asked on

Old OS's on modern PCs: Win95 and DOS

I have a client who's super old computer finally gave up on him and he is getting a new one. I didn't really pry to much on why, but he wants me to install Windows 95 and DOS on his new computer (in addition to win7/8 that it comes with).

The oldest OS that I am familiar with is WinXP (I know not that old, but neither am I).

Is this possible? Will modern hardware run such antiquated stuff? Are their drivers? How does it install? Floppys?

Better yet, is there a way that I can download what I need and virtualize it without actually having to partition a hard drive and install it?

I am really out of my element here!

Thank you

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Manuel Marienne-Duchêne

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

CompProbSolv

I had a similar circumstance recently with a client's old Win 98 computer that died. I searched through my used computers (mostly 2.8G P4s) and had a very difficult time finding one that would support Win98 completely. Most of the problems were with the sound and video cards, which he required to work properly. I was able to resolve it with the oldest of the computers.

I suspect that you will have a VERY difficult time finding drivers for a new computer if you need everything to work properly. Manumd's suggestion about virtualizing is very likely to be your best choice.

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

yes, it works on, we still have old OSes on virtual platforms for testing.

VMware Player 5.0 Free Download [FREE]
http://www.vmware.com/go/downloadplayer/

VMware Server 2.0.2 Free Download (discontinued) [FREE]
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_server/2_0

VMware Workstation 9.0 (60 day trial, $199) [EVALUATION]
www.vmware.com/go/downloadworkstation

SOLUTION

Steve Knight

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Jonathong

ASKER

Thank you guys,
I will experiment with your suggestions on my computer before i start goofing with his computer.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Jonathong

ASKER

Ok so I have VMware player. How do Install DOS?
I got an ISO for Win95, how do I install that too? Do I really need a floppy drive?

Steve Knight

You need the physical floppies for DOS or an image of them, or a CD or the image of the CD for Windows 9x most easily, then just boot off that device in the new VM you create. I imagine they are posted somewhere available but are copyrighted licensed software and all that...

http://www.freedos.org/ is another alternative

You don't need DOS to be able to use Windows 95, it is self contained with it's own "DOS" version underneath. Windows 3.x before that DID go on to of DOS.

If you are going for Windows 95 go for Windows 98SE instead, it is the last (decent, then we got Windows ME) version of that stream of Windows and should run anything DOS/Windows related.

Steve

Jonathong

ASKER

Ok, I dont know if I should start a new thread for this but once I get to step 7, i have problems. (I am using VMware player right now)

I have have the win95 iso mounted on drive e:
I also burned the win95 iso to cd and it is in the physical drive d:

When I try to complete step 7 i get the error "invalid drive specification"
I have also tried drives E though I

What do you think?

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

Missing CDROM driver in the OS?

Jonathong

ASKER

How do i check that?

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

is a driver for the cdrom, in the config.sys file?

Jonathong

ASKER

I ended up using virtual box instead of vmware. Worked much better, and the user interface was much easier to use.

Jonathong

ASKER