Windows Essentials (also known as Windows Live Essentials) was a suite of desktop applications that included various Microsoft-developed programs, such as Messenger, Mail, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, Writer and OneDrive.
Undo Microsoft's unwanted changes to the Start menu using Open-Shell Run Windows Essentials tools in Windows 10 To complete the retro look, download a high-res version of Bliss the famous green and blue wallpaper used by Windows XP - from bit.ly/bliss460. The software gives you a choice of three different menu styles - Classic, Two Columns and Windows 7 - as well as other options for customizing various elements of your operating system, including File Explorer. If it looks familiar that's because it's a continuation of the popular Classic Shell app which was discontinued (and open sourced) late last year. If you prefer the old-style menus found in XP and Windows 7, you can get them back by installing Open-Shell (previously Classic Start). Not everyone loves Windows 10's tiled Start menu as much as Microsoft clearly does. It's worth pointing out that this more basic theme won't actually make Windows 10 run any faster, but it will push your nostalgic buttons.Īpply a classic theme to make your modern desktop look like Windows 98 Restore the classic Start menu Enable the High Contrast option, and then select Classic from the list of themes. Right-click a blank area of the desktop, select Personalise and select High Contrast. Unzip it and move the file to the 'C:\Windows\Resources\Ease of Access Themes' folder. If you don't like the modern look of Windows and hanker for the old-school style sported in the likes of Windows 98, you can download a ' Windows classic' theme for Windows 8.1 and 10. Windows 10 users nostalgic for XP can run the classic OS as a virtual machine Get back classic Windows themes Switch between full-screen, seamless and scaled modes via the View menu. When finished, reboot and you can start using XP, just like in the early Noughties.
Select Cancel on all the windows that appear, and then in VirtualBox, go to Devices, 'Install Guest Additions CD Image', and install it (select the 'Continue Anyway' option when warnings appear). When you see a black screen, press Right Ctrl+R to reset the OS.
Consider emulators like x86Box or PCem instead.You will need to use your keyboard to navigate the installation pages (tab is especially helpful here) as the mouse won't work properly. Windows 95 has many issues on faster machines or VMs, requiring a number of patches in order to operate. If you use those, you may need to disable various acceleration features first, and/or install the Windows 95 CPU speed fixes. VMWare and VirtualBox are problematic with Windows 95.
You may also override the install type (no serial needed) by creating a file name MSBATCH.INF with the lines "", and then "ProductType=1", placing that in the Win95 setup folder, and then running setup. If the listed serials below do not work for a specific release, please see the Serials thread If a download does not include a boot floppy, please see Microsoft Windows Boot Disks The 95 architecture was continued with Windows 98. It could even still make use of DOS drivers. It still ran on top of DOS, but bundled its own special "Windows 95" DOS (AKA MS-DOS 7). But Windows 95 was not a pure "32-bit" OS: It was still based around the framework of Windows 3.x, 2.x and 1.x.
It no longer ran on a separate DOS product. It integrated the ability to run 32-bit applications similar to Windows NT or Windows 3.1 with Win32s.
And it included the same networking abilities as Windows for Workgroups. It also included a new way of finding installed applications through a "Start" menu. Windows 95 offered, at long last, a well designed document-oriented desktop shell that worked much like the 1984 Macintosh Finder.