windows95 User Guide

windows95 is Felix Rieseberg's Electron desktop app that runs Microsoft Windows 95 inside a window on macOS, Windows, or Linux. It bundles the v86 x86 emulator, a SeaBIOS image, a vintage copy of Windows 95, and a thin React shell that handles disks, files, networking, and machine state — so you can launch a 30-year-old operating system the same way you would launch any other modern desktop app.

This guide covers everyday use of the app: installing it, booting Windows 95, mounting floppy and CD-ROM images, sharing a folder between your real computer and the virtual one, recovering files from older versions of the app, and working around the rough edges that come from emulating decade-old hardware.

For internal architecture, build pipeline, code-signing, and integration points, see the companion windows95 Administrator & Developer Guide.

1. Quick Start

Get to the Windows 95 desktop in two minutes:

1. Download the installer for your platform from the GitHub Releases page.
2. Install it like any other desktop app (drag to /Applications on macOS, run the .exe setup on Windows, install the .deb / .rpm / .flatpak on Linux).
3. Launch windows95 from your applications launcher.
4. On the welcome card, click Start Windows 95.
5. Wait ~30 seconds. SeaBIOS prints, then the splash screen appears, then the Windows 95 desktop.
6. Click anywhere inside the emulator to capture your mouse. Press Esc to release it back to the host.

Tip

The emulator window resizes the Windows 95 desktop using a CSS scale of 2x by default. Use Window ▸ Zoom in / Zoom out / Reset zoom in the menu bar to make the guest larger or smaller without changing its resolution. The keyboard accelerator that comes for free is the standard macOS / Windows menu shortcut on those items.

What you get out of the box

• A bootable Windows 95 machine with 128 MB of RAM, an NE2000 network card, a Sound Blaster 16, a primary IDE hard disk (C:), a floppy drive (A:), and a CD-ROM drive (D:).
• A folder on your real computer, automatically shared with Windows 95 as drive Z: (default: your Downloads folder).
• Persistent state: Windows 95 boots back to where you left it on every launch, including any files you saved or programs you installed.
• Bidirectional text clipboard so Copy/Paste flows between Windows 95 and your host OS.
• An offline mini-website (http://windows95/) browseable from inside Internet Explorer in the guest.
• Auto-updater (Squirrel on Windows / macOS) that pulls new releases hourly from GitHub once the app is packaged.

Note

The very first launch unpacks the bundled disk image (windows95.img) and writes a saved-state file under your application data directory. Subsequent launches resume from that snapshot.

2. Installation

Pick the installer that matches your platform. All builds are signed (macOS notarized, Windows Azure-signed) when produced by the upstream release pipeline.

System requirements

Important

The app embeds the v86 WebAssembly emulator and a 1 GB Windows 95 disk image. Once installed, the app runs entirely offline. Internet is only consulted for auto-updates and for HTTP traffic the guest itself initiates.

macOS

macOS

1. Download windows95-darwin-*.zip from the latest GitHub release.
2. Unzip and drag windows95.app to /Applications.
3. Right-click the app and choose Open the first time. macOS will verify the signature and remember your choice.
4. Launch normally afterwards.

The bundle uses Felix Rieseberg's Apple Developer ID (Developer ID Application: Felix Rieseberg (LT94ZKYDCJ)), so Gatekeeper should accept it without warnings on a current macOS.

Windows

Windows

1. Download windows95-{version}-setup-{arch}.exe.
2. Run the installer. Squirrel installs into your user profile and creates Start Menu and Desktop shortcuts. No MSI is shipped — the installer is a single executable.
3. Launch windows95 from the Start menu.

Note

If your release was built with AZURE_TENANT_ID and SIGNTOOL_PATH configured, the binary is Azure-signed and timestamped via timestamp.acs.microsoft.com. Otherwise SmartScreen may show an "unrecognized publisher" prompt — click More info ▸ Run anyway.

Linux

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo dpkg -i windows95_5.0.1_amd64.deb
sudo apt -f install   # pull any missing dependencies
windows95

Fedora/RHEL

sudo rpm -i windows95-5.0.1-1.x86_64.rpm
windows95

Flatpak

flatpak install --user windows95-5.0.1.flatpak
flatpak run com.felixrieseberg.windows95

Warning

Issue #322 reports that the RPM installer can fail on some Fedora releases. If rpm -i complains about missing libraries, install the Flatpak instead — it bundles every dependency.

