[upbeat music] [drive buzzes]
[computer beeps] ["TADA" startup sound plays] - Greetings, and welcome to
another LGR 486 upgrade thing! And yeah, I've got
Windows 3.1 going on here. It has served me well for a few years now, but it's time for the upgrade
we've all been waiting for, or perhaps not, but... I don't know, I've been
kinda waiting for it. It's always been my goal to
install Windows 95 on here, at least for a bit. You know, I've got different installations set up on different CompactFlash
cards for this machine, so I'm not gonna be sticking
with 95 permanently. But for this video, okay? We've got Windows 95. Complete in the box, still sealed. This'll be quite an experience. I've never actually unboxed
a Windows 95 before. I've only ever had CD-ROMs and floppy disks just on their own. But this right here, oh, this was such an exciting
product in the mid-'90s. Holy nuts! The impact that this had
on computing, pop culture, just generally everything,
it cannot be understated. We'll get into some of that. But yeah, I want to
unbox this, install it, test everything out on a 486. Which that alone's gonna be interesting. I've very rarely run 95 on
a 486, but as you can see, it does only need a 386DX
or higher, technically, with 4 megabytes of RAM,
45 megs of hard disk space, and VGA or higher. And this right here is a
486 100-megahertz machine. It's been upgraded many
times over the years. This is the LGR Woodgrain
486, constantly evolving. In fact, it most recently
had a new skin applied to it. All fresh, new woodgrain. Yeah, you can see that
over on my Blerbs channel. The old woodgrain was
getting, eh, pretty ratty and needed some updating. But yeah, it's all
refreshed with new woodgrain and the whole bunch of
upgrades we've applied to it, so I think it is very much ready for the most exciting
upgrade of 1995, Windows 95! While I do have this lovely
sealed box here for it, which we are going to open, this is the CD-ROM version of it. And, well, it was also
released on floppy disk. 3.5-inch floppies. So you had the upgrade version of it available on floppy and CD, but if you were to get the version of this that was for new PCs without Windows, you could only get this
on 3.5-inch floppy, at least at first, here
in the US at retail. Of course, there were full CD
versions of Windows 95 distributed later as OEM releases and some other things in
different territories. As well as plenty of upgraded versions, OSR 1, 2, 2.1, 2.5, and such. But yeah, I have not installed Windows 95 from floppies since high school, so I think it's been long
enough to forget the pain and want to experience it
again, so let's do that. So long, Windows 3.1, for now. [shutdown chimes ring] And it's on to 1995 with Windows 95. Let's get this sucker unsealed
and enjoy the mid-'90s. Mm, yes. It is August 24th, 1995, a Thursday, and this has just launched, hitting retail at $209.95 for the full version of it. Or this one, being the
upgrade-only version, was $109.95 being the
suggested retail price for this in the box. "To get the computer you've
always wanted, click here." That Start menu, the Start button, it was more or less the
mascot for Windows 95, and my goodness, was it exciting. Really, the whole Start menu itself, it deconstructed how I knew to use a PC. I'd really only used Windows 3.1 in terms of GUIs at the time. And then to have this Start menu just rethink the whole thing, tear it all down, build it
back up into something fresh, that was pretty darned
exciting to me. [chuckles] This was also the first
version of Windows on CD-ROM, so that itself was pretty awesome. CD-ROM drives were becoming
not fully ubiquitous by 1995, but pretty darned expected in a new PC. I didn't have a CD-ROM until
1997, but that was just me. Anyway, this came on
CD-ROM, but of course, the floppy version was
very much prevalent. And as mentioned earlier, if you wanted the full
for-PCs-without-Windows version, not just the upgrade one, you
could only get it on floppy. And finding that one nowadays is expensive and pretty hard to come by. But these right here, and
even sealed, 30 or 40 bucks, at least at the time of making this video. Also worth noting that this one comes with the Internet
Explorer Starter Kit. So that actually adds,
well, Internet Explorer. It did not originally come with the very first release of Windows 95, but it's inside here on the CD, I presume. Or, if you had the floppy one, it had an additional
six disks for that kit with Internet Explorer
and internet things. In addition to the 13 for
just the operating system, which we're gonna try to
install here in a bit. But yeah, for now, let's just
get this dang thing opened. [smooth jazz music] Mmm, how I dreamed of this
moment so much back then. Oh, I wanted Windows 95 so bad,
