Since this is now became a common request by many, I decided to write a tutorial about Windows 9x (95/98/98SE/Me) usage on VirtualBox.Forenote: Windows 9x is not officially supported by VirtualBox team, which means, that it lacks Guest VM Additions, and it runs slowly, because VirtualBox is not optimized to run Win 9x.1. Installation - I won't cover here in detail, except few points.Most CD-ROMs available for Windows 95/98 are not bootable, which means, that you must boot from DOS floppy, install DOS first and only then install Windows 95/98.It does require DOS skills.Official bootable CD media is starting from 98SE. So if you're newbie, you should use Windows 98 SE bootable CD.Additionally I strongly suggest to limit system RAM to 512 MB for those OSes. Otherwise it will crash. Win98soundscreenshot06me3.png (39.92 KiB) Viewed 739578 times2.7. Restart the VM.3.
Virtualbox Windows 98 Guest Additions. Step 1 After you run the Windows 95 virtual machine, open the Display Properties setting window. As you can see in the image below, there are only 2 options in the Color Palette section. In these options require being 32 bit color option. And in the Desktop Area, it can not be configured the screen. I have installed a Windows 98 as a Guest. I've also installed Rain and the video driver for 32-bit mode. However, I've noticed that performance in Windows 98 is very slow. It is much faster in Windows XP. How is such problem fixed? Thanks Specifications: Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10 Linux Kernel 2.6.27-11-generic. I've installed this on Windows 98 in Virtualbox, and it does give a 32 bit True Color with various screen resolution options. A pic of Windows 98 with Scitech installed and True Color is here: or I found using the Scitech app to be the easiest option, and it gives a good result. On a related note, a few weeks ago I decided to make a 98 gaming box using some spare parts in my closet. I threw a P4 system together using a 2.8GHz Northwood, 2GB of RAM, a 120GB SATA drive using IDE emulation, a DVD-RW drive and an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. After a little tinkering (particularly the RAM bit) Windows 98 ran like a dream. Hooray we are back basking in the warm glow of the Windows 98 desktop in full 32-bit colour, Welcome to Windows 98 should have appeared automatically. But no fanfare, no audio and no volume control in the notification area. Once again close Welcome to Windows 98 and still don’t untick the Show this screen each time Windows 98 starts option.
Video driver integration.By default Windows 98 will run only in 640x480 resolution, 16-colors.Performance Note: VirtualBox is not optimized for 16-colors (4-bit) emulation. It works very slow this way.Having 32-bit True Color driver makes Win98 VMs run on VirtualBox.much. faster.If you want True color or high resolution, you need to download special drivers.3.1. Bearwindows driver (unstable)NOTE: You must install 'Universal version' (2nd link), as the 'VirtualBox' version is known to have problems.WARNING: This driver is buggy, and many Windows fonts do not render correctly with it. Not recommended.3.2. SciTech Display Doctor (recommended)The second option is to get the SciTech Display Doctor version 7 beta driver (12 MB) -(contributed by RichardS)-or-The driver is a high quality commercial grade video driver (even includes some software emulated Open GL 3D support), and it does include an exe installer program.Despite having an installer, the SciTech Display Doctor is a little tricky to get going. After the program launches, you have to find the little round radio button link to click to 'enable' the new driver (otherwise you still have VGA).
Even then, you can't select any higher resolution modes until you ditch the 'default monitor' and select one of the 'Super VGA' types.After fiddling around with the above changes and rebooting several times you should be able to select 800x600 or 1024x768 (or higher) resolutions with 32 bit color depth. (setting 32 bit color mode optimizes the interface with Virtualbox and really speeds things up)4. NetworkEasiest thing, is to setup VirtualBox to NAT, and AMD PCnet-II network chip. It will be auto-detected by Win 9x.5. Mouse(contributed by stefan.becker)VirtualBox 4.1 provides for Windows-98-compatible USB tablet device.Enable USB Tablet: VM-Settings-System-Enable Absolute pointing devicethen do: (enable Windows-98 mode)VBoxManage setextradata 'VM name' 'VBoxInternal/USB/HidMouse/0/Config/CoordShift' 0docs: '12.3.8 USB tablet coordinates.
