Enhancing Windows 95 with Microsoft Plus! (Unboxing & Exploration)
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
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It's been almost 8 years since I last tried out Microsoft Plus! For Windows 95. I recently acquired a physical copy of it, so I figured now is a better time than ever to revisit this fascinating piece of '90s Microsoft software. Let's check it out!
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#MichaelMJD #Windows95 #MicrosoftPlus
It’s about time we take a look at Microsoft Plus! 95 again. And huge thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring. The first 1,000 people to use the link or my code michaelmjd will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/michaelmjd03221
I was actually first lol
Cool
Micheal when will you face reaveal?
@@hibbiea8841 stop being a creep
Did you know: NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR DAMN PIN SPONSORSHIP
The funny thing is the reason I did that entire investigation into Space Cadet Pinball was because you showed it on Windows XP x64, and well, the rabbit hole went deep. So I guess we've gone full circle here! Great content as always.
Ah, I guess so! And thanks!
Damn, two of my favourite creators. Will you guys ever collab in the future?
@@prgnify I hope so lol
I enchaned my windows XP install with a zune theme. (Download available)
@@theNikNikovsky obviously
Fun fact is that all the themes from Plus! for Windows 95 and the four desktop themes (Baseball, Jungle, Space, and Underwater) from Plus! for Kids were included in Windows 98 and Windows Me as the built-in desktop themes. All though, Plus! 98 had introduced some new themes to go along with the default built-in themes from Windows 98 and used a revised version of Desktop Themes that allows you to change the My Documents icon and allows you have themes that support changing the gradient title bars.
Yes just the WiFi, but the actual landline Internet. When will Rogers get this right?
Windows 11 could use some Plus!
Aero Glass
Windows DreamScene
Dektop Theme packs, including a Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 theme.
Windows Movie Maker, 4K edition
I remember having tremendous fun with Microsoft Plus! 98 themes back in the day. I spent a lot of the time trying them in the Desktop Themes program. "Inside your Computer" was also my favorite as it looked very cool, but I think I stuck with "More Windows" for the longest, as it was similar to the default theme, just nicer. Mystery had a cool screensaver with the animated haunted house.
I still miss the feel&look of 95 and 98 themes coming from Plus! package. I have a Windows 7 daily machine, that I keep not upgraded to 10 just because of the themes support and (depending on my current mood) - I switch between a XP's Luna theme and 98's "Under the water" theme!
@Floofy_Hellhound true. There was a time that I've had 1 minute timeout set for my screen saver just to watch all of those fishes and this wierd diver :D
Mystery wasn't in fact my favourite one, but I totally feel you!
Now, if I've had a worse day or simply can't sleep - I listen to 1hr mix of Windows XP installation music and I sleep like a baby! :D
I wish Windows themes still had *SOUL* like these Plus! themes. Nowadays you just get a dark mode and light mode.
It happens to almost every company :(
When I had my Win95 PC, I used to install both Plus! packages. There were a LOT of themes and I rotate them almost daily (I think I had a utility that did changed the theme on each reboot). Also, if I remember correctly, some themes had alternate desktop wallpapers that were kinda hidden.I used drivespace3 when my HDD was a 510M IBM HDD and besides Win95 OS, I had Office (word, excel and Powerpoint) and few games. So, 500M HDD was not enough; I gave DriveSpace a try. It gave me some more space but the computer was slower overall, because it had to compress/decompress in real-time the files that I needed and that required more CPU power that my 486DX2@66 and more memory that my 24M. I still remember the HDD struggling to read/write the pagefile when doing anything. After I upgraded the CPU and the memory the things were not so bad, but soon I got new HDDs that I added to my PC so I installed stuff there instead the C drive and DriveSpace3 was not needed anymore.
6:10 BUSTED! Weird how they went to the effort of putting in a check on floppy disks presumably knowing they wouldn't be able to do the same on CD-ROM due to their read only nature...also I remember as a kid literally every store demo PC having Plus installed and being set to random themes then getting home to my computer and being sad I couldn't change my boring default theme until one day when I stumbled across a copy of Plus after which point I must have driven my parents who also used the computer at the time absolutely bonkers!
9:00 "Inside your computer" is the theme I currently use on my Win98 machine. Yes, it's an awesome theme, and I am so glad there are more people out there who appreciate OS themes as much as I do. :)
Wow. The memories. I remember every one of those themes. Putting Plus on every new install was a highlight for me, silly as that may be. And Space Cadet, I put in the hours, had a high game of 40,000,000 or so. Lot of nostalgia for that era - mid nineties thru early 2000s. It was all so fresh and exciting, just getting online and playing so many PC games I just found some kind of version for Windows 10, LOL, looking at the Inside Your Computer wallpaper and the color theme at least. That was my fave too!