it was quite frankly absurd. But here we go, 27 years later. Ooh, and there we go. Oh, we got the... Okay, so it is a separate disc. So there is the Internet
Explorer Starter Kit. And here is Windows 95, in a
delightful cardboard sleeve. With a CD key on the back. "Don't lose this number." I won't! Let's get this thing open. Oh, yeah! Look at that! Well, isn't that a pleasant-looking disc? So yeah, this is just the upgrade, so this relies on you having a previous Windows
installation ready to go. Which we do, Windows 3.1. And then, you know, there were plenty of Windows 95 full
distributions on CD-ROM, but those were the OEM ones or OSR versions, which
is OEM Service Release. And those were either packed in with computers that you'd buy new, or you would get them
directly from Microsoft as like a system builder license, at least on the initial launch. Internet Explorer Startup Kit. "Easy way to get on
the internet." Oh, man! Don't know if we'll be using this. I don't really have any
use for this at all. Oh yeah, their old slogan. "Where do you want to go today?" I wanna go to Windows 95 Land. Yeah, just registration here. "Win a free trip to Hawaii or Florida." Wonder who won that. And this colorful sheet. Oh man, AOL. 50 whole hours free. Oh my goodness. AOL for Windows 95. Featuring Internet Explorer. All right. I always just miss that
channel listing right there. This is AOL 3 here, maybe? Looks like 3. And the Internet Explorer Starter Kit. I believe this was also
known as the Jumpstart Kit. "Why explore the internet?" Well, "most people come to the internet out of sheer curiosity. Maybe you've heard the hype,
read a newspaper article, or heard about it from
friends or co-workers." Communications, publications, entertainment, education, shopping, software, employment, porn. I don't know if it'll ever catch on, but it sure does seem like
an exciting place to be. And finally, we've got a lovely
looking Windows 95 manual. [laughs numerically] With 95 pages? Really? So what is new in Windows 95? Well, a new and improved interface. The Start button and taskbar! Incredible. Windows Explorer. Hmm, no more File Manager? Long filenames. Up to 255
characters, if I recall. Not just the 8.3 anymore. Improved game and multimedia
support. [growls "Yes!"] I was so excited for like,
"real" games on Windows 95. It got even better when they
added DirectX and Direct3D and stuff. But yeah, you had OpenGL
and software rendering here. [incoherent geekout] It was so cool! Plug and Play hardware compatibility. Or "plug and pray." Sometimes it works. We'll see if it does on our 486! 32-bit preemptive
multitasking. More or less. Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Network. Yeah, their own online and
internet-type of things. Email, faxes, MSN being their ISP. But yeah, there was just an
awful lot of stuff added here. So much of it that continues to this day in some form or another. This established so much
of the modern PC OS. But yeah, it's kind of interesting to think about how
barebones it was, in a way. Especially without this right here. Like, no Internet Explorer. [laughs] No DirectX or Direct3D until June of 1996. No USB either. That was
still in development in '95. The install CDs weren't even bootable, still requiring a boot floppy
for a standalone install. Yet at the same time, Windows 95 was such a wildly improved
product compared to 3.1, and the hype was out of control. The marketing alone, man. If you were around then and glanced at a TV,
magazine, or newspaper, chances are you high you saw a hundred different Windows 95 ads. And it's no surprise. Microsoft spent between
2 and 300 million dollars on the ad campaign. Yeah, massive summer blockbuster ad money spent on operating system launch. Just nuts! And the bulk of it was
spent on TV commercials, with the iconic Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" song playing throughout, because "Start Menu, lulz." Yeah, that one song alone was
rumored to cost $14 million, but it turns out that was just a rumor. The real price was more like 3 million, but either way, it wasn't chump change. With the story being that Bill Gates personally asked Mick Jagger how much it'd cost to license the track, and Jagger threw out
something like 3 million, thinking it was absurd and
Gates would say no, but nope! Microsoft rolled the
Stones a fat wad of cash and used the crap outta that
song in all their marketing, including that huge launch
event in Redmond, Washington with 5,000 guests and
9,000 Microsoft employees, hosted by Jay Leno and
televised live via satellite to launch events at retailers everywhere. And then there was this
