wthomasoh

I have a computer that runs an important piece of software that is no longer available. There are no install disks for this software, so all I have is an ancient machine that runs windows 95 and this software.

I would like to create a virtual machine from this machine and then run it on new hardware so I can continue to use this software but not sure how to proceed.

Anyone have any ideas on how I can accomplish this?

blah789

Do you know which version of Windows 95 you have? Windows 95 A, B, or C?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95#Editions
Look at the files dates on your CD (in the win95 folder, the cab files), then compare with the chart then report back. This is significant, because win95 a needs a real mode CD-ROM driver in the middle of setup (after the first reboot - you have to put it in there by yourself or it'll ask you to insert CD, but won't be able to detect it). Just report back and I'll walk you through it.

blah789

OK I did it from scratch and wrote up some instructions.
If you have a floppy drive, grab a boot disk from bootdisk.com (get the Windows 98 SE OEM disk - I know: 98SE) http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
use it to build the floppy.
If you don't have a floppy drive, download the virtual floppy image i uploaded here instead
http://rapidshare.com/files/29100761...Eboot.zip.html
unzip it

You'll need Virtual Machine Additions, but the ones that come with Virtual PC 2007 SP1 don't work with Windows 95 (only 98 and up). You can use the ones that come with Virtual PC 2004 SP1.
http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/d...f-20bcb7f01cd1
Install the latter, then grab the file named VMAdditions.iso and save it someplace. Then uninstall it and install Virtual PC 2007 SP1.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...7-F6C7A1F000B5

The remaining steps were tested with Windows 95B (an OEM copy that bundled Microsoft Plus! with it), the Windows 98 SE OEM floppy disk image, and Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1.

Go through the new virtual machine wizard. I put 64MB for RAM, and 2 GB (2048 MB) for hard disk. Don't pick too large numbers for those two (I think 512 MB for is the limit for RAM in Windows 95; not sure for hard disk).

Before your click start, click on file, options, and make sure hardware virtualization is enabled if you have it available.

Click start to start your virtual machine. Click on floppy, and select the file WIN98SEboot.vfd. It'll boot from the floppy. Pick "start computer with CD-ROM support" (press enter). Type
FDISK
press Y to enable FAT32 (otherwise if you type N you'll only be able to create FAT16 partitions, which is fine too (and necessary on Windows 95A), but max partition size for FAT16 is 2GB). Press 1 to create a partition, 1 for primary partition, then Y to take up the whole space. Press esc to exit. Then click action, ctrl-alt-del to reboot.
Start again with CD-ROM support. Type
FORMAT C:
Press Y to confirm.

this is (relatively speaking) the hardest part
Type in this sequence of commands for real-mode CD-ROM support:
COPY OAKCDROM.SYS C:
D:
COPY MSCDEX.EXE C:

then you're going to create a special config.sys and autoexec.bat. type
EDIT C:\CONFIG.SYS
the edit program should start. type in the following lines
device=himem.sys
device=oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001
press alt-F then arrow-down and pick save
press alt-F, then X to exit

type
EDIT C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
for the contents, type
@echo off
mscdex.exe /D:mscd001 /L:D
save it (alt-F, then save), then exit (alt-f, x)

Pop your Windows 95 CD in the drive. Click CD, "use physical drive X:" where X: is the letter of the drive into which you inserted your Windows 95 CD.
Type the following sequence of commands
E:
CD WIN95
SETUP
setup should start. if you need to use the mouse, click on the window. if you need use the mouse outside the virtual machine, press the right alt key.
if you want to pick the components individually, pick custom setup (I tend to select as many components as I think will be useful).
Let it search for hardware, and check the boxes network, and "sound, midi, and capture cards", to search for everything.
When you get to networking configuration, be sure to add protocol, microsoft, tcp/ip; and add adapter, Digital Equipment, PCI Fast Ethernet DECchip 21140 Based Adapter (last option in most lists).
I also tend to delete the following: 'client for microsoft networks' (to avoid the annoying login box every time I boot up), 'client for netware networks', and ipx/spx (all entries), because they're not needed, and netbeui (all entries) because of security concerns.

Now, if you look at the bottom left of the virtual pc window, there's a bunch of small icons, small hard drive, small CD, small floppy, small folder, small network thingie. click on the small network thingie. Set it to NAT (network address translation).

You most likely won't need to create a startup disk, so click no to skip the step.
At that point Windows 95 files will get copied.
At the end, you'll have to click finish (or press enter) to reboot.
Be sure to click on floppy, release the floppy drive, or it'll boot back from the floppy!
(if you forget and do boot into the floppy, click on floppy, release floppy, then click on action, ctrl-alt-del)

If it says to insert the Windows 95 CD, just change the path from E:\WIN95 to D:\WIN95
It'll set up the control panel, start menu, help, time zone. You can cancel the printer configuration.

First thing I do after boot is change the resolution. Right-click the desktop and set the res to 800x600 or 1024x768 or 1280x1024 and make it 16-bit. Reboot as needed.

Then you'll have to adjust a few things.

Right-click My Computer and pick properties. Go to the device manager tab. You'll see two gameport joysticks, one with a yellow exclamation mark. Double-click it. Go to the resources tab and click on set configuration manually. Uncheck the box use automatic settings and click ok. the yellow exclamation mark should be gone.