There is no AppImage build at this time. Issue #114 tracks that request.

Verify the install

After launching, check the Help ▸ About menu (Linux/macOS) — you should see the app name windows95, your installed app version, and the Electron runtime version (currently Electron 41 series). On Windows the version is exposed in the executable's file properties because Electron doesn't render an in-app About panel on that platform.

3. Configuration

windows95 puts its UI configuration on the Settings card you reach by clicking the Settings... button on the welcome screen. Most users never need to touch anything outside this card.

Settings card overview

The Settings card has five tabs:

Tip

Pre-boot mounts (Floppy / CD-ROM tabs on the Settings card) attach the media before Windows 95 starts so the OS sees them at boot. To swap media while the machine is already running, use the Machine menu instead — see Section 4.

Where settings live

The userData directory follows Electron's convention:

Environment variables (rarely needed)

Most users never set these. They are aimed at developers and the boot-probe harness, but a few are occasionally useful for power users.

Important

The full set of WIN95_PROBE_* variables is the test harness. They are documented in the Admin Guide but are not part of the supported user surface; setting them by accident will cause the app to behave like an unattended test runner.

For everything else (Electron command-line switches, custom WASM paths, build-time signing variables), see the Configuration Reference in the Admin Guide.

4. Core Usage

This section walks through everything you can do once Windows 95 is running. Tasks are grouped by what you are trying to accomplish.

4.1 Boot, stop, restart, reset

These four operations live on the Machine menu and on the Settings card. They behave differently in important ways:

Caution

Reset deletes the on-disk machine state. Anything you saved inside Windows 95 (Word documents, installed programs, registry tweaks) is lost. If you only want to fix a stuck machine, try Restart first.

4.2 Sending special key combinations

Some key chords are intercepted by your host OS and never reach Windows 95 (Ctrl+Alt+Del is the obvious example). The Machine menu exposes them as menu items so you can send them deliberately:

Everything else (typing, regular shortcuts, modifier keys) just works when the emulator window has focus and the cursor is captured.

Tip

Press Esc at any time to release or recapture your cursor. Once the cursor is captured, Esc inside Windows 95 still works — the host renderer reads the keystroke, toggles cursor-lock, and forwards it.

4.3 Mouse capture (and seamless mode)

There are two mouse modes:

• Captured (default): click inside the emulator to lock your pointer to the guest. Press Esc to release.
• Seamless / absolute: when the guest's VBMOUSE.DRV driver is loaded (preinstalled on the bundled disk image) it requests absolute mouse positioning over the VMware backdoor. The app automatically drops pointer-lock and the host pointer becomes the guest pointer 1:1 — exactly like running a regular VM with guest additions installed.

You can tell the modes apart visually: in seamless mode you see your real cursor passing over the guest, in captured mode it's hidden and the guest's drawn cursor takes over.

4.4 Mounting a floppy or CD-ROM

There are two paths depending on whether you want the media at boot or hot-swapped while running.

Pre-boot mount

Use the Settings card before clicking Start Windows 95:

1. Click Settings... on the welcome card.
2. Pick the Floppy Drive or CD-ROM tab.
3. Click Mount image... and pick an .img, .ima, .vfd (floppy) or .iso (CD-ROM) file from your real computer.
4. Click OK then Start Windows 95.

The disk shows up at A: (floppies) or D: (CD-ROM) inside Windows.

Note

Floppy images are loaded fully into memory, so a 1.44 MB image becomes a 1.44 MB allocation. CD-ROM images are read on demand from disk via a synchronous file buffer — you can mount a 600 MB ISO without using 600 MB of RAM.

Runtime mount (hot-swap)

Use the Machine menu while Windows 95 is running:

1. Machine ▸ Floppy Drive ▸ Insert Disk Image... or Machine ▸ CD-ROM Drive ▸ Insert Disc Image...
2. Pick the file. Windows 95 sees the new media immediately.
3. To eject: Machine ▸ Floppy Drive ▸ Eject / Machine ▸ CD-ROM Drive ▸ Eject.

Warning

Inserting a CD while a Windows 95 program is mid-read can confuse applications. Eject from inside Windows 95 first (My Computer ▸ right-click D: ▸ Eject) when possible.

4.5 Sharing files: the host folder as drive Z:

This is the highest-leverage feature of the app: a folder from your real computer mounts as drive Z: inside Windows 95, with read access to every file in it. You can drop any file in there on the host and copy it to C: from inside Win95 with regular File Manager / Explorer drag-and-drop.

