computergeek92 wrote:

By the way how did you manage to run Windows 95, Windows 3.1 and DOS 6.22 on the same computer? I thought Win95 would replace those earlier OS. Multiple hard drives, or a hack?

Easy. Install DOS (and possibly Win 3.1) first, then install Windows 95 to the same partition (put Windows in a different directory than 3.1). Now use F4 or F8 on startup to boot the older DOS version from the same partition.

Merged.

Ah, the old days of Win95! Sure, it wasn't my first experience with computers, but my first system (Pent Pro-based desktop whose specs I've long forgotten) included it and other neat things, so I'm rather fond of the OS. However, I don't find myself using Win95 anymore on my 90s-early 2000s systems, instead favouring Win98SE.

On the flip side, I recently managed to get Win95 for NEC PC-9800 series working in emulation, so perhaps I'll boot that to celebrate, and maybe install that on real hardware should the opportunity arise.

Lastly, no Win95 celebration would be complete without mentioning this video, I think. 😜

brassicGamer wrote:

But the most significant thing I remember was DirectX. The first game I ever saw in Windows (I dual booted to DOS for gaming, strictly) was something called The Hive and I just remember thinking "Games in Windows? That'll never catch on. Nice try M$".

I remember "The Hive". That game's installer updated my video driver without asking and caused serious breakage. I've had a grudge against that game ever since. 20 years later the disc case has sat preserved and untouched on the shelf, like operating system Kryptonite.
I need to set up a Win95 machine, and if I do, I guess maybe I'll install Hive again, just for old times sake. I don't think it was much of a game, but I guess I can play it once more after 20 years. But if it breaks my drivers again I'm breaking the disc.

Similarly I had a friend who owned The Hive and never played thorugh it ever, gathering dust.....

It was on the first two machines I owned, a P200MMX with 8MB EDO RAM and a Vaio with a P166MMX and 16MB RAM respectively. We figured out the monitor I was using at the time was frying my video cards, very odd. I was 3-4 years old playing around with hand-me-down machines in 2001-2 at the time. I have the opportunity to retrieve those machines from my mom's house, I'll get to it sometime soon. Need to find another PCI video card for the other, as I already have the Rage XL leftover from the PIII Katmai for one. It'll be interesting to see how badly I murdered the OS installs on those as a lad. Dad told me once that he had to reinstall the OS at least once a week. It got to the point that he'd just leave it with default drivers and all because at the time I didn't know the difference.

oerk wrote:

Easy. Install DOS (and possibly Win 3.1) first, then install Windows 95 to the same partition (put Windows in a different directory than 3.1). Now use F4 or F8 on startup to boot the older DOS version from the same partition.

Setup will refuse when it's not an upgrade edition if you try to install a new 95 with a Win3.1 setup though.

shamino wrote:

brassicGamer wrote:

But the most significant thing I remember was DirectX. The first game I ever saw in Windows (I dual booted to DOS for gaming, strictly) was something called The Hive and I just remember thinking "Games in Windows? That'll never catch on. Nice try M$".

I remember "The Hive". That game's installer updated my video driver without asking and caused serious breakage. I've had a grudge against that game ever since. 20 years later the disc case has sat preserved and untouched on the shelf, like operating system Kryptonite.
I need to set up a Win95 machine, and if I do, I guess maybe I'll install Hive again, just for old times sake. I don't think it was much of a game, but I guess I can play it once more after 20 years. But if it breaks my drivers again I'm breaking the disc.

Maybe installing a video driver newer than what the game provided will prevent the problem?

I remember seeing those Windows 95 boxes on the shelves in Wal-Mart when it was just released. Hard to believe that was 20 years ago!

computergeek92 wrote:

shamino wrote:

brassicGamer wrote:

But the most significant thing I remember was DirectX. The first game I ever saw in Windows (I dual booted to DOS for gaming, strictly) was something called The Hive and I just remember thinking "Games in Windows? That'll never catch on. Nice try M$".

I remember "The Hive". That game's installer updated my video driver without asking and caused serious breakage. I've had a grudge against that game ever since. 20 years later the disc case has sat preserved and untouched on the shelf, like operating system Kryptonite.
I need to set up a Win95 machine, and if I do, I guess maybe I'll install Hive again, just for old times sake. I don't think it was much of a game, but I guess I can play it once more after 20 years. But if it breaks my drivers again I'm breaking the disc.

Maybe installing a video driver newer than what the game provided will prevent the problem?

It might. Anything I put together today would be different hardware than our family PC back then, and the drivers will probably be newer. I don't know if Hive compares the driver dates or not. I hate how it presumes to update without asking, but there's certainly a good chance that it might leave the drivers alone if they're newer.

Back then I needed to use an older video driver, because the newer one was unstable on my system. Really, we just had an unstable motherboard, but for whatever reason the older driver was working okay while the newer one induced lots of crashes.
It seems like I would have just reinstalled the old driver at that point. I don't remember if I was able to do that, or if it caused some other lingering problem.

This was on one of those cheap PC-Chips 486 boards with the anonymous chipset with a sticky label on it.
The situation with Hive was kind of ironic because I had already decided that DOS games were crashing all the time, while Windows games were stable. That was why somebody gave me a Windows game for Christmas, but then it went and destabilized Windows.