infamous cyber-sitcom released on VHS. A 60-minute Windows 95 video guide produced by Microsoft and GT Interactive, featuring "Friends" stars Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry, which were unbelievably huge at the time. Yes, this is somehow real, and yes, it is painful to
watch, as you'd imagine. It's great! - [Boris] We'll copy
the drivers off the CD onto the hard disk! - [Aniston] So you mean
I can plug and play every printer in the world? - [Boris] Ah no, for older hardware, legacy hardware we call it,
you install printer yourself. - Oh, so that means we have
to use that very confusing Control Panel icon, like on old Windows? - No, now we have Printer
Installation Wizard. - [Perry] Well, that's more inspiring than Printer Installation Ogre. - [Clint] Apparently there was even an interactive CD-ROM version, which, yeah, I don't have
and I don't think I want. So anyway, yeah, advertising
for 95 was excessive, perhaps even off-putting, but the results spoke for themselves. And take, for example, that in 1995, around 60 million personal computers had been sold worldwide, yet Microsoft sold 40
million copies of Windows 95 in its first year on the
market, between retail and OEMs. Utterly ridiculous. So with all that out of the way, I think it's high time we see
what all the fuss was about and install it from 3.5-inch disks. Place your bets now on whether or not we complete a full installation
without any corrupted media. So, first step here is to run the Setup program off of Disk 1, which kicks off ScanDisk to ensure the hard drives are ready to go. Which they are, but after that is a message I wasn't expecting, recommending we quit installing from DOS and load up Windows to install Windows. I mean, sure. If it's
recommended, why not? So it's back into 3.1 one last time and initiating the setup process that way, which promptly asks for
insertion of Disk 2. And after choosing a drive and directory, we're giving the option to save our existing
MS-DOS and Windows files, which creates a couple of little files that should allow us
to uninstall Windows 95 should we decide to go back, something I don't believe I've ever tried. After that, we're provided
the Standard, Typical, Portable, Compact, and Custom
Windows 95 install options. And it's gotta be Custom. I want every last bite of
1995 goodness I can get. Although it is not absolutely
everything available since this floppy version
does not include things like 3D screensavers, sound
effects and MIDI files, not to mention the FUNSTUFF
folder is completely missing. We'll have to grab all
that from the CD later. Another floppy thing of note
is this copyright warning popping up if your particular disks have already been used to
install Windows before. It still lets you install the OS, but it just fills in the name,
company, and private details used during whoever
initially installed it, with no option to change it. Awkward. And finally, it asks about
networking cards and protocols. Note that it does not include
a TCP/IP stack by default. That's something you have
to add yourself here. An amusing marker of just how fresh the internet and its protocols
still were back then. And with all that, so begins
the main file transfer process. Now, on-screen notes from Microsoft state it'll likely take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to complete, and well, we're off to a great start! [error sound looping rapidly] Oh, no! [laughs] What the heck? [error sound still going haywire] Really? So that's fun. The whole setup process
continued playing a error sound on loop the entire time! Initially annoying, sure,
but I made the best of it. [error loop flowing into dance beat] Okay, enough distractions. Gotta continue the installation. There are still nine more
disks to get through, at least on this one. Some of the later releases
had almost 30 floppies. But anyway, with every
passing disk and swap message, I grew increasingly paranoid that something was gonna go wrong. I mean, how often do you
run into messed-up floppies installing a single old
game, much less an entire OS? But I was worrying for nothing. It went off without a hitch. With lucky number 13 finishing up, I breathed an audible sigh of relief. And this part of the process took roughly 35 minutes to complete too, so right in the range predicted, although overall with the initial setup and post-install
configuration stuff included, the total time came to just
over an hour for everything. Not including diversions for
mixing error message music. And as a reward, mm, we're
greeted with that lovely original Windows 95 startup splash screen. I always got so excited
seeing that as a kid. Ah, bring on that Microsoft sound. [Windows 3.1 "TADA" plays] Oh. Well, that's disappointing. It turns out that instead of the fantastic Brian
