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setting up Windows 95 virtual machine to play a game

Dear Experts,

I need a step-by-step tutorial how to setup a Windows 95 Virtual Machine on my Windows XP (or Windows 7) laptop. I prefer not to buy a cheap second-hand machine for Windows 95 (lack of space) or install Windows 95 as second OS.

I would like to play "POWER CHESS 2" which runs only on Windows 95.

thank you in advance!
Jarek

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Subhashish Laha

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Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

after having spent some time on another question, researching this in Windows 95 and Windows 98se.

OS earlier than Windows XP do not support Microsoft DirectX in a virtual environment.

so it depends if the games require DirectX 5.0 support, which includes DirectDraw functions that do work, but Direct3D functions do not work in hardware because the svga VMware driver are not verfied for DirectX by Microsoft.

see this other question for reference

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/27907842/FA-Premier-League-Football-Manager-99-Play-on-Windows-7.html

rindi

I think you are probably better off trying to run your game using DOSBOX. Or if that doesn't work try running your game within Linux (you could setup Linux as a VM, LiveCD or as a 2nd. boot option on your current PC), and then try using Wine or PlayOnLinux to run your game:

http://portableapps.com/apps/games/dosbox_portable

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=os4

John

I have a Windows 95 virtual machine running now. It is as fully patched as I can make it.

It runs Direct X V4 (not V5). It seems to run but the tests are not perfect.

If you have the Windows 95 CD, then you can build a virtual machine to see if your program works. If you have VMware Workstation, you are set. If not, you can try a trial version to see if you can do what you need.

.... Thinkpads_User

rindi

You can use VMware Player instead of workstation, it is free and can do the same things as the workstation. But I have generally seen things like games working better using DosBox or Wine Emulation under Linux than trying to run them in a Windows 9x Virtual Machine (also more modern games like those that run under XP often tend to run better that way, or so I'm told, as I am not a gamer myself).