Bed time + MJD's 30 minutes video = the best sleep
😎
That is the whole truth and nothing but the truth
chill saturday enjoying fried rice in the morning while listening to mjd's sound. couldn't be any better
Fun fact: The wallpaper of the Mystery theme is actually the interior of the creepy house in the Mystery screensaver. If you look closely at the room through the window of the house, you can see it for yourself.
I just discovered your channel, and I’m literally devouring your videos on Windows and the history. But this one really hit it! Those themes were so cool. Dangerous creatures shutdown sound brings back so much memories! Great content, thank you very much!
Microsoft Plus was really fun for its time and a novelty, The themes were cool and the games were fun.
I would like to mention that you should also check out the Windows NT companion kit, as it had I think three exclusive themes for NT 4.
I wish Microsoft would release some of these screensavers for Windows 10/11... They were soo cool. I remember having these when I was a kid! Kinda miss those days!
You could try making a virtual machine.
@@pronounjow I'm fairly sure you can just copy over the .scr files from the Plus pack and they'll mostly work fine in modern Windows!
I remember the Microsoft Plus themes being an inspiration for me as a kid. I later made my own “themes” and made custom sounds for everything. In retrospective it was… very annoying. Nowadays I can't stand any system sounds, lol. Nice nostalgia trip!
I used to use some portions of the themes in Plus! 95, though mostly the wallpapers and maybe screen savers on occasion. The sound effects got old fast as you can imagine.
One thing not mentioned in this video was the Plus! tab that was added in Desktop Properties. Showing window contents while moving them was rather handy to have, though it was already included by default in Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 from around the time period without the need to purchase a Plus! pack (perhaps because NT was already expensive enough?)
Ah shoot, I missed that! Yeah the ability to show contents of windows while dragging them was very useful, though its certainly taken for granted today, haha. And yeah, its kinda interesting MS chose to make it apart of Plus! for 95.
@@MichaelMJD Also the ability to stretch the wallpaper was handy as well. My workaround without Plus! was to open the included wallpapers in Paint, stretch to other dimensions to accommodate other screen resolutions, then save those as separate images (e.g. Cloud800, etc.)
I remember when I bought Plus 98 when Windows 98 was released and I remember that I liked the themes like underwater, space, and others. Also organic art screensaver I liked.
i actually thought you were going to use the packered bell legend but this it is also great and love your vids viewer since lockdown :)
That computer will make an appearance in a video soon! And thank you : )
Disk compression is so useful. I sometimes feel like I'm the only one that has NTFS compression enabled.
It's really great for larger collections of installed games, cause some compress really well.
E.g. 'BeamNG Drive' compresses from 28GB to around 17GB.
But I'm not sure if there are any (performance) drawbacks/other things to think of, cause I can't really find any info on that/don't see anyone talk about it.
The main concern is drive corruption when something goes wrong. Some people prefer to compress their backups rather than their working disk for this reason.
There can be performance drawbacks too, but is similar to that of using encryption.
A lot of the time the disk is also unrecoverable if something goes wrong with encryption, but that is better tolerated since preventing third party access is the whole point with encryption.
I do think disk and memory compression is underrated.
I'm using NTFS compression on my laptop. As it's purely on the file level it doesn't corrupt everything when something goes wrong.
@@eDoc2020 Exactly. It seems like people still don't forget old myths about this technology, it's very useful.
Mystery was my JAM theme back in the day! Thanks for the blast from the past! Some of these noises haven't been heard by these ears in 25 years!
It's Michael MJD again. And that's a treat!
I didn't know Space Cadet came with 95 Plus until just now.
Always saw that splash screen at a back then friend's PC and wondered what that Plus! thing is and how to get it onto my machine.
Little did I know until your video that most of the stuff already came shipped with 98SE out of the box.
Also, next to Inside the Computer and Windows Extra, the Space theme that shipped for 98SE was also amazing to look at.
inside your computer is the best theme, I used to get in trouble at school for changing themes on school computers
Dude, You are awesome, I love your videos!
Just found out some kind soul ported Space Cadet Pinball to Linux.
I've been loving all your videos recently, keep up the great work!
Thank you!!