Eno Windows 95 theme, it plays the Windows 3.1 "TADA" WAV since it's kept our old settings intact. Gotta fix that crap straight away. [dreamy Windows 95 startup theme plays] Ah, there we go. All is right with the world. Fun fact, that Brian
Eno startup sound there was actually composed on a Mac. According to him, he has
never used a PC in his life and he just doesn't like them. Fantastic. And yeah, here is the
raw Windows 95 experience as it was in 1995. "Welcome to Windows 95." "Did you know you can use your right mouse button to drag files?" So yeah, this is a nice little thing here to introduce you not only to
the new Windows Help system, but just generally learn Windows 95. "What happened to my program groups?" "What happened to File Manager?" It's actually still there, it's just sorta been replaced as well. Yeah, all of these new
things that you can do, or new ways to do old things. We do have some things
left over from Windows 3.1, but for the most part it does
a good job of replacing stuff. We do have a holdover from Windows 3.0. Reversi is still here from when we had that installation going. But yeah, Windows Explorer
instead of File Manager. It is doing that thing it does
by default that I never liked where it gets rid of the extensions. So I always uncheck that hide extensions, 'cause I like to have them on there. But anyway, all kinds of new stuff to do in Windows Explorer. This was such a massive
upgrade from File Manager, which, uh, it's still in here somewhere. Yeah, in fact, we can
still open Program Manager. Because again, doing the upgrade, it doesn't actually fully
get rid of this stuff, so you have this really messed-up version of Windows 3.1's Program Manager in here. I remember first discovering
that this was the case, again in high school, when
I was installing Windows 95, or tasked with installing 95
on various school computers and upgrading them from 3.1. But yeah, at least we do still
have things like CANYON.MID. Or at least we would if the
MIDI player was working! Ah, okay, so that's one thing
I've had some issues with. Just go into My Computer
here, another new thing. Anyway, yeah, the sound card I
have in there is the Orpheus. It uses this Crystal Plug and Play codec. MIDI totally works in DOS games, but I haven't been able to
get it going in Windows. These are some drivers that... It found some Plug and Play drivers. Actually, sound was working
when I first installed Windows, so hey, Plug and Play
worked without much praying. But only partially, I had
to install those drivers, and even now it's still not 100%. But yeah, with something like "Doom" here, it's gonna work just fine, at least with the Wavetable
MIDI that's on the card. [ominous menu music] [gunshot sounds] [E1M1 music chugging badly] Eh, bit of a slow start.
[E1M1 music chugging badly] Come on, computer! [music speeds up to normal] There we go. [music chugging sporadically] [zombie soldiers roaring] But yeah, MIDI's working here. [pistol poppin' off]
[zombies groaning] [Imp croaks] Weird bits of lag, for sure. But, you know, that's a Wavetable. Maybe there's just some weirdness with this particular
combination of things. Now it said AdLib isn't responding. Interesting. That could just be a
limitation of the sound card, the drivers I'm using. Mm in fact, yeah, looking it up on the website for the Orpheus, it does mention that there might be some weirdness in 95, hmm. That is just this particular card and software configuration. Your regular old Sound Blasters
and Pro Audio Spectrums and whatever else works great in 95. And has a lot of those
drivers just built in, like it'll just detect
that crap straight away, most of the time, as long
it's nothing too exotic. And yeah, being able to
run my favorite DOS games from within Windows, not having to reboot into DOS mode or anything
like that, it was always nice. Let's die. [beeper chirps] Yeah, when configured correctly, DOS under Windows 95 works very well. In fact, it's often my preferred
way of running DOS things. At least later '90s things. You know, if just want
to open up the prompt, you have that right here. You can go full-screen and get a more traditional
DOS-like experience like that. You have DOS 7. Well, that says Windows 95, but DOS 7. And yeah, if you want to
reboot actually into DOS mode. This doesn't have any
Windows stuff going at all. So yeah, the nice mixture of
Windows and DOS is very useful. That being said, it's not like Windows 95 is just sort of an application
running on top of DOS. I don't know all the specifics there, but I do know it's not that simple. There is more going on. Unfortunately though, because we installed it from floppy disk, we don't have absolutely everything. This is all we get in the Media folder, just The Microsoft Sound, and that's all.
