Windows 95 RTM

Windows 95 offered, at long last, a well designed document-oriented desktop shell that worked much like the 1984 Macintosh Finder. It also included a new way of finding installed applications through a "Start" menu. And it included the same networking abilities as Windows for Workgroups.

It integrated the ability to run 32-bit applications similar to Windows NT or Windows 3.1 with Win32s. It no longer ran on a separate DOS product. But Windows 95 was not a pure "32-bit" OS: It was still based around the framework of Windows 3.x, 2.x and 1.x. It still ran on top of DOS, but bundled its own special "Windows 95" DOS (AKA MS-DOS 7). It could even still make use of DOS drivers. The 95 architecture was continued with Windows 98.

Most 95 CDs are NOT BOOTABLE. If a download does not include a boot floppy, please see Microsoft Windows Boot Disks

If the listed serials below do not work for a specific release, please see the Serials thread

You may also override the install type (no serial needed) by creating a file name MSBATCH.INF with the lines "[Setup]", and then "ProductType=1", placing that in the Win95 setup folder, and then running setup.

VMWare and VirtualBox are problematic with Windows 95. If you use those, you may need to disable various acceleration features first, and/or install the Windows 95 CPU speed fixes. Windows 95 has many issues on faster machines or VMs, requiring a number of patches in order to operate. Consider emulators like x86Box or PCem instead.

Other Windows Versions:
| 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

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Release notes

RTM or the "Gold" release is the initial version Released To Manufacturing, and placed on store shelves.

It is believed that there was never an official boxed "Full Retail" CD-ROM version. The CD-ROM version was available as OEM and Upgrades only, because at the time it was not possible to guarantee CDs could be read on a system without vendor-provided drivers.

Installation instructions

Note: The "File Archives" below are cut-down ISO images that exclude the extra CD fluff. They are configured for use as both clean and upgrade installs.

Important: Windows 95 CDs are NOT bootable, and require an appropriate Windows 95 Boot Floppy. (A 98FE or 98SE disk will also work fine)

To speed up installation, and to avoid numerous problems, copy the win95 folder to a folder on the hard drive (such as c:\win95) and then run setup from there.