Something that was popular during the time of earlier Windows versions were floppies or CDs full of programs, tools and demos from many different sources. They were often complete grab bags of content that ranged in quality and legality, all bundled together.

I'd never actually owned one though, so when I saw a CD for Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities pop up on Yahoo Auctions for next to nothing, I grabbed it right away.

1000 Utilities… Think of all the things I could do! This CD must be bursting with productivity!

A scan of the CD for Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities

Hmm? What's with the 🔞 adult material references warning of this article?

Don't worry about that for now!

With the huge amount of content on this CD, I plan to write quite a few more articles that cover the specific things to be found on here, but for now, let's take a look at using the CD itself.

---

Using the CD

Launching the CD opens an index like menu, sorting the 1000 Utilities into 12 categories.

The title menu screen for Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities

Internet
Launchers
Information Organization
Multimedia
Editors
Screensavers
Graphics
Communication Software
File Management
Accessories
Compression and Decompression Software
Other

So many good things! I was very excited to see a whole category just for screensavers, so let's look at that first.

The Screensaver screen for Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities

Look how long that scrollbar is… Truly a treasure trove! Let's come back to this later and quickly look at some other categories - let's try Graphics.

The Graphics screen for Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities

Another huge scrollbar! You love to see it!

Let's look at another promising category - Accessories.

The Accessories screen for Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities

The scrollbars never end… It was at this point I knew I had something very powerful.

Let's jump back to screensavers and see if we can find something fun to try.


Oh my god... Elephant Screen Saver. Yes please!!

---

Elephant Screensaver

Selecting Elephant Screen Saver opens a window to allow us to either extract the files somewhere or have it install by itself for us. Show me those files, extract to Desktop!


Looks like we get maybe a compressed version of the screensaver, the .scr screensaver file itself, and two text files about the screensaver.

Readme file for the Elephant Screensaver

The readme file tells us it was made by Masaaki Sato for Windows 95. Under "Software Introduction", we get this amazing sentence:

"This is a screensaver with a small and cute(?) elephant that cleans up. Please cherish it".

I will!!!!!!!!!!!

The screensaver doesn't seem to require any additional files, so we can just right click and install…



This opens up the Screensaver properties window for us. Show me the elephant!

Ahh… Ahh!!

It really is small and cute… It really is cleaning up…!

And you're telling me there's 999 more things yet to see…?

Let's briefly look at one more example. Rather than use the browser on the CD (which doesn't show us many things at once), I decided to look through the files myself instead.


Let's see what jumps out at me here…

I see… "Nude"!

---

Nude Screensaver

For extracted files, we get the Nude screensaver and a readme. A promising start!


The readme tells us the screensaver was made in 1997 as Freeware by Kenbo, using something called "Pop Saver" (could be something to look for in the future).

"This is a screensaver where naked foreign woman appear randomly".

Well, only one way to know for sure.

A censored version of the Nude Screensaver. If you want to see uncensored sexual content online, please try one of the many other websites out there instead of making me have to disable comments for a while.

That sure is naked women appearing randomly! Thanks, Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities! 👍

---

As you can see, Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities seems to be something that I clearly need to look through quite thoroughly. It feels like anything could be on here… I will have to keep searching and write more articles about what I find 🫡


If you'd like to browse through the many treasures of Online Software Volume 2 - 1000 Utilities for yourself, you can download my archive.org upload of it here.