Windows 95 was one of the most successful operating systems that were ever produced for Desktop computing. I used to love it when it came, it brought so many powerful capabilities to the hitherto humble PC including multimedia, streaming video, video conference (remember NetMeeting), powerful web browsing, mainstream 32-bit computing and so on.

This month, a talented software engineer at Slack, Mr Felix Rieseberg has rekindled the love for Windows 95 by releasing a version of the OS that runs as an application. It sounds insane but seeing it in action it was awesome. Released as an Electron app – meaning it doesn’t modify your current OS in any way – it can be run on Windows 10 or on a Mac OS X. Running Windows on a Mac with no virtualizations to worry about, it feels super cool. You can download the open source project and the binaries from here.

Of course, this is not the first time the “favourite” version of Windows has been ported to modern devices – YouTube has scores of videos showing developers running Windows 95 on their Android phones and The Verge reported running Windows 95 on a smartwatch. What’s different with Felix’s approach is that it is the easiest and is non-destructive to your current setup.

For me, seeing the desktop and user interface of Windows 95 brought so much nicer memories!

Windows 95 as an electron app in Windows 10

Windows 95 as an electron app in Windows 10

Most built-in apps of Windows 95 run well

Most built-in apps of Windows 95 run well

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