How it works (briefly)

The host runs a small SMB1 server on the renderer side. The guest's NE2000 NIC routes traffic through v86's userspace TCP stack; the renderer hooks the TCP-connection bus event for port 139 and answers NetBIOS / SMB1 requests out of the chosen folder. A guest-side agent (W95TOOLS.EXE) auto-maps \\HOST\HOST to drive Z: at every login, so the share is just there when you log in.

Picking a different folder

Either at boot from the Settings card, or while running from the Machine menu:

The change is saved to settings.json and persists across launches.

Note

The share is read-only from the guest's perspective: you can copy files out of Z: to C:, but Win95 can't write back to your host folder over the share. To move a file the other direction, the only built-in workaround is the host clipboard for text payloads.

Default share folder

If you never pick a folder, the app defaults to your operating system's Downloads directory (whatever Electron's app.getPath('downloads') returns — ~/Downloads on macOS / Linux, %USERPROFILE%\Downloads\ on Windows).

Manually mapping the share inside Windows 95

W95TOOLS.EXE runs at login and maps Z: automatically, but if it fails or you want a different drive letter:

1. Inside Windows 95: Start ▸ Run...
2. Type: \\HOST\HOST and press Enter — an Explorer window opens browsing the share.
3. Or, Start ▸ Run... and type a NET USE command:

NET USE Y: \\HOST\HOST

The share named HOST is your chosen folder (renamed if its basename contains characters that aren't LANMAN-safe); \\HOST\TOOLS is a small synthetic share holding _MAPZ.BAT and a README — the things Windows uses to map Z: automatically.

4.6 Copy and paste between host and guest

Text Copy/Paste is bidirectional and automatic, with a ~250 ms latency:

• Copy text inside Windows 95 → it appears in your host clipboard within half a second.
• Copy text on the host → next time you paste in Windows 95 (Edit ▸ Paste, Ctrl+V, Shift+Ins), the text is there.

Limits and behavior:

• Maximum 64 KB per clipboard event (anything larger is truncated).
• Text only: rich text, images, files, and other clipboard formats are not synced.
• Encoding is translated automatically (UTF-8 / LF on host ↔ Windows-1252 / CRLF on guest). Non-Latin characters that don't have a cp1252 representation are replaced with ?.

Tip

Clipboard sync is driven by W95TOOLS.EXE inside Windows. If you Quit Win95 and the agent isn't running on next boot (you launched a stripped guest), Copy/Paste won't work until you start it manually.

4.7 Browsing the offline mini-site

Internet Explorer inside Windows 95 has a built-in shortcut to http://windows95/. Visiting it serves a small static site (home page, apps catalog, credits, help) directly out of the app's bundle without ever hitting the public internet.

Type any of those into IE's address bar and it loads from the static/www/ directory in the app bundle.

4.8 Networking out to the real internet

The guest has a real-feeling network stack with several layers:

What this means in practice:

• Internet Explorer can browse real websites if your host has internet.
• A vintage IRC client, FTP client, or telnet to a real server works because the TCP relay forwards their traffic.
• ping does not work — the userspace TCP/IP stack v86 ships does not forward ICMP.
• Trying to reach 127.0.0.1, 169.254.x.x, or the private 192.168.86.0/23 emulated LAN from the guest is silently dropped.

4.9 Watching live machine stats

By default, the top of the emulator window shows a small status bar:

CPU: 245M/s | Disk: R 0.0B/s W 0.0B/s | Net: ↓0.0B/s ↑0.0B/s | Hide

Click Hide to collapse it into a thin hot-zone at the top edge; hover that zone to reveal it again, then click Pin to keep it visible. The Settings ▸ Interface tab toggles individual metrics and turns sparklines (the small inline trend graphs) on or off.

4.10 Recovering files from older app versions

When a release ships a new disk image or v86 build that breaks save-state compatibility, the app increments its STATE_VERSION. On launch it looks for an older state file (down to version 4) and offers a Recover old C:
drive... button on the welcome card.

What recovery does

1. Spins up a throwaway, headless v86 instance (no keyboard, no mouse, no speaker).
2. Restores the legacy state into v86's block cache without booting Windows.
3. Walks the FAT32 file system on the recovered virtual disk, reading every sector as "overlay if present, base disk image otherwise".
4. Copies every file you ever wrote to or modified (skipping pristine OS binaries) into a host folder.

