Given the presence of 7zip almost definitely
Which makes it kinda more interesting tbh—did someone at Ars set this up to take a screenshot of ICQ? Getting a windows 98 VM set up with all that other stuff just for an article image seems like a lot of effort for a journalist who probably needs to get a few articles written a week.
If it wasn’t Ars, who was it and why did they set up a somewhat period-accurate windows 98 VM and then take a screenshot of ICQ out of everything?
Maybe I’m thinking too hard about this
Honestly I thoughr about doing it after suggesting that it might have been a VM. Maybe it was someone like me.
Maybe someone in the art department keeps a Windows 98 VM setup specifically for these tech obituaries for programs and services people thought were long dead. I don’t think I’ve used AIM/ICQ/MSN Messenger since around 2007/2008, and it was because it had become pretty dead.