Windows 95 and 98 Get Updates Again

Users of Windows versions dating right back to Windows 95 can now get updates for their system. It's thanks to an enthusiast project and is absolutely not meant to be a sensible alternative to using modern version of Windows.

The Windows Update Restored site aims to recreate the official Microsoft web pages for getting feature and security updates for older versions of Windows. Those pages were used by people who chose to manually download and install updates rather than use automatic updates.

Understandably, Microsoft has long since taken down the pages for updating many Windows versions that it no longer supports. However, the people behind the project have gathered together both the web page and download files from sites such as the Internet Archive, which collects copies of web pages over time. (Source: windowsupdaterestored.com)

Party Like It's 1997

The current version of the recreated Windows Update page is "from" 1997 and allows updates to Windows 95, 98 and Millennium Edition. The project will then turn its attention to recreating pages from 2001 and 2004, meaning it will eventually offer updates for Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Until the project gets to XP, which is still used by a surprising number of people, it's largely going to be of use only to the small subculture of enthusiasts who enjoy playing around with old computers and software.

Using Windows Update Restored will not magically make a computer secure as it will only bring it up to the point when Microsoft stopped issuing updates. The people behind the project are very clear this will only mean old machines "stay securer than they were before."

Unsupported Systems Still a Really Bad Idea

Despite their work, they strongly recommend not running these older versions of Windows as they have "plenty of security holes", instead saying "You should use modern operating systems like Windows 10, Windows 11, and even Linux."

The Toms Hardware site notes that while the project may be of limited practical use, it does bring some nostalgia about file sizes. One Windows 95 feature update available through the recreated site is 3.1MB, with a security patch of just 124KB. (Source: tomshardware.com)

That compares to Microsoft recently boasting that it had slimmed down the most recent Windows 11 major update to just over 3GB.

What's Your Opinion?

Is this project responsible? Does it boost security by somewhat patching very old systems or does it make things worse? Do you miss the days of small update download sizes?