YouTube creator MattKC ports back thousands of unsupported apps to Windows 95

Developer and YouTube creator MattKC recently released a GitHub repository named DotNet9x, a backport of .NET Framework 2.0–3.5 for Windows 9x, including Windows 95. This was followed by a 52-minute YouTube video detailing the creation of DotNet9x and its potential to port thousands of previously unsupported Windows applications to Windows 95. The video has garnered over half a million views in less than five days, with overwhelmingly positive reactions on both GitHub and YouTube.

MattKC's GitHub repository reveals that .NET 2.0 is largely functional, while work on .NET 3.5 is in its initial stages. This development is significant as .NET Framework 3.5 never officially supported anything below Windows XP, and .NET in general was not compatible with Windows 95. DotNet9x has changed this by backporting CLR 2.0 to Windows 95 and Framework 3.5 to Windows 9x.

Installation of .NET CLR 2.0 requires Windows 95 B (OSR 2) or newer, Internet Explorer 5.01, the Microsoft USB Supplement, and optionally, the Microsoft Windows Socket 2 Update for socket support.

While there are some bugs and incompatibilities, DotNet9x has already enabled the running of numerous .NET applications on Windows 95. Pretty impressive!