[German]Another short topic that has already been circulated and cheered on in blogs last week. It is now possible to run Windows 95 as an app on other operating systems such as Linux, macOS and Windows. I took a quick look at the project to see if it was worth of.
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A fun project by Felix Rieseberg
Slack developer Felix Rieseberg has packed a version of Windows 95 so that it can run as an electron app under Windows, Linux or macOS. In a tweet he writes:
I put Windows 95 into an Electron app that now runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux. It's a terrible idea that works shockingly well. I'm so sorry.
Go grab it here: https://t.co/MIoFpezuFi pic.twitter.com/YquOnOGrSz
— Felix Rieseberg (@felixrieseberg) 23. August 2018
I have briefly tried the 32-bit standalone version under Windows 7. At least this version is (in my hardware environment) virtually unusable. It runs slow, if you release the mouse from the captured window via ESC, then two mouse pointers appeared on my screen. The mouse pointer is also no longer captured, when the window is clicked. The mouse pointer, which was active in the window, reacted strongly delayed and cannot be positioned completely in the window (as soon as the second mouse pointer of the host is visible).
Still open questions
I would also say, that the 'Windows 95 licensing issue' haven't been resolved – I'm not aware about Microsoft's position of distributing Windows 95 to the public – but maybe I've overlooked something.
Since a while I use a test bed under Windows, where I can check if a program is vulnerable to DLL hijacking or security issues. In this test environment there are modules by Stefan Kanthak, which may triggers an alarm if something is not properly programmed (see also my article here). Right after the start of Windows95.exe the test environment reports that an entry point is not found (see following screenshot).
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Then the app is closing. The other file Updater.exe created more than a dozen warning dialogs in the test environment. So the programs are vulnerable to DLL hijacking. Although Windows95.exe and Updater.exe executables do not require administrative privileges, it's not a good idea to have an app with that behavior (dependencies) on a machine. Felix Rieseberg also offers .exe files with installers for Windows, where administrative rights may be required. In the light of the limited benefits and the problems mentioned above, I personally would suggest 'don't use this app'.
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