Edie Brickell Good Times on Windows 95 CD

When Microsoft launched Windows 95, the retail and OEM CD-ROM editions included high-profile multimedia samples to demonstrate the operating system's built-in audio and video playback capabilities. Among the most famous of these media clips was the full-length music video for "Good Times" by alternative rock singer Edie Brickell. Included as a standalone video file, this clip served as an out-of-the-box demonstration of 32-bit multimedia processing on personal computers.

File Name and Disc Location

The "Good Times" music video was stored on the Windows 95 installation CD in the \FUNSTUFF\VIDEOS directory under the filename GOODTIME.AVI. Because CD-ROM capacities far exceeded the storage required for the core operating system, Microsoft used the remaining disc space to bundle interactive extras, including software demos, game previews, and music videos.

Alongside Edie Brickell’s "Good Times," the disc also contained the music video for Weezer’s "Buddy Holly" (BUDDY.AVI), a trailer for the movie Rob Roy, and video guides featuring actors from the television show Friends.

Technical Significance in Windows 95

In 1995, full-motion digital video playback on a standard home PC was a major technological benchmark. Prior to Windows 95, playing video smoothly often required third-party software extensions, specialized hardware decoders, or manual configuration in MS-DOS and Windows 3.1.

Microsoft included GOODTIME.AVI to prove that Windows 95 could handle digital media natively using its updated Media Player utility (MPLAYER.EXE) and Video for Windows architecture. The video was encoded in the AVI container using the Cinepak codec at a resolution of 320x240 pixels and a frame rate of 15 frames per second, accompanied by 8-bit or 16-bit uncompressed audio. This format allowed the video to run smoothly on standard 486 and early Pentium systems without requiring expensive, dedicated MPEG decoder cards.

Cultural Legacy

Edie Brickell’s "Good Times" had originally appeared on her 1994 solo album, Picture Perfect Morning. Its inclusion on millions of Windows 95 installation discs exposed the song and its distinctive, colorful music video to a massive global computer audience, making it an iconic piece of 1990s computing nostalgia alongside Weezer's "Buddy Holly."