Default destination: ~/Downloads/Recovered C Drive/. Override via the WIN95_RECOVER_DIR environment variable.

When it works and when it doesn't

Warning

Recovery requires the partition table and FAT geometry to match across releases. If a future release reformats the disk image with different cluster parameters, recovery from earlier states will fail with unexpected sector size or similar — there is no fallback path.

5. Common Tasks

Goal-oriented recipes for typical workflows.

5.1 Install a vintage program from a CD

1. Mount the ISO before booting: Settings ▸ CD-ROM ▸ Mount image....
2. Start Windows 95.
3. Open My Computer ▸ D:.
4. Run the installer (SETUP.EXE, INSTALL.EXE, or whatever the disc provides).
5. Follow the wizard. Windows 95 will save the install across reboots thanks to state persistence.

5.2 Install a program from a folder on your computer

1. Drop the installer files into your shared folder on the host (default: Downloads).
2. Boot Windows 95. The folder appears as drive Z:.
3. Open Z:\ in Explorer, run the installer.
4. Programs install to C:\ and persist across reboots.

Tip

Issue #140 and #282 request clearer instructions for installing extra software. The folder route above is the most reliable: drop the installer in your host Downloads folder, copy to C:, run.

5.3 Save your work and quit cleanly

The app saves machine state automatically when you close the window:

1. Inside Windows 95: save your documents (just like real Win95).
2. Close the windows95 window or quit the app.
3. The renderer pauses, calls save_state(), and writes the snapshot atomically. Wait until the window actually disappears — it can take a couple of seconds for a busy machine.

Next launch resumes from that exact moment, including running programs and unsaved documents in memory.

5.4 Run an MS-DOS Prompt

1. Boot Windows 95.
2. Start ▸ Programs ▸ MS-DOS Prompt.
3. Use the DOS environment as you would on real hardware (FAT32 long filenames work, networking via the TCP relay does not — DOS programs that try to bind raw sockets won't reach the host).

Warning

Issue #50 documents that running Command Prompt can leave Windows with garbled blue pixels when you return to the GUI. If you hit this, pressing Alt+Enter to toggle the DOS box between windowed and full-screen often clears the corruption. A full Machine ▸ Restart also works.

5.5 Toggle full screen

• Mac: View ▸ Toggle Full Screen (Ctrl+Cmd+F).
• Windows / Linux: View ▸ Toggle Full Screen (F11).

This makes the Electron window full-screen. To resize the Windows 95 desktop itself, use Window ▸ Zoom in / Zoom out / Reset zoom.

5.6 Take a screenshot of the guest

The standard host screenshot tools (macOS Cmd+Shift+4, Windows Snipping Tool) capture the emulator pixels just like any other window — Windows 95 is rendered into a regular HTML canvas. There is no built-in "screenshot the guest" feature exposed in the menus.

5.7 Reset everything to a fresh Windows 95

Two ways:

1. Settings ▸ Machine State ▸ Boot from scratch while the welcome card is shown. Boots a fresh Win95 once but keeps the saved state alongside.
2. Settings ▸ Machine State ▸ Reset state. Deletes the saved state and the next launch starts from scratch. All your changes are lost.

For a hard reset that also wipes Electron caches and cookies (helpful when the renderer itself misbehaves):

• Help ▸ Troubleshooting ▸ Clear Cache and Restart.

5.8 Find your machine state file

On any platform, the state path is determined by Electron's userData location plus state-v5.bin. You don't need this for normal use, but support requests sometimes ask for it.

To open the underlying disk image (read-only — modifying it breaks state restore): Machine ▸ Go to Disk Image opens its location in your file manager.

5.9 Update the app

When packaged builds run, the auto-updater polls GitHub Releases hourly (update-electron-app with repo: 'felixrieseberg/windows95', updateInterval: '1 hour'). New versions are downloaded in the background and applied on the next restart of the app.

You can also manually grab the latest installer from the Releases page.

6. Troubleshooting

Diagnostic decision tree

If Windows 95 doesn't boot or behaves badly:

1. Did the BIOS / SeaBIOS print appear at all? No → the renderer hasn't started v86. Try Help ▸ Troubleshooting ▸ Clear Cache and Restart.
2. Stuck on the cloud / splash screen for >70s with the CPU running? Known instability that doesn't always reproduce. Try Machine ▸ Restart, or Reset if that doesn't work.
3. Blue screen with KRNL386 / VxD dynamic link / Initializing Device IOS? Your saved state may be corrupted. Machine ▸ Reset wipes it; you'll start a fresh machine but lose user data inside Windows.
4. Garbled pixels after closing an MS-DOS Prompt? See Section 5.4 above (issue #50). Alt+Enter or restart.
5. Drive Z: missing? Check the Settings ▸ Shared Folder tab for the chosen path; if blank, Choose folder..., then Machine ▸ Restart.

