virtualization for windows 95 system?

thanks for your suggestions...both are very helpful...i'll try some things...and left you know and which works best....and assign points...if you think of any more simple solutions let me know...although both options should be pretty simple.

You won't get windows 95 to run on a PM (protected mode OS) correctly, because any PM prohibits direct access to the hardware.  Simply clone the disk to a new one, find an old hardware setup, and put the new hard drive into it.  Windows95 will adjust for the new hardware (you will need drivers).  This is the ONLY way you will get 95 to run natively.  Even VM is a PM OS, and it will prohibit 95 from accessing hardware directly.  This may or may not affect the application.  But if you want to make your client happy, don't give him a complex thing like a virtual machine, just give him another old system dedicated to 95.  He will be happy

Well thats what i've done twice already was setup an old system that would work with win95..but the problem with old systems is they are old and of course cant get parts for them...so at some point i'm going to run out of old systems that will work......thats why i'm trying my best to thing of a more long term solution like virtualization if at all possible...of course if virtualization isn't possible that we'll have to take alternative means, for the immediate future i'll prolly stick to the old system setup as i have another that will work....just trying to think ahead.

Thanks for your input

I wouldn't say that virtual machines are very complex things for clients to handle. When they see the benefit of having their applications virtualized, they usually are eager to learn how to handle it (including online snapshots of the whole installation, easy access to network printers and file shares using either the HGFS module or some other means like that, copy paste from one machine to the other, etc. etc.

Personally, I virtualized many old Win95 and Dos installations and my clients were always very happy with the virtualized solution, no complaints by now.

what virtualization product did you use for the windows 95 installation? VMware or microsofts?

my issue may be i may have to use a ghost image...as they dont have the installation disk for their win 95 application....hopefully that wont be an issue.......i'm going to try and copy the application over first...as i know that older applications wasnt as tied to the registry as they are today...so some will let you just copy the program over without actually installing it.

I do always stick with VMware, but that might be a personal thing.

Do you have the license key for win95 available? If so, an iso image of win95 shouldn't be that hard to find...

as others commented before, yes you can boot your VM using a ghost disk and restore the image on it. Maybe you will face drivers issue but nothing to worry about: install vmtools, follow the instructions and that's it.

Also, you can download a iso image of Win95 (I'm totally sure it is out there... just need a Win95 key), boot your VM using the ISO image and install a clean version of WIn95 and move your app to this clean installation (maybe it s not the desired since you must re-isntall and configure that old app that maybe don't have support).

I recommend you for this scenario to use VMWare Server (for free) or a better approach is to use VMWare Workstation ACE that allows you to, once your VM is created, deploy it on a DVD or pendrive among VMWare Player.

IT has been awhile since I touched a windows 95 machine but I would imagine that you can ghost that into vmware then boot it in safe mode remove all the hardware from device manager.  Then reboot and it should work fine. After it detects all the hardware and reboots a few hundred times then you whould be able to install vmware tools. I have ran windows 95 before in a vmware instance so I know that it does not have an issue with direct hardware access.

Casey

Have you tried any of the above suggestions so far?