I’ve been messing around with Windows 95 on a 486 PC. When people think of non-optional bloat and Windows 95 or 98, they usually think of Internet Explorer. But there were two non-removable components in the original Windows 95, when Internet Explorer was an afterthought in the Plus Pack, that date from Microsoft’s ambition to supplant Lotus Notes and AOL. Let’s talk about cutting the bloat out of Windows 95. Specifically, how to remove the Inbox and MSN, and reduce the minimum requirements to 17 MB.
Why would you want to do this? Disk space isn’t a problem anymore, but the bloat does slow down Windows 95’s FAT file system. There’s no software you want or need to use today on a retro Windows 95 build that needs these components, so they are just wasting space and slowing down your disk. Even if you’re using a solid state solution. I covered this back in 1999 in my book about Windows 95 and 98, but it doesn’t seem like the information is easy to get anymore, so I want to revisit it here.
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David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
