I just installed Windows 95 in a virtual machine

[gridbug]

Hello everyone,

So I recently went to play solitaire on my windows 10 computer and ran into the terrible fact that the current Microsoft Solitaire Collection has 30 second unskippable mobile ads, which is terrible. So I decided to install an older version of Windows into a virtual machine to play Solitaire in the future

I followed this tutorial, and it was fairly straightforward. The only problem I ran into was getting virtualization enabled in my bios, and enabling the games in the control panel. After that it was smooth sailing, I have sound, all the classics. I'm thinking of getting Windows 98 set up next so I can experience Bonzi Buddy, because Windows 95 is a bit too old for that.

I was going to put a screenshot of Windows 95 running Solitaire here but you all probably know what that looks like and I don't feel like uploading it to a hosting platform since that isn't an integral part of the experience.

So anyway my question is, has anyone else tried messing around with old versions of Windows in virtual machines? Are there any programs I should try installing? Any games? These days most games are already ported to run in dosbox or whatever else, but I'd still like to try out some fun stuff, maybe space cadet pinball if I can find a version that will play nice with my installation.

~Gridbug

[brisray]

I haven't played with VMs much but this is a great project. Maybe you could get some of the earlier versions of Windows, 3.11 or even earlier and see how you like those?

If you're planning on using Windows 98 try and get the SE (Second Edition) version, the original was very buggy.

[gridbug]

I haven't played with VMs much but this is a great project. Maybe you could get some of the earlier versions of Windows, 3.11 or even earlier and see how you like those?

If you're planning on using Windows 98 try and get the SE (Second Edition) version, the original was very buggy.

I'm definitely going to try out Windows 3.1 next, the microsoft entertainment pack versions that I found were made for 3.1, and while I could set them up in dos mode in windows 95, I still want to try out the different versions of windows, maybe try emulating some old macintosh operating systems too. Thanks for the tip on using the second edition of Windows 98!

Nowadays a lot of games run easily on newer machines thanks to GOG and remasters, so what I'm interested in testing out is some word processors, spreadsheets, just to see how things have changed, what sort of features have been added.