Error: unexpected sector size

Cause: Legacy-state recovery couldn't read the disk image because the geometry doesn't match what your installed app expects (cross-version disk reformat).

Solution:

1. Click Discard old snapshot on the welcome warning panel.
2. Machine ▸ Reset or boot from scratch.
3. Manually re-create the work you had inside the old machine.

Prevention: Avoid downgrading the app across major versions; the state format is forward-compatible only.

Error: hda block cache not reachable after restore

Cause: The legacy state was loaded but v86's hard-disk async-buffer cache wasn't where the recovery walker expected it. Usually means the legacy state is from a v86 build the current renderer can't introspect.

Solution: Same as above — discard the old snapshot, boot fresh.

Error: RPM installer fails on Fedora

Cause: Issue #322. Some Fedora releases lack libraries the RPM expects, or refuse the unsigned RPM because of policy.

Solution:

1. Try the Flatpak instead — it bundles every dependency.
2. As a last resort, use the .zip Linux build and run windows95 manually.

Error: Windows 95 doesn't start after a restart unless I reset

Cause: Issue #299. A specific combination of machine activity at quit can leave the saved state in a half-consistent place that Windows 95 can't resume from.

Solution: Machine ▸ Reset state, accept losing your progress. There's no incremental recovery for this case.

Prevention: Cleanly shut down Windows 95 (Start ▸ Shut Down ▸ Shut down the computer) before quitting the app, instead of just closing the window mid-run.

Error: MS-DOS shows blank / black screen

Cause: Issue #332. A corner case in v86's VGA emulation when DOS resets the display.

Solution: Press Alt+Enter twice to toggle full-screen on and off; this often forces a VGA mode reset. Otherwise Machine ▸ Restart.

Error: Windows 95 doesn't see drive Z: at boot

Cause: Either no host folder is configured, or the W95TOOLS.EXE agent wasn't running on the previous boot to map the drive at login.

Solution:

1. Confirm a folder is picked: Settings ▸ Shared Folder should show a path.
2. Inside Windows 95: Start ▸ Run ▸ \\HOST\HOST. If the share browses, your host side is fine.
3. Run \\HOST\TOOLS\_MAPZ.BAT (Start ▸ Run) to manually map drive Z:.
4. To make the mapping survive every boot, copy _MAPZ.BAT from the \\HOST\TOOLS share to C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp — the file's own README explains this.

Prevention: Don't quit the app while Windows 95 is mid-login; let the agent finish loading.

Error: VMware backdoor not present

Cause: A W95TOOLS.EXE startup popup. The guest's clipboard agent couldn't find the VMware backdoor I/O port, which v86 normally provides.

Solution: This shouldn't happen with the bundled v86 build. If it does:

1. Help ▸ Troubleshooting ▸ Clear Cache and Restart.
2. If the message persists, you may have replaced libv86.js manually — reinstall the app from the official release.

Error: Saving / loading state takes forever

Cause: Snapshots are uncompressed binary memory dumps + dirty-block overlays. After a long session with lots of installed software, state files can be hundreds of MB.

Solution: Wait it out. Quit-time saves block window-close until the write completes (with flush: true).

Prevention: Machine ▸ Reset state every now and then, especially after experimenting with software you don't want to keep. Smaller state file = faster save/load.

Error: CD-ROM doesn't show up as drive D:

Cause: Issue #326 discusses CD-ROM support quirks. Sometimes Windows 95 needs to be told the secondary IDE channel has new media.

Solution:

1. Machine ▸ CD-ROM Drive ▸ Eject then Insert Disc Image... again. The runtime hot-swap goes straight to the device, bypassing v86's async loader path that has a known BSY race.
2. If still missing, Machine ▸ Restart — the cold boot path is more reliable than the hot insert.

Error: Imported game / app refuses to install

Cause: Many vintage installers depend on quirks of real hardware (specific sound cards, MIDI, joystick ports). Issue #327 tracks the broader problem.

