virtualbox.org

Hello there. I wanted to ask about a specific program that I've been having trouble getting to run in a Windows 95 virtual machine.

Kid Pix Studio Deluxe is a game I've been trying to get running to no success. I have a fully functioning setup of Windows 95 with all the system requirements met. I'm using SciTech Display Doctor 7.0's display driver to increase the colors to the required 256 for the game.

When I try and load the program it freezes on the startup screen with "Not responding" and I have no idea why. I tried changing my video settings little by little to no avail. I tried someone else's set of settings that supposedly used to work but definitely don't now. I used to able to run this game fine on my old virtual machine setups from a year or two ago but I'm unable to figure out how to do it anymore.

I've attached a few screencaps and my VBox.log file. If anything else is needed, please let me know.
I can't identify what the issue might be. I've tried rummaging for info but I couldn't find anything. If you guys have any suggestions please let me know, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you all.

I'm afraid there is little we can do to help you with guest apps, especially obscure 20+ year old ones, unless you can demonstrate a VirtualBox problem. Your question (why would this app hang at this point) can only be answered by the original vendor.

I will note that the copyright notice says 1998, so I wouldn't have confidence that it was ever intended to run on Win95. Three years was a long time given the speed of Windows development back then. E.g. compared to '95, '98 had a whole new driver infrastructure.

Also the log seems to show a number of hardening errors related to something you've installed on your host called "RBTray". This may be interfering... though I'm not sure how.

Thank you for the quick reply! I actually own a physical copy of the game and on the side of the box it says Windows 95 or higher is required. To my knowledge, Kid Pix had an original release a year or two prior and then got this "deluxe" version. That may explain why this was still built for Windows 95 back in 1998, though I could be wrong.

As for RBTray, that's a program I use to hide specific windows to the tray. I don't think it's possible for it to be interfering since I only have it installed on my host OS, but for good measure I tried killing the process and trying again. It unfortunately had no affect.

I'll attempt to contact the publishers of the game and ask. Hopefully they're still active. I may also try a few older versions of VirtualBox from around when I used to be able to get it running properly. I'll report back if that has any affect on things. Thanks again.

Ionbohler wrote: As for RBTray, that's a program I use to hide specific windows to the tray. I don't think it's possible for it to be interfering

Um. My comment was not based on speculation. The hardening errors are there in the log, you can review them yourself if you don't believe me: it can only mean that RBTray is invasive and not properly signed. I'm not familar with RBTray, but I recognize the category - I assume it's freeware, hence the lack of professional standards.

I apologize, that was poor wording on my part. What I was meaning to say was that I’m not sure it’s possible for RBTray to be interfering with programs within the guest OS, but of course I could be wrong about that. My understanding of virtual machines are limited, so please correct me if I’m wrong. I did read the log and noticed the errors myself, I never doubted it’s interference. Sorry for the miscommunication.

Ionbohler wrote:What I was meaning to say was that I’m not sure it’s possible for RBTray to be interfering with programs within the guest OS

It can do so indirectly: the VirtualBox hardware simulation is a program running on the host OS, it can certainly be affected by invasive host programs. Admittedly the results are usually crashes rather than hangs, but it still bears consideration.

Incidentally, I'm not happy that you eliminated the RBTray possibility properly, as it may consist of more than one process. A better test would be to examine the VM log after killing the RBTray process, to see if RBTray still gets a mention.


Otherwise... I guess the only other thing I can think of to try is using the BearWindows driver instead of SciTech. BearWindows is my own preference in my Win98 VMs, I've had no problem with it. I've not tried it in a Win95 VM (I have no Win95 VMs), but ISTR others have.

Oh.. and that's the other thing I would try: ditch Win95, install Win98SE.

Alright, first off I'd like to thank you for recommending BearWindows. It didn't fix my issue, but it does work with my Windows 95 setup very well and I think I'll be using this instead of SciTech from now on.

As for RBTray, I killed the process tree and made sure the log didn't have any interferences from it recorded. This didn't fix my issue either, however. I've attached the log (5.2.26) if you'd like to confirm.

Lastly, I went through some of the older builds of VirtualBox 5.2 on this page from newest to oldest. I surprisingly found that version 5.2.18 fixes the issue entirely. The menu and the rest of the program function as intended. I also tried 5.2.0 which worked fine there as well. The audio playback in these versions generally have a lot of crackling and popping for me, while the builds 5.2.20 and onward do not. I'm not sure, but perhaps this is somehow connected to the program not loading correctly in the newer builds? I'm unsure myself. I've attached the logs for my tests on both of these builds.

Thank you again for all the help, I really do appreciate it.

I don't see anything in the changelog since 5.2.18 that would account for your finding. I see audio bugs fixed in 5.2.22, i.e. the audio core got worked on for that release.

It would be good if you could test explicitly whether you still have the problem in 5.2.20 and 5.2.22. If you can pinpoint a version where a change must have occurred you stand a much better chance of a BugTracker ticket being addressed quickly... though I can't promise that fixing SB16 audio emulation will be a high priority for devs working in 2019.

Other things to test: does the problem go away if audio is disabled in the VM settings? - this would confirm that audio is the problem.

An interesting find during my research (from viewtopic.php?f=2&t=86773):

andyp73 (modified for Win95 scenario) wrote: You need to download the Windows 95 drivers from Realtek

1. Go to http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/
2. Click on "AC'97 Audio Codecs (Software)"
3. Accept the license / download terms.
4. Download the Windows 95 driver
5. Unpack the files and copy into your Win95 VM.
6. Run setup.exe.

This would allow you to install AC'97 audio support. This would be good as supporting SB16 is an extremely low priority for the devs. It's possible that your hang is a bug in the SB16 code, but I don't place the odds of that very high (the changelog says they worked on the audio core, not one emulation).