Windows 95&98 guest OS.pdf - Dodo

Tutorial: Windows 95/98 guest OSes (View topic) • ... 

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&... 

virtualbox.org 

End user forums for VirtualBox 

Advanced search 

Board index ‹ General ‹ Howtos and Tutorials ‹ Windows Guests 

Change font size 

Print view 

FAQ 

Register 

Login 

Tutorial: Windows 95/98 guest OSes 

Post a reply 

2 posts • Page 1 of 1 

Tutorial: Windows 95/98 guest OSes 

by Technologov » 23. Sep 2008, 13:30 

Since this is now became a common request by many, I decided to write a 

tutorial about Windows 9x (95/98/98SE/Me) usage on VirtualBox. 

Forenote: Windows 9x is not officially supported by VirtualBox team, which 

means, that it lacks Guest VM Additions, and it runs slowly, because VirtualBox 

is not optimized to run Win 9x. 

1. Installation - I won't cover here in detail, except few points. 

1 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



Most CD-ROMs available for Windows 95/98 are not bootable, which means, 

that you must boot from DOS floppy, install DOS first and only then install 

Windows 95/98. 

*It does require DOS skills* 

Official bootable CD media is starting from 98SE. So if you're newbie, you 

should use Windows 98 SE bootable CD. 

Additionally I strongly suggest to limit system RAM to 512 MB for those OSes. 

Otherwise it will crash. (There are workarounds, that allow Win 9x run on 

modern physical systems, but I won't go into detail here) 

For this tutorial, I presume, that you are able to install the OS. 

Installing with ACPI: 

(contributed by Richard_S) 

Contrary to what you may have read here in some of the other VirtualBox 

Win98 threads, this is NOT because Win98se is a poorly written piece of 

antiquated crap that doesn't even know how to properly handle CPU IDLE. 

Back when a lot of todays young Linux geeks were still pooping their dipiys, 

Win98 was already supporting ACPI functions to create greener PCs and help 

keep laptops from running down their batteries in 10 minutes (which is exactly 

what DID happen to me the first time I installed Linux on a laptop that was 

working FINE in Win98). 

So, long story short, there is NOTHING really wrong with Win98, the problem 

is that VirtualBox's emulated BIOS doesn't fully match up with what Win98 

expects a real ACPI BIOS to look like, so by default Win98 will not install ACPI 

support (and unfortunately, the older APM support doesn't handle CPU IDLE, 

so we get problems). 

The solution is to FORCE ACPI support to be installed, by using the 

/p j 

command line switch when running the setup program that installs Win98. 

This means that you can't just jam the virtual CD into the virtual CD drive and 

let 'autorun' take care of everything. 

The best way to handle this is to simply move the Win98 install folder from the 

Windows 98 SE CD onto your virtual C: drive in VirtualBox, then change 

2 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



directory to that folder in a DOS prompt and run the setup program manually: 

setup /p j 

This will force ACPI power management (and the associated CPU IDLE 

functions) to be installed, and your Win98 virtual machine will consume no 

more system resources when running than a similar XP or Linux virtual 

machine. 

2. Sound /Audio Integration. 

In VirtualBox, you must enable Sound, and use "Sound Blaster 16". 

It is available since VBox 1.6.0. 

The procedure for installation is rather simple: 

NOTE: The procedure below is only needed if you switch from AC'97 to SB16. 

It is not needed, if you create new VM with SB16, then install Win98 on it. 

2.1. Delete your sound card device and all unknown devices from "Device 

Manager". 

2.2 Add New Hardware (from Control Panel). 

3 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



4 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



2.3 Select "no, device is not listed in the list". 

5 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



2.4 Let Windows search for non-plug'n'play devices. 

6 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



2.5 It will manually detect non-plug-n-play devices. Click on "Details" to 

show them. 

Image 

2.6. It will find "Soundblaster 16 or AWE 32 or compatible". 

7 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



2.7. Restart the VM. 

3. Video driver integration. 

By default Windows 98 will run only in 640x480 resolution, 16-colors. 

Performance Note: VirtualBox is not optimized for 16-colors (4-bit) emulation. 

It works very slow this way. 

Having 32-bit True Color driver makes Win98 VMs run on VirtualBox *much* 

faster. 

If you want True color or high resolution, you need to download special drivers. 

3.1. bearwindows driver 

http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm 

8 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



NOTE: You must install "Universal version", as "VirtualBox" version is known 

to have problems. 