[95 startup sound plays] And most unfortunately,
none of the 3D screensavers! Aw, dang it, man! Like, those are pretty part
and parcel to Windows 95. That's just, you know. You gotta have those! But you can change the appearance. Make things ridiculous. Nope, that's hideous. We still have easy access and compatibility with Windows 3.1. You know, 16-bit programs,
your Entertainment Packs, and Maxis games, in my case in particular. I was always, oh, so hopeful that my old Maxis games would
still work, and they do. Yeah, dude. Being able to still have
compatibility with these. [bulldozing sound effects] Quite nice. Oh, we got WordPad instead of Write. A relatively capable word processor, considering what we're
coming from with 3.1. And then, of course, Paint
instead of Paintbrush. Very similar functionality, but with expanded
usability and capability, and just messed up my
own name there, but yeah. You can just whatever and, oh, man. It's really annoying me that I don't have my favorite screensavers and sound effects and MIDI files and things like that. So I'm curious if I can just install them directly from the CD version, or what? Because I know that you can go into this Add/Remove Programs here and then add things to the Windows setup. The thing is, I've
already added everything that was available in
the floppy disk version, so there's no option. Even when I select the Windows files that I have on the hard disk, the only thing it comes up with is this Document Templates thing. So let's just see what happens when we get the CD-ROM going here. It did not autoplay. That was a new feature of 95 as well, but we can just force that.
[95 startup sound plays] Yeah! Go the tour. Microsoft Exposition? I don't even remember what that is. Oh, okay. Multimedia catalog of crap. Good ol' "Hover!" Cool video clips! [chuckles] Let's see if we can do this, though. Add/Remove. This is what I'm
curious about right here. Don't think it's gonna let me. [sighs] That sucks. I mean, I can just copy
things over manually, but yeah, I was hoping
that it would let me just install the extra things. That being said, let's just
go to where we all wanna go. [chuckles] The FUNSTUFF folder. So we have the game "Hover!" here. We have some sample pictures, like this lovely Windows
95 bitmap, which... Heck yeah. And, let's see. Videos, yes. Here we go. So we have these, I
guess, lower-res versions, and also those high-performance versions. So you have "Good Times,
Bad Times" by Edie Brickell. Music video here. ♪ Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh ♪ Yeah! We have a trailer for "Rob Roy." Weirdly. This always confused me
as a kid. Like, what? - How fine you are to me.
- What the heck? And we got Weezer's
"Buddy Holly," of course. [upbeat rock and roll] - [Announcer] "Happy Days" is... [upbeat pop rock] - [Clint] We've got
these Windows animations by Bill Plympton. Yeah, man. Good stuff. Such memories. [chuckles] Ah, it was just amazing being able to see this kind of multimedia, full-motion video and
everything on your computer. Holy crap. Weezer was always my
favorite, though. I mean... ♪ Don't care about that ♪ Yeah, I had no idea how in
the heck they made this, getting themselves into
"Happy Days." [laughs] ♪ I don't care about that ♪ I've seem some making-of, like behind-the-scenes
things since then, of course. It's a fascinating process, but yeah. What awesome stuff. And, of course, "Hover."
I mean, come on now. Ooh, dear. Well. [chuckles] It's playable. Of course, no music here
either because it's MIDI and that's not working in
Windows for whatever reason. See if we can go full-screen. Okay. Well, yeah. That's actually... Well, a little bit worse. But hey, whatever. I would've been happy
with this back in the day, and I was, daggone it! Yeah! And I got stuck. Yeah, the entire point of this
really was to just show off the game-making graphical
capabilities, performance, and all that kinda stuff under Windows. You know, not having to go into DOS to do something like this. Seeing this kinda thing run
in a Windows environment was honestly pretty darned impressive. This is before DirectX, Direct3D, DirectSound, any of that stuff. That wasn't until after
Windows 95 launched. There it is. [chuckles] Oh, good ol' "Hover!" All right, so I really wanted to get those stupid 3D screensavers going, and I thought, okay, I could
just copy over the files and it would work, right? Well, turns out not exactly. Copying them over from
another installation just led to them not working at all. So that got me wondering, okay, was it really that the floppy disk version didn't include the screensavers, or is the hardware here
just not supported, and it knows that and
didn't give me the option? So I went back to the CD-ROM upgrade disc that we unboxed earlier and started that installation
process just to see, and it didn't show up there either.
