VirtualBox and older operating systems

tonymarcus

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Hello Guys,

Has anyone managed to get older O/S's like Windows 95, 98 and ME running on VirtualBox on Windows 8, I used to be able to run all Operating Systems when I had my Vista set up. Strangely I can install and run DOS and Win 3.1 but not Win 95, Win 98 and Win ME. Anything from XP works fine.

Thanks

Tony
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Built System
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66Ghz, Overclocked to 3.3Ghz
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS5
    Memory
    8GB XMS2 4GB DDR2 PC2-8500
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte 660GTX 2GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SMS27B970D
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1xSAMSUNG SSD 840 Pro Series Basic 2.5" - 512 GB - Boot drive
    2xSamsung Spinpoint F1 750GB
    PSU
    Corsair 520HX
    Case
    Antec P182
    Cooling
    Zalman 9700NT
    Internet Speed
    12Mb/s
    Other Info
    I did a fresh format and install of Windows 8 64 Bit Pro. Sorry but I couldn't live without a start button so I have installed the Start8 start menu which is great. I try sometimes not to use it but find metro frustrating to find programs as I have many. I will use Metro for apps only and desktop of serious computing.
Is this a filesystem problem? - Whereas MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 resided on FAT formatted hard disks. FAT32 was for the Windows 9x brigade, and NTFS for XP etc.

Let's see how we used to do it in the old days...

Before you started you needed a boot floppy with CD-ROM support, A Windows '95 install CD, which was not bootable, a CD-ROM drive and a Hard drive usually between 512 and 1024 MB - 1 gig or less - bigger drives were a problem and quite rare then.

You needed a formatted DOS 6.2 or better boot partition with the system files on it to install to, I recall, the method in those days was boot from a DOS system floppy in the a:\ drive, run Format c: /s but not reboot yet, so that the CD-ROM drivers on the floppy would still work and then copy the contents from the CD-ROM to the hard drive, which was faster than installing from the CD-ROM. The DOS commands (in red)were as follows:[FONT=Courier New,Courier]
[/FONT]A:\>C:
C:\>md windows
C:\>cd windows
C:\WINDOWS>md options
C:\WINDOWS>cd options
C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS>md cabs
C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS>cd cabs
C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS>copy d:\win95\*.*

Where d:\ was the CD-ROM drive. Once the files had copied, it was time to reboot, removing the CD-ROM and Boot floppy.
On rebooting from the hard disk, you were taken to the C:\prompt, and it was a case of navigating to the setup folder that had all the setup cabs in it.

C:\>cd \windows\options\cabs
C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS>setup

I think that the setup complained that there was no HIMEM.SYS, but just continue, it would be configured on rebooting, and it was best not to select any of the hardware, even if prompted to at this time, because that often caused setup to hang.
When asked where to install windows, choose c:\windows
After Setup has completed, reboot.

Plug and play often found most common devices quite well, but not all...

You may then need to open device manager to install some of your devices, one way was to delete the device and reboot so that Windows found it, another was to pick the exact driver yourself. I don't know if Virtualbox has device drivers for Windows 9x. In its guest additions or whatever.

If you think that Windows 95 was tough to install, you should try OS/2 2,1 or Warp 3. All those floppy swaps - nightmare, but the system was stable once installed and ran windows 3.1 seamlessly, or so it seemed for a few months until Windows 95 came along.





[FONT=Courier New,Courier][/FONT]
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
I've installed VMware now guys, last night i had a right trip down memory lane installing win95 OSRII , I had to dig deep to remember how to partition and format the HD, good old fdisk, we don't know lucky we are with our modern bootable installation DVD's. it only took about 20 minutes, if I remember correctly it used to take 1-1.5 hours!.

What version did the windows disks come through as bootable, was it XP?

Tony
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Built System
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66Ghz, Overclocked to 3.3Ghz
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS5
    Memory
    8GB XMS2 4GB DDR2 PC2-8500
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte 660GTX 2GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SMS27B970D
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1xSAMSUNG SSD 840 Pro Series Basic 2.5" - 512 GB - Boot drive
    2xSamsung Spinpoint F1 750GB
    PSU
    Corsair 520HX
    Case
    Antec P182
    Cooling
    Zalman 9700NT
    Internet Speed
    12Mb/s
    Other Info
    I did a fresh format and install of Windows 8 64 Bit Pro. Sorry but I couldn't live without a start button so I have installed the Start8 start menu which is great. I try sometimes not to use it but find metro frustrating to find programs as I have many. I will use Metro for apps only and desktop of serious computing.
What version did the windows disks come through as bootable, was it XP?

It was Win98 SR2. This one boots in VMware from CD.
...Start with CD ROM support and without using any floppy disk.
XP also boots from CD but with SP2 to be sure. I don't know about the first release but it needed 6 floppies in some cases!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
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