Microsoft Lets You Relive Your Windows 95 Years Through Any Browser

Oct. 2, 2013 — -- The year was 1995. If you weren't busy watching the OJ Simpson trial or "Seinfeld," you might have been listening to your desktop computer dial up and connect to AOL, which you installed via CD-ROM. And there's a good chance that computer was running Windows 95.

It was one of the biggest changes to the Windows operating system. We got the Start button, the taskbar and Internet Explorer, and today Microsoft is bringing back a little piece of that operating system to the modern Web and its current Internet Explorer browser.

A game called Hover! shipped on all Windows 95 installation CD-ROMs. As of today you can play that game again right through Internet Explorer 11 or any other browser that supports the Web GL development standard, including Chrome and Firefox.

Visit http://hover.ie and you'll be able to start playing the game. You can even play against up to eight others now. Of course, you'll notice right away that the game doesn't look at all like the Windows 95 version, but the premise is the same. You pick a hovercraft and then you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to maneuver through the levels and find the flags. Microsoft's Senior Director of Internet Explorer Marketing Roger Capriotti said the game has been optimized for Internet Explorer 11, and though it will run in Chrome or Firefox, "it will probably smoother and faster" in Microsoft's browser.

But there's an extra very nostalgic trick that might interest people more than Hover's strong Web graphics. When you start up the game and see the single player and multiplayer option, you can type in "Bambi" (IBMAB was a string of letters that revealed a secret feature in the original game) and you will be brought to the original game running on a Windows 95 desktop. All of this right in your browser.

Not only can you play some of the old game, but you can also click on the desktop where there is now a tweet.exe and share_fb.exe programs. Click those and it will take you through a retro-looking menu and from there you can post to your Facebook or Twitter account.

There is also a "Fun Stuff" folder which launches some of the "stuff" that was in Windows 95's "fun stuff" folder, including a Weezer music video and a "Rob Roy" trailer.

Honestly, we don't even know what you are waiting for and why you are still reading this sentence. It's not everyday you can get back to 1995 in just a few clicks. Go!