THE NOSTALGIA 😭😭🙏🙏🙌🙌
I can already hear the noises of the disk chugging up as soon as the machine boots
Those old screensavers send me back. Is be curious to see if the ones that affect your desktop directly still work on modern Windows Operating Systems.
Your voice sounds like the guy who does those Microsoft Step-by-Step interactive guides
3D Pinball: Space Cadet is now fully open source, and available on a whole lotta other platforms!
Just like 3D Movie Maker
👀
This will make 95 better! MSFT technical writing was the best, back then too.
8:23 It's interesting to see how Microsoft Plus 95 has changed the Windows 95 boot screen to show the Plus Logo and has removed the default Monorail logo on the top left corner of the boot screen.
That's because it replaced the logo.sys file. logo.sys is the boot screen file and it's basically just a bitmap image that's designed a certain way so it will display the loading bar animation by having it's color palete changed. Modifying it can be kinda complex and has to be done in a certain way, so it just replaces it with a different one.
@@NTGTechnology Oh. Ok. Thx for the info :)
Love your videos Michael!
Big love ❤ from Kolkata!
"Inside Your Computer" = Obviously the best 95 Plus theme
No contest.
Fun fact: in Windows 98 (and I believe 95, I haven't tested yet) you can add some of the Plus desktop themes in the add/remove components program. To get all of the themes, you'll still need Plus but it's a fun little thing to know :)
nooo, you also need 16bit or higher color display to enjoy the updated (high color) icons. it mainly updates windows explorer icons for the folder icons and some of the high color themes have high color specific icons as well. it was especially notable for me because start menu and explorer look so different with it enabled
Awesome video, Michael!
Thanks!
when windows use to be fun-still got my hoard of xp theme packages! the widgets in w7 were good though- colourfull etc.
i loved inside my computer too and more windows still use it in my w98 machine
The mystery screensaver is what got Me intrested in computers when i was a kid
Thanks for the great video, Micheal MJD.
So a possible fun/random fact: The Mystery wallpaper appears to have been flipped horizontally from how it was originally made.
For some reason, I decided to see if the paintings in it were real, and after a google search of the portrait above the fireplace, it comes up to "Portrait of a Young Man," by Agnolo Bronzino, but it's been flipped. The picture on the right side was much harder to find, but I eventually found that it's The Embarkation for Cythera, by Jean-Antoine Watteau, or at least it's very likely to be it. Again, if you flip the wallpaper, it puts the painting in the correct orientation, and it seems to match up with this painting.
Great video, Really enjoyed it! Keep it up!😊
Travel and Dangerous creatures were my favorites. I just downloaded them for windows 11... thanks for the nostalgia...
Quality content as always, Michael!
Thanks!
No way 2014 was 8 Years ago 🙃
Bruh time flies
Man, I remember every single one of these themes. They were so cool! :D
The bassy sound in the Mystery theme supposed to be heartbeats, which matches with the haunted mansion setting in the theme
Have you considered sending the registration or "free tips" cards in and seeing what happens?
It would be really fun if the right person at Microsoft actually received it and just for fun actually dug up an old dusty copy of that tips and tricks book and sent it to you 😁
2:30 my brain froze for a moment, I thought the image of the display on the back of the box looked like a current iPad running windows 95!!!
Glad I'm not the only one! lol
23:07 this is so much better then the compression tools we have in Windows 10
The "bass" noice is a heartbeat in the Mystery theme.
Michael MJD makes good Microsoft Windows Videos
“Twerk Neighbourhood”…I can’t…🤣
My first Windows PC came preinstalled with 95B and 95 Plus. In fact the CD has 95 OSR2, 95 Plus, and Internet Explorer 4.0. I still have the CD along with the 95 product certificate/manual.
Man, I remember rocking the science theme on windows 98!
With the Mystery screen saver of course
My Windows 98 pc came with these themes and at least one more -- an underwater one. I remembered the Sixties one vividly because it was SO garish.
The mystery screensaver was the best.
Ah, yes. Marketed as to many features to just include in one box or disc or something like that. But it did so poorly in sales. They moved most of it packaged into 98. I was surprised to find out they had a version for Xp.
14:15 this theme could also be called "Acid Trip" 🤣
The missus changed the login sound on her Windows 10 work laptop to The Microsoft Sound from Windows 95. I'm so used to using old computers that it didn't even register for a beat, then she saw my head pop up, like "wait a minute... what's going on here?" and had a good chuckle watching for my inevitable reaction.
