Discuss: Tutorial: Windows 95/98 guest OSes

[mark rumsey]

I have found a little problem with running Win98 on a Win7 host, and I also have the solution.

To share data between guest and host it is necessary to use network drives. I am using a bridged network connection, but I can see no reason why other network connections shouldn't work.

To share the Win98 drive with Win7 is very easy. Simply set up the Win98 networking to use the same workgroup as Win7, then share the drive in the normal way (giving full access rather than the default read only as required) and Win7 will be able to find the Win98 guest and access the drive.

To share the Win7 drive with Win98 is more complicated. First, Win7 has to have its network settings configured to be Win98 compatible. This is the easy bit. Simply go to the advanced sharing settings for the Home or Work network and turn Password Protected Sharing off. This should enable Win98 to see the Win7 host, although you may also need to adjust the Win7 firewall to allow VirtualBox through on the Home or Work network. At this point you can set up the Win7 drive to be shared (using advanced sharing and ensuring permissions are set using the Everyone account with access rights as required) and then you are ready to access the host machine drive from Win98. Unfortunately, Win7 doesn't understand the Win98 request to browse the host when viewing it in Network Neighborhood, so you can't get to anything on the host. However, the solution is to type in the full path of the shared drive on the host into the Network Neighborhood (or Win Explorer) address bar in the format \\HostPCName\SharedDrive, and you will be into the drive able to navigate it normally.

If you want to make things a little easier to access in the future, you can map the shared drive to a drive letter. This is a little harder than usual as you cannot get into the host machine and therefore cannot do it by right clicking on the shared folder to assign the drive letter. Again, this can be overcome by running Windows Explorer and using the Map Network Drive under the Tools menu. Select the drive letter required, then type in the path for the shared folder (same format as above), tick the reconnect button if you want it to be permanent, hit OK and you're in business. Please note that this option is only available in Windows Explorer. My Computer and Network Neighborhood windows, although very similar, don't have the Tools menu needed to map the drive.

[Hatta]

After the first reboot installing Windows 95, I found it necessary to enter safe mode and delete the floppy drive from the device manager. On reboot installation continued successfully.

To make Win 95 authenticate against Samba 3.3 (or later) I needed the following lines in smb.conf under [global]

lanman auth = Yes
client lanman auth = Yes

After that, rerun 'smbpasswd -a username' to store the new hashes. More info here: http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/win9x_samba.htm

If you can't browse the network neighborhood at all, you may need to make your samba server a master browser. I put the following under [global]:

domain master = no
local master = yes
preferred master = yes
os level = 65

[Neighbour]

Though turning off VT-x/AMD-V is required to be off during the installation of windows 9X, turning it back on after the installation is complete gave me a significant speed boost. And it hasn't crashed yet (10mins running)
(Host: windows XP X64, CPU: Intel Core2Duo E8500)

[half12]

Hi,

I have a Win98SE VBox and have installed the VBEMP x86 VESA drivers available from here ( http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm ).
The driver installed without error and the settings now allow 16, 256, 15bit and 16bit colour. No matter what setting I make it always returns to 16 colors @ 640x480 pixels.

Any suggestions on fixing the problem.

TIA

[Technologov]

U must choose Universal version, because their VBox version is buggy.

[Vader]

Hi,

I have a Win98SE VBox and have installed the VBEMP x86 VESA drivers available from here ( http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm ).
The driver installed without error and the settings now allow 16, 256, 15bit and 16bit colour. No matter what setting I make it always returns to 16 colors @ 640x480 pixels.

Any suggestions on fixing the problem.

TIA

I have exactly the same problem. There are only two driver options on the linked page (not counting the source code), so I must be using the wrong one. The available options for download are:

1) Universal VBE20 version
2) Universal/Manual VBE20 version

I tried door#1 (081021.zip, as that seems to be the most recent), and selected the driver from the VBE/UNI subdirectory (I am assuming that is the Univseral driver, not the VirtualBox one). I am told that my hardware does not support any settings other than the default...?!? HELP!!!!

EDIT: I found the problem. Door#1 does not work (even the uni). I tried Door#2, and selected the 'uni' sub folder, and all is well...

[mark rumsey]

Neighbour, the VTx/AMD-V problem isn't universal. At the moment only certain processors are affected, most notably the AMD Phenom range. I was aware of the problems on installing 98 (I have a Phenom II based machined) but I've been running with acceleration disabled as I didn't realise it only affected installation. I've just tried turning it on and my 98 VM is running fine, and remarkably quickly!

I'm running the VBE video driver without any issues running 98 on a VBox 3.0.8 machine. I am using the universal version that comes in the 081021.zip file (the one dated 2008.10.21 on the protect website). It should also be noted that these drivers are actually pre-beta according to the website, so it would be worth contacting the project team if you are having problems as they might have a solution or might want the details to help them debug the driver.

[MrStalker]

Hi,

I have a Win98SE VBox and have installed the VBEMP x86 VESA drivers available from here ( http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm ).
The driver installed without error and the settings now allow 16, 256, 15bit and 16bit colour. No matter what setting I make it always returns to 16 colors @ 640x480 pixels.

Any suggestions on fixing the problem.

TIA

I have the exact same problem. I've tried both downloads of the universal version, neither work. Strange thing because it worked perfectly before with VB v2. It must have something to do with the new version of VirtualBox. I'll try an older version.

EDIT: No luck with 2.2.4. Wtf, I had it working before. Maybe I used VMware...

[mark rumsey]

Right, here's something unexpected. I've just done a clean install on my Win98 virtual machine (reformatted the virtual disk & reloaded windows) and tried loading the VBE driver. The first time I tried I simply set Windows98 to search for the device specifying the location of the VBE Uni driver. It installed, but failed to work correctly only allowing limited resolutions with limited colours that Windows then wouldn't allow to run. Attemting to reinstall the driver made no difference even when I selected 'have disk' and manually selected the driver. So, I uninstalled the driver (i.e. changed to the to standard VGA driver), restarted, then reloaded the VBE driver by using the 'select from list' and 'have disk' options to manually pick the Uni driver, and it worked! I now have 1024x768 graphics in 32bit colour. So it seem the only way to make the driver work is to manually pick it using the 'select from list' and 'have disk' options after first making sure you are running with the standard VGA driver.

[Kawless]

Can't get past step 1 without crashing?
Set video memory to 8 megs, set Processor to Enable PAE/NX, Disable VT-x/AMD-V.
(Audio to SB16 in case you haven't already)

[Kegli]

If like me, you found the VESA drivers are no longer downloadable from bearwindows and scitechsoft, you can find them on this forum here :

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23317&p=103077&hilit=bearwindows#p103077

[half12]

Hi,

After trying various things to get the VBE driver working, I have not got to the stage that I get a Windows Protection Fault after the Win98SE vbox reboots. The screen size does increase to 1024x768 but Windows generates the protection fault and the VBox stops.

[mark rumsey]

Try uninstalling the VBE drivers and switch back to the default standard VGA driver, then after rebooting reinstall the VBE driver, but make sure you manually select the driver using the 'have disk' option (see above).

[qjqqyy]

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

wrong. Official bootable CD media is starting from WINDOWS 95 OSR 2. So if you're newbie, you should use Windows 95 OSR 2 BOOTABLE CD.
i am not sure if the windows 98 (the first version) is bootable
you can also use the 14-floppy disk version of windows 95 which is also bootable(?)

[alb123456]

hello, im a new member