Turns out those particular screensavers are just not part of
the original RTM release. And are included on OSR 2 or higher. Whatever though, I went
ahead and completed the Windows 95 installation there and installed the rest of
the stuff, and hey, look. Now we have the proper
registration information to me now, instead of whoever owned
that floppy disk version. Not only that, but installed
all the other sound schemes that I was kinda hoping
we would get, so... [jungle critters chittering] Yeah, you got your
Jungle theme right there. [steely tune chimes] The Musica scheme. Robotz, I always remember liking this one. [electronic chords hum] And Utopia. [airy tune echoes] Yeah, I remember using that one a lot too. Well anyway, it turns
out what I needed to do to get the screensavers working was actually copy over some OpenGL files that neither the floppy version
or the CD version installed, 'cause again, those are only
on OSR 2 or higher. They show up in that installer just
fine, just not the original release. It totally works now.
It's just extremely slow! [laughs] So video hardware, processor, hard drive, y'know, whatever. It's not
exactly the most optimized for OpenGL screensavers.
But... I don't care, it's all dithered and slow, but I like it regardless. Heck yeah, Flying Windows logo. I always liked that one. Of course, Pipes. Which I believe this was
also on a previous version of Windows NT as well. Obviously 3D Text. A staple of doctors' and
dentists' offices everywhere for like a decade and half. And my favorite, 3D Maze. Sure, it runs slow, and, uh... [chuckles] Well, I don't really care. This screensaver was
always such a fun thing to watch as a kid. I always wished I could control it. I've seen some homebrew versions that people have kinda hacked together where you can control it. But, ya know, it's just a maze, and you watch it complete itself. With the little rat running
around in there somewhere, and you occasionally get it flipping over, like that right there. [upside down chuckling] Oh, it's great. It's great! OpenGL doing its thing, even in software rendering, is fantastic. Anyway, that's a whole lot
of the Windows 95 experience that we've experienced. Other than, you know, networking, the email, faxes, going online. I mean, I just don't
have any networking stuff in this machine right now. And Briefcase, that's just
for synchronizing files between like a desktop and
a laptop, other systems. Whatever. One of the other things, though, that I have to go into here is the Microsoft Plus!
Companion for Windows 95. It really feels incomplete without it. This right here is kind of
a necessity in my opinion. It just... I mean, you gotta put it on there. You get things like "the
Internet." [chuckles] But also 11 classic audiovisual themes, programs like System Agent and DriveSpace, and the legend, "3D Pinball Space Cadet." It's a shame they didn't put a screenshot of that on the back. It's a real selling point. I'll never know why they didn't put that. It's just a little text blurb. Anyway, let's unbox this
and install and enjoy! Yeah, also sealed. Never actually opened one of these. To be honest, only ever had copies of a copy of a copy
of it. [chuckle of piracy] Or it would come preinstalled. All right, some familiar-looking stuff. Yeah, this was released for $50 shortly after Windows 95 itself, and acted as sort of an
expansion pack to Windows 95. Honestly, it feels like maybe this stuff could've been included
on the CD, but whatever. How pleasant of an orange. There was also a Plus! pack for kids. I might have a copy of
that one around somewhere. But yeah, this is the main one. Desktop themes, visual enhancements. System Agent, enhancements
