The PlayStation 2, the best-selling game console of all time, is capable of a lot more than just playing games — and people are still pushing its limits today, especially modders, who have a special fondness for it and continue to find new ways to keep it alive.
Among the more unusual recent projects is one where a YouTuber managed to run Windows 95 on a PS2. As wild as it sounds, his goal was simple: to play DOOM in yet another unexpected way. After all, id Software’s legendary shooter is famous for running on just about anything, so this fan decided to see if Sony’s second generation of PlayStation could join the club. What he found, though, was far from what he expected.
In a roughly 30-minute video, MetraByte explains the steps required to get the console from the early 2000s to boot up Microsoft’s iconic system. He doesn’t show the entire process but makes it clear it took many hours of trial and error.

The first major hurdle was that Windows 95 was built for x86 processors, while the PlayStation 2 relies on a MIPS-based CPU. To overcome this, MetraByte used Bochs, an open-source emulator that basically allows the console to behave like a 1995 PC.
The installation process alone took around 14 hours (definitely not a project for the impatient), and the final experience was anything but practical. From what he showed, running Windows 95 on a PS2 is not the most user-friendly experience.
Once the OS was up, MetraByte launched Paint and attempted to draw, but without a working mouse, that plan fell apart fast. Unfortunately, the mouse problem turned out to be the least of his concerns. In the end, the biggest disappointment came when DOOM itself failed to run as intended.
The good news is that the game actually has an official port for Sony’s newer consoles, so there’s really no need for all this hassle.
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