Windows 95 or 98 on somewhat modern hardware?

matt167

[H]ard|Gawd
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My old Plex server is soon to be retired. It's just a Latitude E6410 with a mostly dead keyboard and no battery + the screen is failing.. I've got an Optiplex 3040 SFF w/ I5 6500 coming to replace it and get away from SD only.

I have a ton of old dos and early windows games, and a 1000:1 Valuesoft disc that I got not too long ago that has a ton of games I used to play. I want to install 95/98 on this computer and hook it to my TV as a cheap retro game console.. Is this even possible to get it 100% working with sound? or do I need to run windows in an emulator like Dosbox to gain soundblaster support? It's an I5 520M, so anything tied to CPU cycle will be way too fast I know
 
My old Plex server is soon to be retired. It's just a Latitude E6410 with a mostly dead keyboard and no battery + the screen is failing.. I've got an Optiplex 3040 SFF w/ I5 6500 coming to replace it and get away from SD only.

I have a ton of old dos and early windows games, and a 1000:1 Valuesoft disc that I got not too long ago that has a ton of games I used to play. I want to install 95/98 on this computer and hook it to my TV as a cheap retro game console.. Is this even possible to get it 100% working with sound? or do I need to run windows in an emulator like Dosbox to gain soundblaster support? It's an I5 520M, so anything tied to CPU cycle will be way too fast I know
you wont get 95/98 working on much past early '00s. all the dos stuff ive tried lately, while not much, has worked just fine on win11 with dosbox*. so unless you reeaaalllyyy want that authenticity, id try it under windows.
*edit: with SB support, i was using a tracker and it worked great.
 
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You won’t be able to run it directly on the bare newer components. Emulation via dosbox or a vm setup may be your only real options.
 
Can't windows 95 or 98 be installed inside of dosbox? I was thinking there was probably a hardware limitation. I didn't want to waste time trying if it wouldn't work The valusoft disc won't even open on a 32b w10 machine and the games are not separated on the disc.
 
Can't windows 95 or 98 be installed inside of dosbox? I was thinking there was probably a hardware limitation. I didn't want to waste time trying if it wouldn't work The valusoft disc won't even open on a 32b w10 machine and the games are not separated on the disc.
yes. it might be a waste of time anyways, but you wont know till you try. theres a bunch of setup vids on yt, so give it a shot.
 
I looked into it and it looks like a major headache. Installing on a dosbox VM seems the easiest.

I went ahead and ordered a later Win 95 disc that has the bonus games and USB support. I have a Win 95 disc here somewhere though... If nothing more, I have an old Compaq Deskpro with a PII that I could install it on. Has not been booted in a few years, I'd have to check the caps and battery, and then hope my old boot disc still works
 
For DOS titles, DOSBOX is your best bet. Early Win95 era stuff is a bit tougher though; best bet is probably a VM at that point. Anything that's at least 32-bit can probably run with some finagling; PC Gaming Wiki is a godsend for getting some titles from that era up and running.
 
I have a Win98se on a VM running under 10 that works playing the original Orcs and Humans. Like others have said, you will most likely need a VM and DosBox. You may also need a utility to slow down the CPU on some old games.
 
I think using Dosbox as a VM will be the easiest, being it is a virtual Dos machine that emulates a slower machine ( Up to P3 500 I think ). . Just setting the config to run at 26,800 cycles should make it run like a 486.
 
Just last week I sorted through boxes of old CDs. And I tossed my Win 98 SE install disk. :ROFLMAO:
 
Just last week I sorted through boxes of old CDs. And I tossed my Win 98 SE install disk. :ROFLMAO:

I know I have a 98 disc here somewhere. The only disk I know where is actually, is my Boot disk and that's because I know where all my floppies are.. Have not had a working floppy drive in years, except a 1541 drive which still works
 
I dug a little deeper into people running Win 95 through Dosbox X on an R-pi. figuring the setup is probably the same on a windows machine I came across Qemu, creating a 486 emulation, and therefor a VM of any Win 9x.. Have some more digging to do
 
I have an old Dell floppy drive that you could either plug into a drive bay or connect via USB. I use it maybe every 2 years.
 
I believe 939 and 775 sockets were the last officially supported platforms for Windows 98.
 
FreeDOS/95/98 in a VM, or DOSBOX are both good options. The only thing you're really missing with either of those is the PC speaker (which can be emulated, just doesn't sound as good through desktop speakers imho).
 
I never knew 775 supported Win 98. I'd have never guessed it.... I'm itching for some real hardware. I just might try to fire up that Compaq Deskpro. I remember it's a PII something but I can't remember what

I looked up PII and older laptops. $150+ and some of it is in need of repair.. I used to have tons of PII and PIII stuff laying around. IBM 600 series, Dell Optiplex GX110's, even a thrift store HP that actually had a Voodoo card in it
 
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I have an original windows 95 upgrade disc with key in the original envelope, if you want, it' yours for the price of postage.
 
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