With XP i would try pablos software, it was very easy to setup home servers with XP
https://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com/html/q … ftp_server.html

marxveix wrote on 2025-11-11, 15:03:

With XP i would try pablos software, it was very easy to setup home servers with XP
https://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com/html/q … ftp_server.html

Hello. Although I don't have any usage for a server (I actually have one with modern hardware for jellyfin) thank you for the suggestion. I'm curious about what this is.

iiamsiincere wrote on 2025-11-11, 15:09:

marxveix wrote on 2025-11-11, 15:03:

With XP i would try pablos software, it was very easy to setup home servers with XP
https://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com/html/q … ftp_server.html

Hello. Although I don't have any usage for a server (I actually have one with modern hardware for jellyfin) thank you for the suggestion. I'm curious about what this is.

I have used Quick ’n Easy Servers long time ago with XP, but they should work even with Windows 98.

All those OSs fly on hardware from well after their heyday, and the file formats of applications designed to run on them take up much less memory, granting them a new lease on daily driving life. I started with retrocomputing for gaming reasons, but have since grown to appreciate how much more proficient I can be at regular tasks like composition and analysis using vintage applications on semi-vintage hardware (whereas contemporary Microsoft or LibreOffice versions and web browsers with all their background applets tend to clog my modern laptop to a halt). I am also considering whether older development systems (like the first editions of Visual Studio) from that simpler period may make a viable start for my children learning how to program.

iiamsiincere wrote on 2025-11-11, 14:57:

I was curious of different ideas and use case scenarios people may have to still use Windows 95, 98 or XP.

Are games not a use case? ;P

But if you were asking around for other ideas, yes there are use cases. If you used these OS in a professional environment and have a catalog of old software or custom applications that run or needs this, there is no reason to throw this stuff out. You can start using it again. Although, considering your age, maybe this is unlikely you did professional work or had the thought to preserve a working environment all these years.

The other option is for some kind of tweener machine, because there are reasons to bridge old to new OS. Because the inevitable deprecation that companies do.

I hear others suggesting server, and well, it is an option, but given the age and security concerns, there are so many better options already, for both old and new hardware. So those OS isn't really a good one to deploy for a server, unless it is the tweener idea just mentioned above. But in a server still, you could get away with using something else in many ways. So it'd probably be something really specific that best fits that OS.

BaronSFel001 wrote on 2025-11-11, 16:53:

All those OSs fly on hardware from well after their heyday, and the file formats of applications designed to run on them take up much less memory, granting them a new lease on daily driving life. I started with retrocomputing for gaming reasons, but have since grown to appreciate how much more proficient I can be at regular tasks like composition and analysis using vintage applications on semi-vintage hardware (whereas contemporary Microsoft or LibreOffice versions and web browsers with all their background applets tend to clog my modern laptop to a halt). I am also considering whether older development systems (like the first editions of Visual Studio) from that simpler period may make a viable start for my children learning how to program.

I agree with you on this. I know there's moments where I need to open Word and have to force myself not to stop what I'm doing to check email or social media or to have to deal with being forced to push an update that potentially breaks the software that is just supposed to do a simple task, like word processing. Computers has always been more of a 3rd or 4th option for education/wonder/entertainment, but I also wanted to apply that thinking for my potential future family as far as using older tech to educate children on music, reading, etc.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2025-11-11, 17:00:

Are games not a use case? ;P […]
Show full quote

iiamsiincere wrote on 2025-11-11, 14:57:

I was curious of different ideas and use case scenarios people may have to still use Windows 95, 98 or XP.

Are games not a use case? ;P

But if you were asking around for other ideas, yes there are use cases. If you used these OS in a professional environment and have a catalog of old software or custom applications that run or needs this, there is no reason to throw this stuff out. You can start using it again. Although, considering your age, maybe this is unlikely you did professional work or had the thought to preserve a working environment all these years.

The other option is for some kind of tweener machine, because there are reasons to bridge old to new OS. Because the inevitable deprecation that companies do.

I hear others suggesting server, and well, it is an option, but given the age and security concerns, there are so many better options already, for both old and new hardware. So those OS isn't really a good one to deploy for a server, unless it is the tweener idea just mentioned above. But in a server still, you could get away with using something else in many ways. So it'd probably be something really specific that best fits that OS.

Although I've setup Win XP and 7 machines for the purpose of just gaming, yes, gaming is a use case. I just didn't consider it the first idea as most people on the internet now a days, aware of gaming and retro computing, usually look at that as the first thing you can do.

Yea, I'm 38 and I didn't take a more comprehensive interest into computing until I was already in my early to mid 20s and by then, Windows 8 was the main OS from Windows (I was using Windows 7 and when Android became a thing, I dived into that as opposed to iOS). I say that to say, no, I wouldn't think to preserve too many things but I haven't found anyone online who has a comprehensive amount of information in regards to early 2000s professional Sound Cards used for recording music. I would like to get more into that. I have some older hardware from EMU and M-Audio but those were from surface level research online. For me, I'd be open to learning about servers on older hardware/OS but no interest in participating unless there's a practical use for me or if I had a youtube channel where it could make me money.

Gaming of course is the big one.
Virtual machines still can't emulate 3D or sound API's as good as real hardware.

WinXP is the most flexible for this as some XP era games dont like more modern OS's or at least the x64 version. It can also run the vast majority of Win9x era games.

For the games that aren't XP compatible Win98 makes alot of sense as it can run 99.9% of Win9x era games.
Win95 only makes sense as its less resource heavy on older slower hardware.

Outside of games I can only think of Industrial uses where the software needs direct access the the hardware.
Even for software that is incompatible with newer OS's that don't need that direct hardware access, VM's are probably the better bet as you can do things like take snapshots, as a quick and easy backup.

chinny22 wrote on 2025-11-13, 05:22:

Outside of games I can only think of Industrial uses where the software needs direct access the the hardware.
Even for software that is incompatible with newer OS's that don't need that direct hardware access, VM's are probably the better bet as you can do things like take snapshots, as a quick and easy backup.

i was thinking that but then why have 9x and PC ports when you can get raspberry pi or similar SBC with its lower power requirements yet often more impressive specs

when it comes to 9x the only use cases i think of are old games and maybe some other applications from back then. Same with XP, just without DOS

With the fiasco of current design software solutions, abusive fees, not as good reliability and on top of all forced AI, recently I've recreated my original design stack from back in the day in a XP workstation (running via KVM) a simple 2 GB VM more than enough to run all the Adobe CS2 suite (the best one imo) and Macromedia MX suite 2004 too for Flash and Dreamweaver.

It has been a godsend, I'm creating web assets like back in the day and are perfectly serviceable in the modern web too, I just need to create everything with a very high resolution but I'm working with our good old snappy software that is super reliable. Once I'm done I just transfer them all via SMB to my other linux workstation and then to my webserver for publishing.

Then I have 2 server 2003 R2 machines (x86 ver) running a legacy server software for some old online games which only run on these specific setups (mssql 2005). The players connect from windows 11/10 but underneath is good old server 2003 hosting everything.

I'm also using Windows 98SE (this one via 86box) on the windows 10 VM to test website and apps for backwards compatibility as well as playing some old games.

I'm hosting everything in a virtual host running on RHEL, virtualization is super convenient to host all these services in a very secure way, mix all the best from our old school computing days with the modern stuff from today.