Is anybody still using Windows 95?

When I was still working at Arecibo Observatory, there was definitely a couple systems running Win95 that were considered data critical. And they were still running on ~486 hardware IIRC.<p>They hadn&#x27;t been replaced as they were running some custom ISA interface boards developed by a research group in the 90s, and the community was still using the data output by the machine. And since it had been trucking along for ~20 years, convincing them they needed to develop a replacement was hard.<p>When I left, it was still there, chugging along. And once a day, a tech would wander in with a floppy and copy some data off and wander back to the control room where a USB floppy drive was attached to a workstation specifically to read this floppy and let the tech copy the data files off to a network location.

I help to maintain an isolated network of desktops running Windows 95. It&#x27;s a complex EHR system with multiple clients.<p>It&#x27;s a family business, and the software works really well (a medical niche), so the investment to update the stack doesn&#x27;t make any sense. (And there&#x27;s no need to bother clinicians neither with things that don&#x27;t add value) I have a VM for tweaking and working with it. I have multiple ETL scripts that extract the data to a modern ERP.<p>I don&#x27;t have access to the source code, but I have tried to reverse engineer it from multiple angles. Essentially it&#x27;s a 16 Bits client written on Delphi with a database (dBase) that doesn&#x27;t support multiple readers or writers, shared via a network drive. Clients read files from the shared drive and create locks to avoid multiple clients working in the same data. That&#x27;s the main source of pain, but the clinicians adapt to it in a week or so.<p>I haven&#x27;t seen yet a modern system as complete as this one. There are multiple clinical centers in the area using the same software (25ish) and the 2-3 that moved into newer systems regretted greatly.<p>The market is too small for any new developments. But the guy who built it in the 90&#x27;s maintains it and earns enough to live happily.

I have industrial machines that run the user interface on Windows 3.1.<p>There was a fad for a while of not using PLCs, and instead using &#x27;regular computers&#x27;, at least for a portion of the system (usually a PLC still handled the most performance sensitive parts).<p>When you have a production line that&#x27;s 100 feet of steel, motors, ovens, and other equipment, and the cost of redoing all the control systems is quoted at hundreds of thousands of dollars, then why change it? It still works.

Reminds me of George RR Martin (author of the Game of Thrones books) who uses DOS for writing books.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;technology-27407502" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;technology-27407502</a>

I remember the first computer we had at home. I was five, and Windows 95 actually looked kind of beautiful in all its square and right-angle glory. The first time we interacted with it was to print some Disney character&#x27;s portraits meant to be filled in with color. I also remember playing Rally Championship on that, as well as the first Tomb Raider (1996), which looked <i>incredibly</i> immersive; we were mesmerized by it, and frightened! Entering that ominous cave at the beginning was scary as hell. There&#x27;s nothing that evokes that kind of feelings for me anymore.

When I worked for Boeing there was some critical factory equipment that still ran on Windows 95 and even Windows 3.1. IIRC, the manufacturers had gone out of business so Boeing actually fabricated parts as needed to keep them running.

I recently got to witness the delicate use of an atomic force microscope from a very crude GUI on a Windows 95 computer. I was told by the person in charge of the lab that of course they could find a more recent tool but it would be too expensive and not worth it while the computer keeps working well.

I enjoy nostalgia as much as anyone, but there&#x27;s no real need today. While attractive, this was a particularly atrocious line of OS in the reliability department.<p>The mind boggles at using it in a mission-critical environment and speaks to how dire and ridiculous the situation was in the late 90s due to Microsoft shenanigans and competitor blunders. When folks say to forgive MS now they&#x27;ve changed, perhaps, but point to this post so the damage is not forgotten.<p>Depending on budget one of these paths should be taken:<p>- Twenty year-old hardware is basically free at this point and can run a version of NT. Security&#x2F;cost continues to be an issue however.<p>- Xubuntu or similar + (Wine || DOS&#x2F;VirtualBox) would be more reliable and secure. If an unmaintained driver is a requirement, this might be the best choice.<p>- FreeDOS exists and is pretty good, for the truly ancient.<p>- React OS is a thing as well and there&#x27;s a decent chance it can run older software.<p>Personally, I&#x27;d pick a Xubuntu or Ubuntu Mate LTS and whip up a native GUI in a robust language with plenty tests to replace such equipment.

Quite a lot actually. And even new software is designed these days to ride those dinosauri.<p>Screenshot of one of Sciter&#x27;s customers who develop software for Windows 2000, Solaris 10, HPUX 11, AIX 5, etc : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sciter.com&#x2F;necromancing-sciter-on-windows-2000&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sciter.com&#x2F;necromancing-sciter-on-windows-2000&#x2F;</a>

Got a working copy of XP running in virtual machine on Linux. Gets used for backing up my phone (Nokia E72) and managing the settings on audio DSP board i use in the studio (minidsp). All aging software backed up ready to reinstall if needed again one day.

