Compiled and made available in March 1995, this was to be the Final beta build of Windows 95, with the release candidates coming soon after.
Installation
Windows 95’s setup procedure which looks the same as the final release. Towards the end of the install procedure, there is an option to use the program manager as opposed to the 95 interface, in practice this retains the default Windows 95 interface, just opens the program manager window.
Stage 2
The second stage of the install boots into the kernel, and prompts the user to enter information. Also, in Windows 95 you were able to select a time zone by clicking on a location in the map, a feature that was removed in the later versions.
Boot screen, which was altered in the final release. The bottom segment is animated to indicate the system is actively loading. The final release replaces it with colour cycling bar
Desktop
When Windows 95 first boots, a welcome screen is displayed which shows useful tips
When a new plug and play device is detected, Windows will prompt for driver instillation. The Windows 95 CD has a moderate library of drivers on the disc, but this is mostly applicable to hardware from 1991-95
Adding additional features in Windows, some features don’t have their own icons and use the default Windows icon
Build Information
Microsoft Network
Microsoft bundled their own internet service platform, similar to AOL, Apple @World or Compuserve designed to get users online
The presence of this and the lack of a web browser being bundled with this release of the operating system signals that Microsoft intended for MSN to the primary way for users to access the internet, rather than using the http protocol that we all use today. Also TCP/IP not installed by default but can be added using the Windows components, you will be prompted to supply the Windows 95 CD to install it.
Accessories
Party Line
Not sure what this was intended for, some sort of multiplayer game like Microsoft Hearts? It seems to just open a blank window and sits there unresponsive.
Volume Control
The volume control, of which it’s appearance will vary depending on the soundcard and the driver installed
Microsoft Fax
Registration Wizard
You have the option to register your copy of Windows 95, which would send a description of your PC hardware to Microsoft, possibly for them to gauge which is the popular configuration of hardware (surely they can get that from the OEM sales?)
Disk Defragmenter
CD Player
Windows Explorer
The main Windows Explorer interface which gives a tree view on the left sidebar. This replaces the Windows 3.1 File Manager
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer wasn’t included in this build, but was in development from around that time. To install I had to use the installer from oldversion.com, the WinWorldPC version failed to install.
This one failed
But this one worked instead, not entirely sure of the difference between the two installers but it could be due to this OS being a pre-release build.
Once installed a few changes need to be made before you can ‘browse’ the world wide web. Windows 95 did not include TCP/IP by default but could be enabled by installing it thorough the Network applet via the Control Panel.
The first version of Internet Explorer was based on NCSA Mosaic and incorporates various technologies that originated from Mosaic. Attempting to use these browsers on the modern web results in a bunch of garbled html, assuming the browser will even connect to a server. Most times you will gets an unsupported protocol since these browsers do not speak https. Here’s where theoldnet comes in
Trying to install Office 95 on Windows 95, which failed since it checks the OS build number
PCem Specifications
Motherboard: AMI WinBios 486
Processor: AMD Am5x86/P75
Video: Trident TGUI9440
Audio: SoundBlaster 16
Network: NE2000
Mouse: Serial Mouse
Drew1440: Blog 