Still running Windows 95, NT4, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 or XP in 2024?
Well, first up, you probably shouldn’t be doing that on your “daily driver” PC – these OSes all stopped receiving security updates years ago. But of course, there’s still a lot of historical interest in these older Windows releases, particularly for those of us who also like to tinker with the original hardware.
A huge part of the nostalgia is in using things “as they were” at the time – the games and other software that we remember in the mid-late 90s and early 2000s.
Now, thanks to a pair of community efforts, getting these OSes fully up to date can also be a part of that nostalgia. It may seem like a small and insignificant thing to most, but many of us remember visiting Windows Update to grab the latest security updates, fixes, and even software like Windows Media Player, DirectX and .NET Framework, and the various historical versions of this service have now been recreated in authentic detail thanks to community efforts.
If you’re running Windows 95 – XP on your vintage PC, Windows Update Restored has you covered, while Legacy Update supports newer OSes from 2000 all the way up to 11. Both projects are community driven, relying on “donations” of old original Microsoft update packages scavenged from old HDDs – so it’s also worth having a poke around those and seeing if you have anything that you might be able to contribute.
The great news is that the projects have just announced that they’re merging! Nothing will be changing as far as day-to-day usage are concerned, but behind the scenes they will be collaborating to make both projects the absolute best that they can be.
The above video shows the process in action and how to get it all set up using everyone’s favourite Microsoft OS, Windows Millennium Edition.