3.2. SciTech Display Doctor 

The second option is to get the SciTech Display Doctor version 7 beta driver - 

(contributed by Richard_S) 

http://majorgeeks.com/download382.html 

The driver is a high quality commercial grade video driver (even includes some 

software emulated Open GL 3D support), and it does include an exe installer 

program. 

Despite having an installer, the SciTech Display Doctor is a little tricky to get 

going. After the program launches, you have to find the little round radio 

button link to click to 'enable' the new driver (otherwise you still have VGA). 

Even then, you can't select any higher resolution modes until you ditch the 

'default monitor' and select one of the 'Super VGA' types. 

After fiddling around with the above changes and rebooting several times you 

should be able to select 800x600 or 1024x768 (or higher) resolutions with 32 

bit color depth. (setting 32 bit color mode optimizes the interface with 

Virtualbox and really speeds things up) 

Another issue with the Scitech Driver is that it was released years ago as 

'trialware' with a 21 day trial limitation, and the company has since gone out of 

business. It has been reported here on this forum that before going defunct, 

Scitech released the software for 'free use' and published registration codes on 

their FTP server. Sadly that server is long gone and all the links are dead. 

Since the software was made available before this happened, I don't think I am 

stepping out of line by saying that you can Google around and find the 

registration information. There are a lot of codes that DON'T work so it can be 

a bit discouraging, but the proper registration information IS out there so keep 

trying and you will find it. (Hint: Try Googling something like SciTech Display 

Doctor 7 CSCKnight ) 

CD-key here: 

http://www.arcadenea.com.ar/content/blogcategory/1/65/ 

4. Network 

Easiest thing, is to setup VirtualBox to NAT, and AMD PCnet-II network chip. 

It will be auto-detected by Win 9x. 

9 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



5. Mouse 

Unfortunately, Mouse integration is not provided. 

If someone wants to try something novel, I recommend starting with "synergy". 

Or write the driver. 

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ 

6. Shared Folders 

Since VirtualBox shared folders won't work, there are other ways, such as 

SMB/Windows File Sharing. Recommended for Windows hosts. 

(Tested with VBox 2.1.2.-- and was successful with "bridged" network. I had no 

success with NAT.) 

WARNING: I admit that with VirtualBox the network is very unstable, 

presumably due to very slow performance of Win 9x guests under VBox. 

For Unix hosts, WinSCP is recommended. 

Another way of read-only file sharing is to create a virtual CD-ROM *.iso file on 

the host and insert it into the guest VM. 

7. Clipboard HostGuest 

(stefan.becker) 

Clipboard integrated in VirtualBox only works with the Guest Additions, so not 

for Windows9x. But there is another solution: Clipboard over TCP/IP. 

A Solution tested successfull with Linux Host is ShareClip: 

http://homepage.mac.com/bnej/shareclip/ 

-Technologov, 2.9.2008. 

updated on 20.7.2010. 

This topic is only for additions to this tutorial. Do not ask questions about how 

to get something working. Use a separate topic for that. 

Last edited by Technologov on 23. Feb 2009, 00:15, edited 2 times in total. 

Technologov 

Site Moderator 

Posts: 1822 

Joined: 10. May 2007, 16:59 

10 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



Location: Israel 

Top 

by fixedwheel » 23. Sep 2008, 13:58 

avoid 100% CPU load 

Win9x is using an idle loop instead of HLT: the loop lets the host CPU running 

the Win9x virtual machine consume 100% all the time. This only applies to 

DOS and DOS based Win (3.x, 95/98/ME) - NT based Windows and all other 

operating systems are not affected 

Install rain, waterfall or cpuidle in the Win9x guest - my preference is rain as it 

only does what is needed -replace the idle loop with HLT execution- and 

nothing more 

here is a link explaining something about, related to real hardware 

http://estu.nit.ac.jp/~e982457/other/cpuidle/idle.htm 

d/l rain from here: http://www.benchtest.com/downloads/index.html 

fixedwheel 

Volunteer 

Top 

Posts: 1206 

Joined: 13. Sep 2008, 02:18 

Display posts from previous: 

Sort by 

Post a reply 

2 posts • Page 1 of 1 

Return to Windows Guests 

Jump to: 

11 of 12 18/11/10 12:26



Who is online 

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest 

Board index 

The team • Delete all board cookies • All times are UTC + 1 hour [ DST ] 

Get 

VirtualBox 

Forum powered by phpBB © phpBB Group 

By any use of this Website, you agree to be 

bound by these 

Policies and Terms of Use 

Sponsored 

by 

12 of 12 18/11/10 12:26

Windows 95&98 guest OS.pdf - Dodo

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?