Windows 95, 98, and other decrepit versions can grab online updates again

[GURPS]

If you have any interest in retro-computing, you know it can be difficult to round up the last official bug fixes and updates available for early Internet-era versions of Windows like 95, 98, and NT 4.0. A new independent project called "Windows Update Restored" is aiming to fix that, hosting lightly modified versions of old Windows Update sites and the update files themselves so that fresh installs of these old operating systems can grab years' worth of fixes that aren't present on old install CDs and disks.

These old versions of Windows relied primarily on a Windows Update web app to function rather than built-in updaters like the ones used in current Windows versions. Microsoft took down the version of the site that could scan and update Windows 95 and 98 sometime in mid-2011. The Windows Update Restored site is a lightly modified version of Microsoft's original code, and the site itself doesn't use any kind of SSL or TLS encryption, so ancient Internet Explorer versions can still access it without modification.

You'll need at least Internet Explorer 5 to access the Windows Update Restored update sites; that browser is no longer available directly from Microsoft, but the Windows Update Restored site offers download links to IE5 and IE5.5 in all supported languages.

Windows 95, 98, and other decrepit versions can grab online updates again

Retro-computing fans can download the final updates released for ’90s-era OSes.

arstechnica.com

 

[DaSDGuy]

I loved Win98. After tweaking the registry I recovered from the blue screen of death many times. I only lost that when the actual hard drive crashed. It was a fun 15 years tho. I used that machine as a front end running black ice and later as a print server.

 

[GURPS]

I think in the 1st 18 months I owned a Win 95 machine I reinstalled Windows at least a doz times.

Install DOS 6.2 then Install Windows 95 - from a CD thankfully*

Learning for an MSCE, I broke NT 4.0 less .... I broke 98Se even less, at the point I quit f'ing around as much and just played games



*This did also include some hardware upgrades, larger hard drives, motherboard upgrades ... etc.
My 1st ' gaming ' video card was a Monster 3D II 8 mb of ram

 

[Kyle]

Damn.

Now if I could only find hardware it would run on and all my 1990s flight sims and shooter games...

 

[GURPS]

you can find it on Ebay, do you want to pay the ' Reto ' Tax to acquire the hardware

 

[DaSDGuy]

A classic:

 

[PrchJrkr]

I think in the 1st 18 months I owned a Win 95 machine I reinstalled Windows at least a doz times.

Install DOS 6.2 then Install Windows 95 - from a CD thankfully*

Learning for an MSCE, I broke NT 4.0 less .... I broke 98Se even less, at the point I quit f'ing around as much and just played games



*This did also include some hardware upgrades, larger hard drives, motherboard upgrades ... etc.
My 1st ' gaming ' video card was a Monster 3D II 8 mb of ram

I fondly my remember when I finally got Win95 on 3.5" floppies, 13 of them I believe. We were a Unix shop simulating surveillance aircraft and nobody had desktop systems. I got in good with the guy in receiving who also sent obsolete hardware to DRMO for disposal. Getting those old Frankenstein machines to run Win95 was a hoot and a half.

 

[GURPS]

obsolete hardware to DRMO for disposal.

Back in the 90's I used to go down to PAX looking at the stuff being surplussed .... Apple and Next Computers

an A6 Intruder had been chopped into scrap ... a complete Sgt York DIVAD minus the F-16 radar waiting for auction