Solution: The emulator advertises an NE2000 NIC, Sound Blaster 16, Pentium-class CPU, and a generic VGA. Software targeting other hardware won't work. There's no fix from the app side — it's an emulation limitation.

7. FAQ

Q: Can I run Windows 98 / NT / XP / Linux instead?

A: Not in this app. The bundled disk image, configuration, BIOS, and v86 build are all tuned to Windows 95. v86 itself supports many other OSes; if you want them, run v86 directly with a different disk image.

Q: Where is the disk image stored on my computer?

A: Inside the app bundle at <app>/images/windows95.img. Machine ▸ Go to Disk Image opens its containing folder. Don't edit it directly — the saved state's overlay only matches a known disk image.

Q: How do I move files from Windows 95 back to my real computer?

A: This version only supports host → guest file transfer (the SMB share is read-only from the guest). For text snippets, the bidirectional clipboard works in both directions. For larger payloads, the only built-in option is to host a real FTP / HTTP server on your computer and use the TCP relay to ship files out.

Q: Why is the emulator so much slower than real Win95 on a Pentium?

A: v86 is a JavaScript+WebAssembly emulator running on a JIT compiler. On modern hardware it's faster than a real 1995 Pentium, but heavy graphics or 3D programs will still feel sluggish.

Q: Can I install games like Doom, SimCity, Quake?

A: 2D / vintage 3D programs that target Sound Blaster 16 + VGA generally work. Anything needing a Voodoo / Glide / DirectX 7+ accelerator does not. CD-ROM-based installers work via the CD-ROM mount.

Q: Does it support multiple Windows 95 instances?

A: Each Electron app runs one VM. You can launch multiple copies of the app on macOS / Linux (e.g., from different user accounts or by duplicating the bundle), but they share the same userData directory by default and will fight over the saved state. Not supported.

Q: Does it phone home / send telemetry?

A: The app polls GitHub once an hour for new releases via update-electron-app. There is no other built-in telemetry. The Cloudflare DoH endpoint receives DNS queries the guest makes for real hostnames; this is the guest browsing the web, not the app reporting on you.

Q: Where do log messages go?

A: They print to the renderer DevTools console. Open it via View ▸ Toggle Developer Tools (Cmd+Opt+I on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+I elsewhere).

Q: What's the difference between the welcome screen's "Settings" button and the menu bar?

A: The welcome screen's Settings card is the in-app, Win95-themed panel for shared folder, mounted media, machine state, and info-bar metrics. The OS-level menu bar (View, Window, Machine, Help) controls runtime operations like full-screen, zoom, restart, and CD/floppy hot-swap. They overlap intentionally — Settings is for pre-boot prep, the menu is for during-run tweaks.

Q: Can I move my Windows 95 install to another computer?

A: Yes:

1. Copy the entire windows95 userData folder (state file, settings) to the same path on the destination.
2. Install the same app version on the destination.
3. Launch — your saved Windows 95 should resume exactly.

The bundled disk image has to match version-to-version; mixing a state from version 5 with an app from version 6 won't work (recovery handles that case explicitly).

Q: Does the recovery feature run on every launch?

A: No. It only checks once per launch, and only if there's no current- version state file. If recovery fails or you discard the snapshot, the welcome card stops showing the recovery prompt.

Q: Will it work with WinLinux 2000 / non-Win95 disk images?

A: Issue #336 asks this. Officially: no. The app hard-codes the bundled windows95.img; you can't pick a different hard-disk image from the UI. Power users running the app from source can swap the file, but it's not supported and recovery will fail.

Q: Why are my keystrokes not always reaching Windows?

A: When the cursor is not captured, only some keys reach the guest. Click into the emulator first (cursor lock), then type. The Machine menu also exposes the most commonly stolen chords (Ctrl+Alt+Del, Alt+F4, Alt+Enter).

Q: I want to play videos inside Windows 95 — what works?

A: Issue #328 discusses this. Native Win95 codecs (MPEG-1 with the right player, animated GIFs in Internet Explorer) work. Modern formats (MP4, H.264, WebM) do not — the codecs simply don't exist for Win95 and the emulated CPU isn't fast enough anyway.

Q: Can I export my virtual hard disk to a regular .img file?

A: Issue #321 asks for this. The app does export a recoverable C: tree when state versions change (described in Section 4.10), but there's no menu item that exports the live disk to a stand-alone bootable .img. Power users can find the live windows95.img via Machine ▸ Go to Disk Image and copy it manually.