Hans Tork wrote on 2025-03-30, 04:05:
jakethompson1 wrote on 2025-03-30, 03:13:There was the original version, which is the only retail version MS ever sold (all the way up to Win98 release).
If you installe […]
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Hans Tork wrote on 2025-03-30, 02:33:
Oh 114 C sounds scary.
Anyway what version of Win 95 are you using? From what I have read it seems OSR 2.1 and 2.5 are best. I think I read a post by Leonardo who advocated for 2.1 though reddit says you can get 2.5 but skip IE installation.
There was the original version, which is the only retail version MS ever sold (all the way up to Win98 release).
If you installed SP1 on that, it became Windows 95a. Among other things, it does not support FAT32 nor USB, and will crash on certain AMD K6 processors that do "nothing" too fast (a timing loop). The patch was only provided for 95B and 9C.
The others are "OEM Service Releases" aka OSR.
I don't remember the exact differences between OSR2 or OSR2.1 but there was a version "B" of such.
OSR2.5 is version "C".
Win95 "C" will install with IE 3.02, then attempt to install 4.0 on first boot. You can Ctrl-Alt-Del to stop the IE4 installation.
There is also a process you can follow, where you edit the .INF files before installation, to bypass installing crapware including AOL, CompuServe, etc. You can read about it on the ToasyTech site. Things have come full circle, it's a lot like using an Autounattend.xml file with Windows 11 to install without a Microsoft account.
You can install the "USB Supplement" on 95C if you want, but I never do. If you want USB, use 98. The USB supplement includes an extremely early version of WDM support.
So OSR 2.5 without IE4 is the way to go or should I get the OSR2.1 version. Also I do not plan on using USB of any kind. My KB+mouse combo is PS/2. For file transfer I will be using another PC. I think I might not have mentioned the storage but I got a PATA SSD(used in laptops) with a converter to normal PATA. I have an adapter to connect it to a modern PC.
I'll just clarify why I've stuck to recommending OSR 2/2.1 (B) and not 2.5 (C).
In my testing, I found that version C would sometimes completely hang when installing network drivers, for example - forcing a reboot. This was on the same hardware that had no issues with older versions of Windows 95, and I never could figure out what the root cause for it was. That combined with the fact that you have more work to do if you want a clean install (without IE) - and that realistically there are no added benefits that I could find (all the same updates apply, drivers work, etc.) - and it's an easy recommendation.
I think version C was only done to promote the idea of "IE is now a part of Windows" - as a sort of stopgap between what people knew as Windows 95 and the upcoming Windows 98.
As for the USB-supplements, you should install them on Windows 95 OSR2 regardless of if you intend to use USB-devices, because Microsoft has this way of building interdependency with other updates. For example, I believe AGP support was also tied to having the USB-supplement installed somehow. OSR2 = version B, no USB supplement, OSR 2.1 = B, with USB supplement.
All that said, XUSBSUPP is USBSUPP and USBUPD2 in one package, + tray utility for ejecting USB media + generic storage drivers, so I do recommend that over the original updates bundled on the installation CDs.
It's all in my guide, and the latest system I have in use with Win95 is my Athlon 1.2 GHz with a ViA chipset and an AGP Radeon 9700 Pro. It's a good setup, close to yours, but took some tinkering to figure out how to properly set it up. As you've noted - Windows 9x are kind of flakey if you do the wrong things (or things in the wrong order).
