If you purchase a new PC, it probably comes with OSR2 (OEM Release 2) on it. This version includes most patches to Windows 95 that have been made available, as well as a new file system called FAT32. The usual file system for Windows 95 is FAT16, which has a limit of 2G for hard drives. It also wastes disk space for large drives by using large clusters. FAT32 has smaller clusters, and can access drives larger than 2G as a single partition. OSR2 is only available to OEMs (or those on the Microsoft Developer Network, MSDN); you won’t find it on the Microsoft web site.

In a related story, the update to Windows NT 4.0 will also be probably be delayed until next year. NT 5.0 was supposed to be in beta this summer. Seems the Windows 95 and NT development teams were merged a while ago, and the Windows 95 group has a more "care free" attitude towards development. This probably doesn’t sit well with NT customers, who like the stability of NT, but who have been irked from a rapid series of "Service Packs" (SP) for NT 4. In fact, SP2 has caused many people numerous headaches; Microsoft says a patch for the patch is in the works :)