Published Works,  Technology Column

Tech 10

TECH #10
July 7, 1997

486DX2 66Mhz
I actually added this picture much later, but this is very close to what my then home computer looked like

I feel your pain. After months of careful deliberation the decision arrived to load Windows 95 on the old home computer. The 486DX2 66Mhz pal in the den. Pretty much the minimum for Win95.

There are two kinds of Win95 disks. The kind you get with a new PC and the upgrade version for systems with an older version of Windows. For the sake of writing this column I used the spare copy of Win95 that came with my office computer. Bill Gates, I promise to uninstall that version and BUY a disk from you. Honest.

It’s a little scary to wipe your drive of everything but the DOS program and set-up files, but wipe you must. I did manage to save the time of reloading data files I had saved in a separate directory. The bad news is that each program loaded under an older version of Windows has initiation files in windows that will be missing from Win95. The good news is that compared to younger incarnations, Win95 is a much easier tool for loading and clearing off programs.

I found that getting on-line is now a bit more cumbersome with Win95. Abandoning the original version of Internet Explorer which comes built in, my super-duper version of Netscape is loaded and my main surfboard. I hate to admit it after being so hesitant to try it, but I really like the new windows. And if I can do it, believe me so can you! Just be ready to spend a whole day waiting for that flashing neon-blue banner that says “Windows 95 is about to run on this computer for the first time”.