In Windows 98 guests'6. Shared FoldersSince VirtualBox shared folders won't work, there are other ways, such as SMB/Windows File Sharing. Recommended for Windows hosts.(Tested with VBox 2.1.2.- and was successful with 'bridged' network. I had no success with NAT.)WARNING: I admit that with VirtualBox the network is very unstable, presumably due to very slow performance of Win 9x guests under VBox.For Unix hosts, WinSCP is recommended.Another way of read-only file sharing is to create a virtual CD-ROM.iso file on the host and insert it into the guest VM.7. Clipboard HostGuest(contributed by stefan.becker)Clipboard integrated in VirtualBox only works with the Guest Additions, so not for Windows9x.
But there is another solution: Clipboard over TCP/IP.A Solution tested successfull with Linux Host is ShareClip:-TechnologovWritten on 2.9.2008, updated on.Please discuss this tutorialThis topic is only for additions to this tutorial. Do not ask questions about how to get something working. Use a separate topic for that.
Avoid 100% CPU loadWin9x is using an idle loop instead of HLT: the loop lets the host CPU running the Win9x virtual machine consume 100% all the time. This only applies to DOS and DOS based Win (3.x, 95/98/ME) - NT based Windows and all other operating systems are not affectedInstall rain, waterfall or cpuidle in the Win9x guest - my preference is rain as it only does what is needed -replace the idle loop with HLT execution- and nothing morehere is a link explaining something about, related to real hardwared/l rain from here: Volunteer Posts: 1699 Joined: 13. Sep 2008, 02:18. Some hints to the bearwindows svga-driver There is no automatic installation.Unzip the driver in the guest.
Start system control/display, chosse the settings/advanced/vga-card, change the vga-card and choose option to show drivers in a directory, there choose manually the directory where you unzipped the driver.Another hint: With the bearwindows drivers you cant start the comamnd line direct on the desktop. So search all '.PIF' Files in the guest and change the settings to fullscreen (screen/appearence, Bildschirm/Darstellung). Universal Mass Storage Drivers for Windows 98.As you may know, Win98 did not have generic support for USB mass storage devices (thumb drives, external mechanical drives, digital cameras etc). You needed a specific driver for each device, and of course those have become hard to find!
However someone has just posted a link to a site offering generic USB mass storage drivers.The site offers free generic USB mass storage drivers for both Win98 and Win98SE. Drivers for the former require you to install a big service pack first. Drivers for the latter are quite small. I have not yet tried either myself, I just thought it would be good to preserve the links here.Edit I have now tried the latter Win98SE driver, and it seemed to work well for me after I followed the instructions given in the linked page. Specifically I had to, before installing the new drivers, first make sure USB and USB 2.0 was enabled in the VM settings, then boot the guest, go into Win98SE device manager and basically remove any USB device I could find, particularly including old custom memory stick drivers (not a problem on a new Win98SE install inside a VM), plus the original Win98 USB controller and USB root hub drivers, plus any unknown device in case that too was USB related.
Then install the new USB drivers, then reboot. After that I had no problem with reading from a modern USB flash drive - though of course the drive has to be FAT formatted since Win98SE doesn't understand NTFS. Site Moderator Posts: 30197 Joined: 4.
Sep 2008, 17:09 Primary OS: MS Windows 10 VBox Version: PUEL Guest OSses: Mostly XP. Solving Windows 95 'Protection Error' on boot.Windows 95 was not designed for the speed of modern processors, and if the processor is too fast then it may crash on boot. Some users on the internet have developed a patch to fix the problem, and their fix is discussed in several places on the Internet (search for 'Win95 fast cpu fix'), for example here.The patch itself is too big to attach directly here, but here is a direct download link for it:The download includes a readme with instructions on a couple of ways to apply the patch.Thanks to user 'pt58' for drawing my attention to this fix. Attachments file.png (1.95 KiB) Viewed 95846 times Site Moderator Posts: 30197 Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09 Primary OS: MS Windows 10 VBox Version: PUEL Guest OSses: Mostly XP.
Thanks for the great instruction KurtAust. I am now very happily running some 16 bit programs on my Windows 7 64 bit machine.Like nicklxxxiii, I had trouble with sdd-win-7.0.0.340-BETA.EXE. My virus scanner didn't like it so the version my original CD image file wouldn't run.I had to disable Avast, then I download it fromI checked the MD5 hash at which also gave me some confidence that the file was safe.
All was good once a new CD image was made.Also, file sharing seems problematic with Windows 9x guests. I have found that sharing over the network works well.
Windows 98 Vdi Virtualbox Server
Windows 95 256 Colors
I got the basic instructions fromI now have a folder 'shareddocs' on my host desktop (to the IP address of the guest, in my case 10.1.1.23) which is accessed in the guest via Network Neigborhood / 'computer name' / shareddocsThanks again for you great instructions.