Question how to create a Virtual machine?

[glenn h]

Hi, Im a light weight to pc modifications, I have a Compaq 7100 CMT, its the oldest pc I own, I need to find a way to load win 98 2nd edition or to use win 8.1 or xp and turn it into a Virtual machine. I only heard of virtual machines today. I have a program that will only run in win 95 or 98. and this pc will only be used for this program and offline only. I have tried to load 98 into it but failed. I removed the 4 gb of ram and installed 512mb. the smallest drive I have is a 120 GB SSD. need help and steps on turning it into a Virtual machine or steps to install win 98 into it. also, the program I need to use and run will not load into win 10,8.1, I did get it to load into win xp, but it constantly locks up, it's unusable in xp. the program also says it only works in win 95 or 98.. I have used this program many times 20 yrs ago,it worked great in win 98.. Thanks..

 

[Ralston18]

You may not need a virtual machine.

Perhaps the required program can be made to run in Compatibiity Mode.

Google "Windows Compatibility Mode" and then modify the search criteria as necessary with respect to your operating environments and requirements.

For example:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-windows-783d6dd7-b439-bdb0-0490-54eea0f45938

 

[glenn h]

Thanks for your reply. I did a diskpart several times and win 98 would not install, installed a sata hard drive, did a diskpart and loaded win xp, it worked great and also was able to load the program into it, the program works fine in this xp, but would not work when xp was installed into the SSD. I have no idea whats up with the SSD .

 

[ex_bubblehead]

It's not the SSD. Windows XP dates from well before SSD's existed and therefore doesn't know how to handle them. This is exactly why a VM was suggested earlier.

 

[KingLoki]

VMWare is a highly used and reliable vm program. Loads of tutorials online too if needed. Highly recommend from personal experience.

https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/workstation-pro

 

[BFG-9000]

That machine should be capable of running Windows 9x directly, and what else would it be good for?

According to the manual on page 8-8 you have to set the BIOS storage options for SATA Emulation at "Combined IDE Controller" for Win98. It's important to note only two of the actual IDE devices can work in this mode so if you are installing 98SE using an IDE optical drive you may have to switch headers for that. Yes I am amazed a 20 year old manual is still on there, given how they have been systematically deleting everything more than 10 years old from their site.

Windows 9x works just fine with SSDs and even tends to write to disk a lot less than later Windows. It even by default did not automatically run the defragmenter ever--you had to either run it manually or schedule it using the Maintenance Wizard. Of course it did not support TRIM but then no chipset that Win9x runs on supports that either, so just occasionally zero-fill the empty space whenever you notice writes markedly slowing down (I like sdelete). Many people with retro 9x systems nowadays use an IDE-to-CF converter, and any SSD is better than a CF card.

The biggest issue is there is no Intel official 9x driver for the i915G GMA900 IGP so that would run the "Standard VGA Adapter" driver and thus be limited to 640x480 16 colors (it appears that back in the day there were 3rd party Scitech SNAP Graphics video drivers for the IGP). Best to find an old 32-bit PCI graphics card, or a PCIe card you know has 9x drivers.

Everything else should have Win9x drivers including the AC97 sound, and even all of the USB ports work with the built-in drivers (in Win95OSR2.1 or later) but at USB 1.1 speeds. You should first install the Intel INF update utility 6.3.0.1007 (i915/ICH6 chipset driver)