98.js

A web based Windows 98 desktop remake.

Includes:

• Notepad (separate README)
• Sound Recorder (separate README)
• Paint (separate repository)
• Calculator (separate README)
• 3D Pipes (separate repository)
• 3D FlowerBox (original repository) by Kevin Shannon
• Minesweeper (separate README; original repository) by Jon Ziebell
• Solitaire (original repository) by Radovan Janjic
• Pinball (original repository) ported by Muzychenko Andrey and Alula
• Winamp 2.9 (separate README; original repository) by Jordan Eldredge
• Windows Explorer / Internet Explorer (separate README)
• Help Viewer
• 📎 Clippy (original repository)

Features:

• Drop files onto the desktop, and they'll be stored in a virtual filesystem
• Load Windows themes! Many are included in the Themes folder on the desktop.
• Easter eggs (try a famous cheat code 😉)
• Meticulous detail in many areas (although there's obviously lots "missing")
• Help > Help Topics in Paint, Sound Recorder, Notepad, and Minesweeper
• You can add the site to your homescreen on mobile

Try it out

ＥＮＴＥＲ　　ＷＩＮＤＯＷＳ　９８　体験へようこそ

License

Not yet licensed. This project is currently source-available / shared source, but not open source.

Related Projects

Apps that it would be nice to integrate:

• Windows Classic theme designer
• Win95 Media Player

Other online operating systems / web desktops:

Name & Link	Vague Description	Repo & License	Chat
Rahul.io	another Windows 98 remake	repo here - MIT license
Windows 93	a "fictional version of Windows"	(not open source currently)	Discord
🏡 ZineOS	emojis everywhere	repo here - MIT license	Discord
EmuOS	emulator-focused Win9X desktop	repo here - shared source	Discord
OS.js	a more serious web desktop	repo here - simplified BSD license	Gitter
Friend	another serious one	repo here - different licenses for different parts
CloudDesk	another serious one	(explicitly not open source)
AaronOS	interesting aesthetic	repo here - shared source	Discord
Web Desktop	Windows 10 like "startpage"
System	Windows 10 like thing
WinXP	Windows XP	repo here - MIT license
Windows 98 - Packard Belle	Windows 98	repo here - shared source
X-WebDesktop-Vue	Windows 7	repo here - MIT license
vue win3.1	Windows 3.1	repo here - shared source
VirtualDesktop	Screenshot flows, several OSes
GUIdebook	Screenshots, several OSes

Plus many more web desktops on Wikipedia, awesome-web-desktops, and awesome-OS.

Libraries:

• OS-GUI, which grew out of this project
• Packard Belle, React95, and another one called React95, with similar goals to OS-GUI
• BrowserFS, a filesystem abstraction library powering 98.js

Also:

• Awesome Atwood's Law, a curated list of JavaScript reimplementations, similar to /r/atwoodslaw/

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING

Development Setup

• Install Git if you don't already have it.
• Install Node.js if you don't already have it.
• Clone the repository.
• Open up a terminal / command prompt in the project directory, and run npm install to install dependencies.
• Install one global dependency: npm i -g browserfs@2.0.0 (this will be simplified in the future; I'm using two different versions of BrowserFS for some reason)
• Run npm start to start up a live-reloading development web server.

When pulling changes from git, run npm install again in case there are any new or updated dependencies. (If you know package-lock.json hasn't changed, you shouldn't need to do this.)

Some dependencies are versioned with npm, but pulled into the repo with npm run pull-libs

Quality Assurance

Tests are written with Playwright. Spell checking is done with Cspell.

npm test
npm run lint

Debug tests or run them when code changes using the Playwright UI:

npx playwright test --ui

Quickly add tests using the code generator:

# Note: this runs the server, and currently leaves it running when closing the browser.
# Could use `start-server-and-test` to fix this, or see if there's an option in `npm-run-all`'s `run-p` command.
# (There's no option in `playwright codegen --help` to run the server, even though it's configured in `playwright.config.js`)
npm run test-codegen

There are also VS Code extensions for Playwright and Cspell (Code Spell Checker).

Managing Subrepos

To update subrepos, or push changes to them, install git-subrepo. You don't need this tool to clone the project and get up and running, as subrepos are just normal subdirectories with a .gitrepo metadata file.

Note that the metadata file references specific commit hashes, including between repositories, so it's best to avoid rebasing when subrepo updates are involved, i.e. once you do a subrepo command, it makes a commit, and you should leave it (and earlier commits) alone, and you should leave commits in the subrepo alone, before and up to any commits referenced by the containing project.

When making changes to a subrepo within the containing project: I'd recommend phrasing commit messages to apply to the subrepo, primarily, rather than the containing project, so that when you push the changes to the subrepo, the commit message will be appropriate.

If you so much as edit the commit message for a git subrepo pushed commit, you'd have to update the .gitrepo metadata file manually in the containing project, OR you could drop the commit you pushed and the git subrepo push commit (which updates the metadata) and do git subrepo pull instead (which btw gives you an option to rename the commit; and I think renaming that commit would be safe after the fact anyways as long as it's the last commit and not pushed).

TODO

See TODO