Getting internet on a Windows 98 VM

[rick_meadows]

I have successfully created a functioning Windows 98 VM in VirtualBox by following the tutorial in this forum. However, I'm still unable to use the internet. According to the topic, I'm supposed to change the modem settings of the VM to NAT and AMD PCNET-II and then have Windows 98 detect it. That part went fine, as soon as Windows started, it detected the modem. When it prompted me for the drivers, I realized the Windows 98 SE disc I have didn't have the drivers for it. I've been all night looking on Google for those drivers without luck. Does anyone here have a success story involving a Win98 VM and working internet? If you have the drivers, can you share? Or maybe there's another way?

[michaln]

The emulated AMD PCnet device is an Ethernet NIC, not a modem. That's a fairly significant difference. Whoever told you you needed to change the NIC type was pulling your leg, because the default for Windows 9x guests (AMD PCnet-FAST III) works fine. Windows 9x also comes with drivers for this NIC and will detect it automatically during installation. If your Windows 98 SE disc doesn't have drivers for AMD PCnet, it's either some damaged or hacked up version of Windows or possibly some heavily modified OEM version only suitable for installation on specific hardware.

I've installed a number of Windows 9x VMs from MSDN CDs without trouble. Those discs are no longer available from Microsoft, unfortunately. Windows 9x retail and upgrade versions work as well, just like generic OEM versions.

[mpack]

There's no requirement to change the network setting to NAT, although it certainly is usually the easiest to set up, provided you had working internet on your host PC.

I had no particular trouble gettings Win98 networking to run - and I just checked that it's still working, which it is. My VM simulates a PCnet-FAST III (Am79C973) adapter, and I'm bridging to my host NIC (i.e. I'm not using NAT, though that shouldn't make any difference really). The setup CD had native drivers for this NIC.

Of course the Internet Explorer version native to Win98SE is way out of date and can't display a lot of modern websites properly. I found that the most updated browser available which still runs on Win98 was Opera.

Another point to bear in mind is that Win98 networking is slightly harder to configure than XP and later - not quite so many self-configuring features, so Google is your friend when it comes to fixing a specific Win98 networking issue.

[rick_meadows]

The emulated AMD PCnet device is an Ethernet NIC, not a modem. That's a fairly significant difference. Whoever told you you needed to change the NIC type was pulling your leg, because the default for Windows 9x guests (AMD PCnet-FAST III) works fine. Windows 9x also comes with drivers for this NIC and will detect it automatically during installation. If your Windows 98 SE disc doesn't have drivers for AMD PCnet, it's either some damaged or hacked up version of Windows or possibly some heavily modified OEM version only suitable for installation on specific hardware.

I've installed a number of Windows 9x VMs from MSDN CDs without trouble. Those discs are no longer available from Microsoft, unfortunately. Windows 9x retail and upgrade versions work as well, just like generic OEM versions.

Thanks for the help, but I've tired AMD PCnet-FAST III and Windows won't detect it. When I try to launch the internet icon, Windows says it can't find any modems in my system. I thought I could, at least, select it on a list, but AMD isn't listed as a manufacturer.

I didn't get that part about the drivers: does Win98 come with them or not? In my case, it asked me for the disc, and when I inserted the disc, it couldn't find it. I have a Win98 SE disc from back in the day, and I don't know anything about it being hacked or something like that. Can't these drivers be found online anyway? Is it possible someone has ever tried to do this and ran into the same problems?

If you've successfully done that a number of times, do you have .ova files of the machines to share, then?

[rick_meadows]

Nevermind, I found a solution. Turns out all I had to do was use LAN.

Thanks for the help

[michaln]

Nevermind, I found a solution. Turns out all I had to do was use LAN.

Aha. Like I said, it's not a modem Glad you got it working!

[mpack]

For future reference :-

I didn't get that part about the drivers: does Win98 come with them or not? In my case, it asked me for the disc, and when I inserted the disc, it couldn't find it.

Yes, the default NIC is supported by Win98 natively, meaning that off-the-shelf Win98SE setup CDs include drivers for this NIC, sometimes in a separate networking folder. However, I have found myself in the past that Win98 has a nasty habit of reassigning CD drive letters halfway through an install - or maybe on first boot, I can't remember. However it still has places where it remembers the old drive letter and offers this as a default when it asks you to insert the setup CD... and then you accept the default and of course it can't find what was looked for.

There are several solutions. You can click the browse button and select the correct drive, however Win9E asks for the setup CD quite a lot, so this will be a longstanding PITA. If you are starting from scratch with a Win98 install then it often pays to copy the install files off the CD and into a folder on drive C. Finally there are registry tweaks you can use (Google for them) to make Win98 offer a different default path for the setup CD.