Is this really an issue? I mean it makes sense with the security updates being non-existent for a long time now, but would bots really hardlock the machine fairly quickly?
Nowadays the resources required to even bother with a botnet targeting win95 machines would be almost non-existent. That said, I guess someone could be managing something that targets all win32 versions .. the internet is weird place
I don't know if it is still the case, but I had an old box that was working in 2015, booted it up and pulled the data I wasn't sure I had backed up. I wanted to see what would happen so I connected a Ethernet cable to my home router, and the computer immediately locked up. I hard rebooted, and it locked up before even getting through the boot up cycle. I recycled the machine later.