Yes, a Win95B question in 2012

[Ron Silverback]

Hello,

I run XP on my main machines, but I have one desktop which I've backdated from its original Win98 to Win95. The reason? I have a scanner with some really good features that runs only under 95 (there are 3rd party drivers for 98, etc., but they don't support all the features). Also, I have 2 pieces of software that run great under 95, and not so great under XP.

Is there any way to get my Win95 upgraded to 95B -- I'd like FAT32 and USB support, which my original Win95 won't support. I saw my employer's staff walk around in 1998 or 1999, upgrading each computer to 95B. It must be possible, right?

Ron

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Good luck finding media for that. OSR2 was a separate CD. As for USB support, it was crude at best and required a driver for each device. You couldn't simply plug a thumbdrive in and get access, you had to install a driver for that specific thumbdrive.

 

[PhilFrisbie]

Good luck finding media for that. OSR2 was a separate CD. As for USB support, it was crude at best and required a driver for each device. You couldn't simply plug a thumbdrive in and get access, you had to install a driver for that specific thumbdrive.

And to add my .03 to this discussion, you cannot use Win98 or newer USB drivers because Microsoft changed the driver format from Win95 to 98 and forced manufacturers to not supply Win95 drivers if they wanted to be able to use the "Made for Windows 98" logo.

 

[Northwestern]

For your software, you can easily use a virtual machine so you won't have to toy around with Windows XP. As for the scanner, could you also emulate this within the virtual machine and transfer what was scanned to XP through shared folders (As available in VMWare)?

 

[Ron Silverback]

For your software, you can easily use a virtual machine so you won't have to toy around with Windows XP. As for the scanner, could you also emulate this within the virtual machine and transfer what was scanned to XP through shared folders (As available in VMWare)?

Not sure what you mean by "toy around with XP" -- I'm happy with XP as my regular world; the Win95 stuff is quite stand-alone.

I've networked the '95 box in, so that when I use it, I'm usually working on data that resides in shared drives that are actually in my XP world. To be more clear -- I usually scan with a contemporary scanner in XP, but if I choose to use the '95 scanner (i.e., because it does a better job for originals with some characteristics), the old scanner processes on the '95 box, but the resulting images still get stored directly on an XP box. Would VMWare offer me something better?

I take it that USB compatibility is an insoluble issue (even if I got the USB ports active by switching to '95B). My intent was to toss the old PS/2 "finger peripherals" and instead use the USB keyboard and mouse connectors (they exist because the box was originally built for '98), but I guess the USB ports might not work even with '95B.

My bigger hope was to switch FATs -- living with 2GB partitions is annoying.

Thanks to those who have offered feedback!

 

[Northwestern]

I just mean that from what you said in the original post, Windows XP is too much of a hassle to try and make it work with the software that works on Windows 95.

I think the networking in VirtualBox and VMWare are the same (Presuming VirtualBox is what you use). Both of which use a shared folder that can be saved to and accessed on both the emulated OS and the host OS. So you can directly scan an image and have it be dropped off in the shared folder where you can pick it up in XP.