to DriveSpace, compression. Internet Explorer. So yeah, if you didn't have that Internet Explorer whatever kit in your version of Windows 95,
then you can get it here too. Dial-Up Networking Server, ooh. And, of course, "3D Pinball." The demo version of "Full
Tilt! Pinball" from Maxis. But yeah, let's just go ahead
and get this sucker installed. "Welcome to the internet setup." "You'll need a modem." I don't have one. So ah, cool. We now have the rest of
Microsoft Plus! going though. So, it begins with the desktop themes. My goodness, these bring back memories. Like good ol' Dangerous Creatures here. Inside your Computer, Leonardo da Vinci, More Windows, Mystery,
Nature, Science, Sports, '60s USA, Golden Era, Travel, Windows 95. And every single time
you click on one of 'em, it has to import... I guess just the background? I don't know. It's taking a little bit of time for every single one of these on this 486. So, uh... [laughs] Eh, it's trying, you know. Wow, kinda puts a damper on just randomly going
through 'em all, huh? Yeah, I think we gotta go
with Inside your Computer. Always like everything about this one. And we'll need to restart the machine to use the other things. But I'm gonna take that
opportunity to shut down fully. [power hums down]
[computer beeps and boops] [chuckles] Oh, I forgot
about that sound effect. Anyway, yeah, just to
show this right here, because it is an AT hard on/off
power supply and everything, so you get this "now safe to
turn off your computer" message and you have to physically turn it off. 'Cause yeah, it can't just switch off the computer on its own. There's no soft power switch
on this kind of older machine. By the time we got a 95 machine in 1997, it had soft power on/off, and I was like, "Dang it! Where's that
cool message?" [laughs] And yeah, it does add this Microsoft Plus! splash right there. And you get different
customized splash screens depending on what you install. You can an Internet Explorer
one, Microsoft Plus! one. Different OEM versions
will have logos on there. But I never really liked this one. I just like the original, so
I'll probably put it back. [electronic tune warbles] All right, so it has installed
the internet over here. Which, yeah, same thing we saw earlier that we can't do anything about. We don't have a modem. The System Agent, or what is that? The Scheduler? I never liked this either. I mean, there were useful things. You could have it automatically ScanDisk, disk defrag, whatever. But, I mean... I can't wait! Gotta go to "Space Cadet." "3D Pinball." [table powers up]
[machinery clacks] Again, not gonna get any music because of the dang MIDI
not working, but you know. [table thumping and zapping] Like, we should at least
have that Crystal FM for FM Synthesis, but
it just doesn't work. MPU-401? I thought that was just for the GamePort. But I got these other
media files in here now. We can at least try... Yeah, Passport. This came with 95. [funky music] Hey!
[funky music] All right.
[funky music] [funky music] Well, awesome. Definitely should've activated
that earlier. [laughs] Okay, let's go back to "Space Cadet" now that we got some dadgum music. [table powers up] [upbeat synth music] Ah!
[upbeat synth music] [table thumping and zapping] So much better. Full tilt! That's proper. Man, still
wish I had FM, but whatever. Well, at this point, now that everything's working quite well, I'm just going through a bunch of Windows 95-related memories I have. Anybody remember the Duke Nukem themes that came with "Atomic Edition"? Yeah, you got different backgrounds and sound effects and screensavers and all kinds of good
Duke Nukem-related stuff. Got the little stripper animation. Little eyeball cursor. - [Duke] Mmm! - [Clint] Mmm! - [Duke] Mmm!
