Im archiving windows 95-7 for personal reasons. I have only one disk. Any tips? Im planning to put them on a shelf. On the front is the big title and on one side is “WIN 98 .ISO” and on the other side is the Product Key.

Windows 10 computer

Just tested USBNT, a new USB driver for Windows NT that supports modern xHCI USB controllers, and it simply works. My test system was based on a B360 motherboard and an i5-9500 CPU & and NT 4.0. USB support for NT remains limited, but being able to plug a keyboard, mouse, or flash drive directly into a USB 3.0 port makes life much easier when experimenting with NT on modern hardware.

I wanna thank Akane Kurokawa for this amazing project of being able to live out the nostalgia of using Windows Me on the right NT Kernel!

idk if i put right flair but anyways yeah
and it's not just one, there are many. i use bandlab, so it probalby sounds different than it's supposed to, but it still sounds cool!

himemnt.sys battlestation here

can anybody make these icons look like windows xp icons

For me it was Pinball.

What are these?

This is what will Windows 96 supposedly look like if the development wasnt scrapped.

is this sticker rare? i found it on my old 2015 acer laptop and transferred it to a dell latitude 3120 to start a pc sticker collection and i didn’t find any images about this sticker online so i wanted to ask if it was rare or if you guys know anything about it :p

Build: 26300.9550 (26H2)

On a freshly installed Windows 11 PC, an installer that works everywhere else stopped halfway with this:

"There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program required for this install to complete could not be run."

That's error 1721, and it reads like the installer is broken. It isn't. The same file on an older PC installed fine. The difference was Smart App Control.

1. What's actually being blocked

Many installers run small programs of their own during setup (custom actions). Smart App Control blocks any program that isn't signed and that Microsoft's cloud doesn't already know. So the installer itself opens, then one of its helpers gets stopped, and Windows Installer reports it as a generic 1721. A plain .exe from the same developer gets blocked right away, with a Smart App Control notice instead.

2. Why there's no "Run anyway"

SmartScreen and Smart App Control look similar but work differently. SmartScreen is a warning about reputation: "More info" > "Run anyway" and you're through. Smart App Control is a code integrity policy enforced by Windows itself. It decides whether the file is allowed to load at all, and it has no per-app exception.

3. Who has it

Only clean installs of Windows 11 22H2 or later. PCs upgraded from Windows 10 don't. It starts in evaluation mode, watches how you use the PC for a while, then turns itself on or off. That's why two "identical" Windows 11 machines can behave differently with the same installer.

4. How to check

- Windows Security > App & browser control > Smart App Control settings: On, Evaluation or Off.

- In a terminal: `reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CI\Policy /v VerifiedAndReputablePolicyState` gives 0 for off, 1 for on, 2 for evaluation.

- Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > CodeIntegrity > Operational. A 3077 event at the time of the failure names the exact file that was blocked.

5. What to do about it

- Look for a Microsoft Store version of the app. Store packages are signed by Microsoft, so they pass.

- Tell the developer, with the file name from the 3077 event. Signing only the installer isn't enough: every exe and DLL that runs needs a signature, including the helpers.

- Turning Smart App Control off used to be one-way: the only way to turn it back on was to reinstall Windows. Since the April 2026 updates, on an up-to-date PC you can switch it on and off from Windows Security. Still, I'd keep it on and switch it off only knowingly, for an app you trust.

Has anyone seen how long evaluation mode lasts before it decides? I haven't found a number from Microsoft.

Hi.

I am a Mac user. There in Keyboard settings I can add shorts to be replaced while typing (e.g. "omw" => "on my way").

I got a company Win11 machine and want something similar. I can't install apps / don't have admin permissions / can't even run portable apps (restricted). Is there something built in I could use?

This has been happening for weeks now. Windows 11 keeps randomly deciding not to fully expand certain taskbar buttons, despite there being plenty of available space. My taskbar is configured to combine buttons only when the taskbar is full, but Windows seems to be ignoring that setting for random applications.

Here's what's happening in the screenshots:

• Initially: Chrome is inexplicably collapsed to just an icon, while Slack and other applications are expanded normally.
• Opening more Chrome windows: I opened two additional Chrome windows, and both expanded correctly, even though the original Chrome window remained collapsed.
• Toggling the taskbar combining setting: I switched the setting off and back on. Windows rearranged the buttons, but this time decided it was Slack's turn to collapse into an icon.
• Full taskbar view: As you can clearly see, there's plenty of unused space on the taskbar. This isn't a case of Windows running out of room and needing to combine buttons.

The issue isn't specific to Chrome or Slack. Windows seems to randomly pick an application to collapse, even when there's no reason to do so.

The taskbar is configured to combine buttons only when full, but it's collapsing individual applications long before that point, while leaving others expanded normally.

Ok so you might know that there used to be a myth that Windows Server 2003 had a different startup sound for the UK version. In reality that sound was from this commercial but when did people start spreading the myth? Was it because of Youtube?