there, Win95 will automatically enable netbios over tcpip, right? (correct me if im wrong). Of course I can predict any possible scenario what someone may do with his computer, but in general I always prefer to include firewall on any windows machine. Anyways, IMHO firewall and antivirus are 2 most important things on anything windows...

PS
oscardog above quoted my opinion.
What are you /edit: you=oscardog/ trying to accomplish? Want to start (yet another) stupid 9x vs NT flame here? Good luck, fanboi...

This post has been edited by no1none: Jun 14 2007, 12:40 AM

AFAIR W95 will not even install TCP/IP automatically, only NetBEUI. You'll have to add it yourself.

Yes, that's true, sadly. It will also add Netware. When you add the network card at installation, you can immediately remove all that from Network Setup, but if a network card is detected at Windows boot, you don't have control. If you don't insert the CD, though, it won't get fully installed, hehe.

What are you /edit: you=oscardog/ trying to accomplish? Want to start (yet another) stupid 9x vs NT flame here? Good luck, fanboi...

No not at all, I was musing after reading the thread if you were being humerous via satirical deviousness, but has you have seen win9x still has its uses, despite preconceived negativitey.
In my option both os`s have their uses, end of story

Well, you read and quoted only part of discussions.
My personal opinion (and preference) is still the same:
If I can avoid windows at all (i.e. user is at least "linux literate") - I think its obvious what I'd install?
If I *have to* install windoze (user can't operate any other OS) - I try to fit full or customized to the machine W2K.
If machine is too outdated to run W2K - I'll try NT4 if possible; and unless it really has some <48MB of RAM, or user have some other requirements not possible on NT4 - I will go with Win9x.
Its not that "I like" or "I don't like" any of them.
For example 1 person use computer just for chatting & mail with her friends, but also some sensitive things like banking or browsing, so obviously I had to go with linux on her machine (and for a fact - since she never had any prior "windows experience" - she learned how to use it much faster than some hundred-years-long windoze user... )
OS is a tool, it must fit the user's skills of using it, and the job it is needed for.
Obviously I'm not going to install any linux or vista on this very old machine for playing old DOS/Win9x games.
Of course WIndows 95 has its uses.
If I were 100% sure this machine would never ever connect to internet, I would say same as Benoit-Ren: "perfect" and wouldn't ask any more stupid questions here








Yes I just did it yesterday.
True, TCP is not installed by default as poster above said, but Netware is (not big problem since it is easily disabled in remove in networking).
However after adding TCPIP i found "enable netbios over tcpip protocol" checkmarked (enabled) and greyed out in the same time (supposedly can't disable) - is that normal?

This post has been edited by no1none: Jun 14 2007, 02:58 PM

It's normal if you have NetBIOS or NetBEUI installed, otherwise it isn't, I think. It's unchecked on mine, and not disabled.

In network settings go to bindings remove bindings for tcp/ip ,ignore the warnings, netbios over tcp box will be made selectable

thx, it works that way

I installed USB yesterday evening on my system (finally got a new adaptor for the scanner and finally found the right drivers), and I got a prompt in the process for usbd.sys, but after that everything went smoothly. It's normal, anyway, that even though you just pointed to a folder with your drivers, that when it wants to install them, that it doesn't find them, as it always first looks in the path of your Win95 setup files.