Yes, I use it to run Mach 3 CNC with my small desktop Taig CNC milling machine. I run it on an old pentium 2 computer that was made when computers still had parallel ports (needed to interface with the CNC drive box). Ain&#x27;t broke, im not fixing it.

Probably running some point of sale, ATM or industrial machines where it isn&#x27;t cost effective to upgrade. However, they are likely running super-customized versions of it. End users are likely running it in a VM.

As long as it&#x27;s not connected to a network I guess. I wonder though is someone still scanning for Win95 machines? Maybe it&#x27;s safer to use it these days than it ever was during it&#x27;s active period.

Lots of lab instruments run Windows 95. It&#x27;s common on Tektronix oscilloscopes for example. I remember battling with IT when they told me that it could not be connected to any company network. (I won.)

15 years ago I ran into a govt agency relying on win95 to run a terminal client to access some as&#x2F;400 app[0]. It was a tailored win95 under some special maintenance contract. Still surprising but alas.<p>[0] application being the nicest job ROI I&#x27;ve ever had the pleasure to witness, bare terminal UI, zero learning time, zero waiting time, fully dedicated to help you do your task quick and right.

Ha, that brings back memories of trying to get Windows 95 installed on an old 386 machine with a 100 MB harddrive, 2 MB of RAM and only a floppy drive. I think this was 2001 or so, and you could already download the floppy disk set for Windows 95. If I recall correctly, there was a warning during the installation that Windows would be very slow on this machine. The warning was correct. I think it took 10-20 seconds just to open the start menu. I quickly reverted back to Windows 3.11. That machine is stored somewhere at my parent&#x27;s house. Last time I checked, it still worked.

You know all those recent posts here on HN about amateur radio and hams? A lot of those guys are still using Win95.

Definitely. Some lab equipment I used was handled by a computer running CPM.<p>If it works, don&#x27;t touch it.

Yes, albeit not on the job.<p>Many years back I picked up a Toshiba Libretto laptop with Windows 95 on it. Bought it from an old man who was selling various old computing-related knickknacks at the MIT Swap Meet. (Among them was an intact Enigma machine for $250,000!)<p>It sat unused while I pondered what to do with it, then I started watching retrocomputing channels like LGR and the 8-Bit Guy -- and I realized I had a retro PC of my own! So out it came. I installed QBasic and a couple of other things on it. I wonder how long it&#x27;ll keep going for. But it&#x27;s real cool to have -- a netbook-sized, full-power PC from well before the netbook era.

The judiciary of Berlin just migrated from Windows 95 to Windows 10. At the moment the system appears to be next to unusable, and some judges refuesed to work with the new system. Therefore they are considering migrating back to Windows 95 until problems are solved.<p>I am not making this up:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tagesspiegel.de&#x2F;berlin&#x2F;wieder-it-panne-an-berliner-gerichten-richter-koennen-nicht-arbeiten-performanceprobleme-an-computern&#x2F;26169946.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tagesspiegel.de&#x2F;berlin&#x2F;wieder-it-panne-an-berlin...</a>

You&#x27;d be quite surprised how many industrial machines. CNC, or similar run on win 95. Meanwhile the automotive industry basically depends on these machines.

Not Windows 95, but Windows NT 4 lurks below certain theme park rides, reading the PLC diagnostic data and printing out the roller coaster&#x27;s mood once a day for maintenance to file away in a write-only file cabinet.<p>IT (us) have never in 10+ years had to help &#x27;em. Can&#x27;t say the same for the Windows XP-based successor PCs on newer rides though. Something about that 3&#x2F;4&#x2F;586 hardware is just solid.

About 10 years ago, one of my jobs in a pharmacology lab involved using a very specialized microscope driven by a PC running windows 95. A new license would cost an obscene sum of money, and it did exactly what it needed to do. The same setup is still in use and will likely continue to be used until it’s impossible to continue.

Kinda surprised a train would run windows 95 at all and not some sort of custom train specific OS.

Would it be possible to replace it with ReactOS if you really need it?

For a use case like this, I don&#x27;t see the reason to upgrade. It is clearly stable and solving the need.

When I left my old research lab 6 years ago, we had a machine running Windows 3.1

I saw building access system still running on Windows 3.11 3 or 4 years ago.

We still have at least one OS&#x2F;2 machine. Runs 24&#x2F;7 :-)

I do in compaq-armada-7800-laptop

Some (old) ATMs run WinNT4 still.