If you go to control panel, add/remove programs, windows setup tab, you'll notice (depending on the version of Windows you have), there may be boxes that are available now that weren't available when you ran setup the first time! (dunno why that is, possibly a bug from microsoft). I use that opportunity to add components I feel may be useful but weren't listed during the original install (for example language support), and remove the unneeded ones (online services for example).

If you have Microsoft Plus! on your CD, open the CD in My Computer, and go to the Plus folder and run setup. It'll make some things look a bit better.

Now you can install Virtual Machine Additions (the version that came with Virtual PC 2004 SP1). Click CD, capture ISO image, and find the file you saved earlier (VMAdditions.iso - the 2004 SP1 version). This will install both Windows Installer 2.0 and the Virtual Machine Additions.

After reboot you can use virtual machine additions. they allow you to integrate one mouse cursor for both inside and outside the virtual machine, you get the halt instructions (so that CPU usage isn't always 100%), you get more options for screen resolution and color depth (I strongly recommend setting it to 32-bit color), and you can use shared folders between the virtual machine and the host OS. (you can also drag and drop files in and out of the virtual machine, but i've found that doesn't always work right, so i don't recommend it - use shared folders instead)

To share a folder, right-click on the second little icon from the right on the bottom left (little folder). Pick a folder. The shared folder will appear as a drive in My Computer (starting with Z:)
You can use that install useful updates (listed below).

If you recall in device manager (right-click my computer, properties, device manager tab), there's a device that's listed as pci bridge under unknown devices (meaning it doesn't have a driver). You can get the drivers for that at http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...d=129&lang=eng
Once run and installed and after a few reboots, the yellow question mark should be gone from device manager.

Next thing you'll probably want to install is Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2. That's the last version that works with Windows 95. More important than browsing the net is the included Windows Desktop update in there, that makes Windows Explorer look more Windows-98-like (preview on the left pane, and forward and back kind of browsing for folders).
It's mirrored in a few places, including here
http://downloads.valnet.net/InternetExplorer/
It's a self-extracting zip. For simplicity (and to avoid headaches), after you run it, rename the extracted folder IE55SP2 and move it to your shared folder. When you run Windows 95, go to your Z: drive, and go to the IE55SP2 folder and run IE5SETUP.EXE. I recommend custom install and pick out things you think will be useful.
When you're done and after it reboots, run it again this way to install the desktop enhancements:
click start, programs, ms-dos prompt. type
Z:
CD IE55SP2 (assuming that's where you put the IE 5.5 installation files)
IE5Setup.exe /C:"ie5wzd /e:IE4Shell_WIN /I:Y"
when you run setup this time, don't do anything fancy (go for custom if you want, but don't alter any check marks). even if you check no checkboxes, it will install the desktop updates.
upon reboot it might feel weird for a bit because active desktop is enabled by default. very easy to turn off. right-click your desktop and pick properties, pick a bitmap wallpaper (or even better, no wallpaper), and under the web tab, uncheck both boxes.
At that point, you'll want to adjust your folder options too.

Next I'd suggest getting DirectX 8.0a (last version for Windows 95)
http://www.brothersoft.com/directx-8...n9x-51958.html
The main reason is there's a (GDI?) bug that will cause Windows 95 to hang if you try to play a video in the virtual machine. Installing the DirectX update fixes that.

If you have time to spare, also grab these:
Windows Media Player 6.4: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...2-e587676a1533
Codecs installation package for WMP 6.4: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...4-2E1A8FAE4584
TweakUI 1.33: http://majorgeeks.com/Tweak_UI_d226.html (installation is a bit peculiar, after you run it, go to C:\WINDOWS\TEMP, right-click tweakui.inf, and pick install - you'll get tweakui in your control panel)
Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (JVM) build 3810 (don't have a link for it)

Last but not least, be sure to run windows update.
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com (click on product updates)

TheOutcaste

Nice instructions. You can also get the VPC 2004 additions without installing VPC 2004. Instructions can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy...installer.aspx

This won't solve his issue though, which is converting his existing hard drive to a virtual system, so he can use his software which he can't re-install:

The VMWare converter doesn't support Win95, so that won't work.

What I would do is use Acronis True Image to create an image from the old Win95 system. Probably easiest to connect the Win95 hard drive as a slave to the system that will be running the Virtual Machine
Then you can run Acronis from within Windows to image the old Win95 drive.
Save the image in a folder that is shared on the network.

Create a Win95 machine in Virtual PC. Use the same amount of RAM and the same size hard drive as the real system.
Then boot the VM with the Acronis disk and restore the image. Acronis will be able to access the shared folder to use the image.

Windows 95 may just boot right up and install any drivers it needs, or you may have to do a Repair install of Win95. blah789's instructions will be quite useful if that's needed.

Once the VM is running, install the VPC 2004 additions, boot to Safe Mode, and remove the old hardware from Device Manager.

It's possible that the current CD-ROM driver in your config.sys file won't be compatible with Virtual PC. You might have to follow blah789's instructions to modify your config.sys and autoexec.bat files to load the oakcrom.sys driver so you can install the VM Additions. Then VM Additions will then be able to install it's driver.