The thing about that screenshot that has me curious is the shortcut to 7zip which, although it has been around for longer than I realised, no one really used until the 2nd half of the 00's
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?
Oh don't get me wrong, I get that someone might set up the VM, I just don't know why they'd do that plus then screenshot ICQ and put it somewhere online for this journalist to find
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.