virtualbox.org

I have just managed to get W98SE working with Windows 7 as the host and I would be grateful if someone could confirm that there are no USB drivers available for W98SE and that the shared folder system does not work either.

As it is, I am a bit stuck with getting any files into the guest system, as W98SE does not want to read CDR's burned and closed on Windows 7, although it reads the installation CD perfectly. Is it possible to burn a CDR which can be read by a W98SE guest? Is there any other way of transferring files?

Thanks for any help.

USB can work if you can get the drivers loaded. (all manual all unsupported) You need to google these kinds of questions with site:forums.virtualbox.org after the keyword
Example: USB in win98 site:forums.virtualbox.org as well as without the site:forums.virtualbox.org to see what others are doing to get this to work.

CD should work if the CD is burned in standard configuration and bit size.
File sharing is best done using normal network sharing. (bridged mode or host-only)

The VBox shared folders require that the guest additions be installed and since Win98 is not supported and there are no guest additions for it the shared folder is not going to work.

VirtualBox online users manual

Frosting wrote:I would be grateful if someone could confirm that there are no USB drivers available for W98SE and that the shared folder system does not work either.

VirtualBox drivers are not required to get USB to work inside a Win98SE guest - or any other guest for that matter: USB is supported as virtual hardware, not a guest addition. Win98SE itself however does not have native support for USB mass storage devices (flash drives, portable hard drives etc). That is a feature of Win98 and has nothing to do with VirtualBox. This means that you need a specific Win98SE driver from the manufacturer of each USB mass storage device you plan to use inside that guest.

VirtualBox Shared Folders support does require Guest Additions, which are not available for Win98. You can however get network shared folders working - you should try a search for this as Perry says.

Thanks for the help and I have a feeling that there are USB drivers included in the W98SE Service Pack I have. The problem is that I have no way of getting this into the guest system unless I can find out why W98SE will not read a CDR which the host system has no problem with. Meanwhile I will look at the network shared folder option.

Bit of a Catch 22 situation

Frosting wrote:Thanks for the help and I have a feeling that there are USB drivers included in the W98SE Service Pack I have

I'm pretty sure Win98SE just didn't work that way. There is no native support (meaning no single OS driver) that supports all USB mass storage devices. Instead you needed a separate driver for each device, and that driver had to come from the mfr of said device, it didn't come from MS. Good luck finding mfrs who still provide W98 drivers today!

It's possible that some obscure third party has since provided a universal USB mass storage driver for Win98, but I'm pretty sure that you won't find any such thing on a Microsoft service pack. Better USB support was one of the things that made me switch from W98 to XP, back in 2003 or whenever it was.

Btw., it sounds like a tool to create .ISO images would be useful to you. These virtual CDs can usually be mounted and work much more reliably than a physical CD. ImgBurn makes a good ISO tool, and was free the last time I looked.

It's likely you used Windows 7's direct to disc method for writing those cdrs. It's kind of like the old Roxio DirectCD packet writing method. It was meant to provide a method to use cdrs like floppies but has always been unreliable because each cd software manufacturers version of packet writing software wrote discs that could only be read reliably by computers with its version of the software installed.

More reliable is the session writing software which writes multi-sessions to the cdr. The sessions are closed but the disc itself is kept open to write more sessions to the cdr. When writing the new session the previous ones are read into the software and then the new files added are written as a new session, then when the operating system file manager accesses the disc the latest session is read along with pointers to the files written in the previous sessions. It just looks like one big folder with your files when viewed with the file manager.

Most reliable is image writing in a single session that is closed along with the cdr at the end of the writing process.

I still use multi-session for cdr writing (but not for dvd+r's as it is unreliable). Windows 7 can do multi-session writing but you must change the option before writing the disc, or you can install cd writing software such as CDBurnerXP (available free), Nero (costs money), Roxio (costs money), etc for more features in your cd/dvd writing that Windows comes with. I install CDBurnerXP and IMGBURN (for image writing) in Windows.

So, if you use session writing or image writing your cdr/dvdr discs can be read just fine in your VirtualBox Windows 98 guests. Your problem is that Windows 98 doesn't come with DirectCD reader software, not that the operating system is a guest in a virtual machine. If you installed an XP or higher version as a guest then those discs would likely be read fine as those Windows versions come with DirectCD reader software (the free version from Roxio I believe).

ANY DirectCD type software can interfere with standard cd writing software. That's why most folks who install 3rd party cd writing software actually turn off WindowsXP and up built in writing software (by right clicking the drive and in properties uncheck the ability of the drive to write cds) before installing the software.

Thanks again for all the replies.

After wasting much time and discovering various other problems I have decided that the easiest solution is to ditch 98 and install XP. It seems to be using a sledgehammer to crack a couple of 16 bit programs, but it does work well.

Ok somewhat late but nevertheless:
- you can 'network' your Win98SE VM and your VBox host just (well almost) as you would connect two physical PC's
- for USB: see some hints here: How to add USB to your Win95 OSR2 VM http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 96&start=0, and Win98 is not more difficult than Win95

Edit after mpacks comment below: the link in that post (http://toastytech.com/files/cruzerwin95.html) suggests that the solution given there will also work for Win98. In BOTH cases (Win95 AND Win98) you will need a device-specific driver.

ghr wrote:for USB: see some hints here: How to add USB to your Win95 OSR2 VM http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 96&start=0, and Win98 is not more difficult than Win95

Don't do that - those "hints" are irrelevant. Win95 did not have USB support, hence that thread for how to add it. Win98/Win98SE is a different animal which did have USB support built in, that support was simply weak by XP standards: a fact which will not be improved by following that howto!

Hi mpack, you're partially right and partially wrong so I edited my post to be a 'bit' more precise. Wanting to use old OSes is like wanting to drive an old car: you need the willingness and ability to do some of the mechanics yourself - and a little bit of web searching can easily help

I don't know about win95 but for 98 and 98se there is a generic usb driver pack that you can get here http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.php. It is for flash disks and card readers but i think that is what you are looking for .

Thanks for the pointer!