Windows 95 offered, at long last, a well designed document-oriented desktop shell that worked much like the 1984 Macintosh Finder. It also included a new way of finding installed applications through a "Start" menu. And it included the same networking abilities as Windows for Workgroups.
It integrated the ability to run 32-bit applications similar to Windows NT or Windows 3.1 with Win32s. It no longer ran on a separate DOS product. 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 still ran on top of DOS, but bundled its own special "Windows 95" DOS (AKA MS-DOS 7). It could even still make use of DOS drivers. The 95 architecture was continued with Windows 98.
Most 95 CDs are NOT BOOTABLE. If a download does not include a boot floppy, please see Microsoft Windows Boot Disks
If the listed serials below do not work for a specific release, please see the Serials thread
You may also override the install type (no serial needed) by creating a file name MSBATCH.INF with the lines "[Setup]", and then "ProductType=1", placing that in the Win95 setup folder, and then running setup.
VMWare and VirtualBox are problematic with Windows 95. If you use those, you may need to disable various acceleration features first, and/or install the Windows 95 CPU speed fixes. Windows 95 has many issues on faster machines or VMs, requiring a number of patches in order to operate. Consider emulators like x86Box or PCem instead.
Other Windows Versions:
| 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |
The followings are updates made by either Microsoft or other third-parties/members to patch out a bug included in Windows 95 operating system, or to improve system's performance.
The updates listed below are only provided as a convenience to those installing a fresh Windows 95 on hardware or a VM. This is not an all-inclusive list of updates.
Note: One of the files in the DST patch may be incorrectly flagged as malware. The patch installer is non-Microsoft because the genuine patch is for XP only. If you discover any real problems from this patch, please let us know.
Download name | Version | Language | Architecture | File size | Downloads |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
AMDK6 Update | English | 245.79KB | 2 | ||
DCOM95 OLE Update | English | 1.18MB | 2 | ||
Microsoft DirectX 8.0 | 8.0 | English | 11.54MB | 4 | |
NTLM 2 and Active Directory Update | English | 2.91MB | 4 | ||
USB Update for Win95 OSR 2 | English | 1.16MB | 4 | ||
USB-Supplemental Disk [Dutch] (3.5-1.44mb) | USB-Supplemental Disk | Dutch | 1.3MB | 1 | |
Win95 Comctl Leak Fix | English | 307.66KB | 1 | ||
Win95 Fast CPU Fixes | English | 2.94MB | 15 | ||
Win95 Font Smoothing Tool | English | 114.36KB | 1 | ||
Win9x DST Updates | English | 281.09KB | 1 | ||
Win9x Installer 2.0 | 2.0 | English | 1.69MB | 1 | |
Windows 95 DUN 1.4 Update | DUN 1.4 Update | English | 1.85MB | 1 | |
Windows 95 Service Pack 1 | Service Pack 1 | English | 1.2MB | 1 | |
Windows Chicago build 224 Checked/Debug Patch | 4.0.224 Checked Prerelease | English | 14.8KB | 3 | |
Winsock 2 Update | English | 923.88KB | 1 | ||
Year 2000 Update (OEM) (ISO) | Year 2000 Update (OEM) | English | 62.7MB | 4 |