There's also a Plus for Kids if I remember, that has its own unique kiddie-themed themes and programs.
Windows was so much cooler and more customisable back then.
Love this nostalgic stuff
I miss all this old stuff
14:23 the network neighborhood icon looks like Nintendo 2ds lol
My thoughts too :,D
The toaster used for the recycle bin reminded me of FlyingToasters too.
if you're installing Plus, go ahead and install powertoys and kernel toys too. wintop and tweakui are ESSENTIAL for anyone serious about keeping win9x trim & slim.
Ahh, memories. The Plus! themes encouraged me to create my own themes, and I eventually ended up with something that had beige colors, animated mouse cursors from the Rayman Designer level editor, and various sound effects from the game Lomax (like the "Oh No!" clip for error dialogs). It was great fun.
Our IT guy hated me because I upgraded my work computer to these in 98 added a sound card ..memory and a video card...They had really fast internet back then...we streamed music ..games etc...AAAhh the memories....it was good to be the boss on 2nd shift
Back then i had this IBM Aptiva with Windows 95 Plus and it was very different to this one. It had lots and lots of cool customization features that i haven't seen ever since.
By default your desktop icons and cursors were animated, and windows themselves had neat animations at maximizing and minimizing, like a scroll, vanishing, popping in and the like. You could also use Active Desktop to make a website your desktop screen and it would even allow you to use video or gifs to make an animated desktop if you knew what you were doing like making a html file that pointed to the element you wanted displayed.
I remember that it impacted performance but it was super cool looking. I have seen only recently tools for windows 8 or 10 as a microsoft pack you need to get from the website.
I remember the Mystery theme due to its startup sound, which is very similar to the Windows 95 one.
Thanks for the great video :DD simple but good i just like to watch these no matter what the video is on really even if its something i have already done lol
16:19 - The Golden Era...after all these years, I still say the guy in the chair looks like Eric Clapton
2:33 The border of the screenshot looks like a modern iPad Pro lol
4:53 Ah you are but a neophyte, unprepared for the brutality of my Lotus Style Windows Techniques.
19:17 Legend says, that internet explorer has still not shown up
So if you go on disc 1, there is a ini file that saves the owners name, you can change it in there. I am glad I have a VM with Windows 95, the whole Plus! pack and the 60's theme is set... I loved this back the day....
Drivespace... tried it back in the day... all it did was slow down the computer and you got very little space free.
Now try to browse the web on Windows 95....
is there anyway you can patch it so it thinks its 'virgin'? i have a used plus95 pack
YEY! this is the kinda video i've been waiting for :)
This is really good.
"Inside your computer" is probably most people's favorite to me honestly.
I remember "sports" as a kid and being amazed the first time i saw it.
Oh.. the memories,, my favorite theme is Mystery because my little brother is scared with startup sound.
Omg memories, I had the Dangerous Colours theme on my PC
On Linux, if you have the LXDE desktop environment, you can use a small variety of Screensavers. I have these and I used one that looked like a windows xp Screensaver.
If you install Xscreensaver, you get an insanely huge, collection of screensavers. The creator still updates it even though it's been around for over 25 years, too. Recently discovered they even did a Covid-19 screensaver!
9:46 actually this exact sound is used in polish IM program called GG when user from buddy list goes online :D also great content love it
I think both the status sounds and message notification sound in GG were stolen from this theme ;)
14:11 Michael has evolved into hipee Michael
It would have been nice to just let the theme sounds play a little bit without constantly talking over them, cause they are completely inaudible. Great memories man, thanks for sharing
I was born in 1995 and i remember using Windows 95! Now im using it on Limbo PC Emulator on Android!!!
Quite a revisit... and a Full MJD Treatment.
Your PLUS! 95 was bought at NCIX. I can tell because of the stickers.
25:09 yes please do a video on that
But that hippie mimicking 😂😂😭😭
I remember all of the Themes :)
In 1998 (when I was 8) I got my first computer with Windows 95 and the first thing that I installed on my PC was Microsoft Plus! so I remember all of them :)
After a year I switch to Windows 98 and all of the Themes were included.
My the most favorites themes are Dangerous Creatures and Mystery. Also, I like More Windows, Windows 95/98, Science and Baseball
Lovely nostalgia trip.
Science wallpaper was my favourite one.
in the setup, you were supposed to say no when it asked you if you kept your computer on at night, and then it would run the tasks at night
The Baseball Plus theme was moved form Plus for Kids to Windows 98 Plus