- [Clint] Mmm! - [Duke] Aha! - [Clint] Aha! [laughs] That's supremely stupid. - [Duke] Hello! [sighs wistfully] - [Clint] All these screensavers. The Body Parts one, where- - [Duke] Hello! - [Clint] Yeah, random
gibs and monster bits just start falling down. [gibs splatting] Ah, memories. Well, let's keep the memories going with some games and whatnot. And yeah, I've got five, actually, going in the multi-CD-ROM changer we have. As a reminder, these are the specs of the LGR Woodgrain 486 as it is now. And sure, I run "Duke 3D" and "Doom" and "Commander Keen" and "Jazz Jackrabbit" and stuff all day long on this machine. It's well-equipped for that kinda thing. However, when we start
getting into Windows 95, that opens up a whole
new territory of stuff. So, let's begin with one of my favorites. One of my key early Windows 95 memories, "Lode Runner Online: Mad Monk's Revenge." My uncle Mark had this on
his Windows 95 computer. Really, possibly the
first Windows 95 machine I spent a whole big chunk of time on. - Phew! Sierra! - [Clint] Always loved that little guy. [adventurous music] Yes! Music is always highly
memorable with this game. [suspenseful music] Well, so far, so good. It's running perfectly fine. Which I expected. I could actually run this
in Windows 3.1, but yeah. Or at least you could, "Lode Runner"... The one before this, "The Legend Returns." Aw, crap. [laughs] Well. Anyway. [Jake screams] Next CD you have in
here, "Age of Empires." Now, I know for sure that I have never tried
playing this on a 486. This is from 1997, so very much meant for
Pentium-class machines. [wondrous orchestral music] Well. [laughs] It's trying. It at least
got the video to play. [unit chatting obediently] Well... It's not actually as bad
as I thought it would be, but, uh, it's not ideal either, of course. Totally would've played this
if this is the only system I had to play this on, 'cause
I just like this game so much. But yeah, you can see it's pretty laggy. And of course, I am just
running this in 640x480. No point in increasing
resolution beyond that on this machine. But yeah. I'm gonna say this is playable,
all things considered. Obviously it would get a whole lot worse once you get a whole
lot of action going on, which is gonna be a good
chunk of the game, but... Dude, "Age of Empires" on a 486. [cackles] That's a first for me. So I was gonna run the "Need
for Speed: Special Edition," but I know that can go on
a 486 and run through DOS. Yeah, I've already experienced that. However, "Need for Speed II," that's a bit more of a tall ask. This one actually put up a
warning during the installation, saying, "Hey, your
processor is not gonna fly. But you can install it
anyway if you want to!" So I said, "Sure." [cars zooming past] I mean, hey, FMV working. [suspenseful techno music] Oh. [laughing] Oh, no! Well. Oh, those menus. Ooh, it's trying so hard! Okay. Okay, yeah. Wow. Oh, that's... That's a bit of a thing, huh? Oh! Well. All right, so I've put all of the settings as low as they will go. [energetic techno music] I mean, hey. We're on a 486, a VLB 486. - [Announcer] Three! Two! One! Go! [tires screech]
[laughs] Hmm, you know, I'm just
impressed that it runs at all. [tires still screeching] Wow. Input lag is absurd, but of course, so is everything here. Can I crash this guy? Yeah! Still got it. Okay, let's see what happens if we put this sucker in full-screen. Ooh. Honestly, it's not much worse. [laughs] Again, just impressed
that it does it at all. I mean, this is "Need for
Speed II" on a 486. This... You don't do this. Oh, boy. That's the power
of Windows 95, I guess. It lets you try. That's the fun part. Wow. Yeah! Coolest 486 slideshow ever. All righty, well, I suppose I'm going to
call this video here, even though I could very
easily go on for hours more just going back and revisiting
old Windows 95 memories. Stuff that's just intrinsically linked to this OS and that era, especially with educational
and edutainment things. Your encyclopedias like Encarta
and Compton's, of course. Tons of kids' games, like
"Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon" and "Buzzy Explores the Airport" and "Widget Workshop" and "SimTown." And all kids of other things for me that come to mind with Windows 95, like "POD," "Hellbender," "Deadly Tide," the "Microsoft Arcade" and
"Revenge of Arcade" kinda packs. Not to mention just even Microsoft Office, and early internet browsing in
general on different browsers and creating webpages
in FrontPage Express, and just so many memories. I mean, this barely even
scratches the surface. This was really a golden time, in my own experience, you
know, growing up in the '90s. And revisiting Windows 95 at all, especially in its original form like this, even though you can never really go back. I mean, it's just not the same, but it's a fun little visit nonetheless and I hope that you enjoyed watching. Do definitely put some of
your memories in the comments. Please, I love reading those stories about how you first
experienced Windows 95, what kinda computer it was on. You know, was it at
school? Was it a library? Was it your own computer, was it a friend's, a
relatives, or just whatever? Any of those little details all add up into something that becomes
a very rich core memory set, and often for me, that does rely on the
operating system itself. I don't know, it's just it
wraps all of those memories in a very GUI-focused
way, if that makes sense. And if you did enjoy this
episode, then definitely check out some of my others on Windows 95 builds, and computers and software and
games and stuff of this era. It's something I love covering
and will continue to do so here on LGR in the future. And as always, thanks for watching!
