Computer Hope
Microsoft => Microsoft Windows => Windows 3.x/9x/ME => Topic started by: secretstars on May 26, 2014, 08:37:48 PM
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Hello!
I'm not great at computers, but I can follow instructions... so there isn't a lot of base computer knowledge I have so bear with me, haha. Any help is greatly appreciated!
I'm trying to install Windows 95 on a Dell Latitude D620. It's so I can run an x-ray calibration program from way back when that only will run on 3.1 or 95, so here we are. I did this booting up with a Windows 98 CD (since I have no external floppy drive available to me right now) and installing with my own original Windows CD. I had quite a few difficulties even getting to the Setup screen, but finally Setup went through without any hitches that I could see.
But then I rebooted to start Windows, and the splash screen comes up... and then black screen telling me that Windows cannot initialize due to lack of memory. This happens whether I start up normally or in safe mode. I did the suggested fix, which was to edit system.ini to limit the amount of RAM access and the vcache bit. I rebooted, and now the message was that Windows was experiencing a protection error and to restart.
I saw a suggestion that, if system.ini had been adjusted, the problem could be that I'm running an AMD processor. So I go burn amdk6upd.exe onto a CD and followed instructions from Microsoft's page to boot into safe mode command prompt, type win /d:m to get it into safe mode so I could run the update... and I get 'himem.sys is missing.' But it's *not*. It's in the correct directory, in C:\Windows. I searched for it in ms-dos and I found it there.
I went to fix config.sys... only to find I didn't have the file, and I didn't have autoexec.bat, either. So I put those on a disc, copied them into C:\, then I went to edit config.sys, fixed the first line to read: DEVICE=C:\Windows\himem.sys...... and it still tells me himem.sys is missing. Because of this, I can't boot into safe mode. I also tried to boot by step-by-step configuration and skip over himem.sys, but then it still tells me himem.sys is missing.
I just really need this to boot and right now it's the himem.sys file standing in my way. Any ideas? :/
Thank you for your help!
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The D620 is a fairly new machine so imagine that Windows 95 will simply not be able to cope with it - I can't imagine any of the hardware in the machine will support such an old OS. What about running it in a virtual machine? If you can't run the software in a VM - Your best bet is to see if you can find an old Windows 95/98 laptop on eBay - They will cost almost nothing nowdays and all the hardware in the laptop will be supported by the OS.
I'm running an AMD processor.
The D620 is an Intel based system so I can't see this being the problem. The problem is likely to be however that your CPU is so new compared to what Windows 95 is expecting.
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and the splash screen comes up... and then black screen telling me that Windows cannot initialize due to lack of memory. This happens whether I start up normally or in safe mode. I did the suggested fix, which was to edit system.ini to limit the amount of RAM access and the vcache bit. I rebooted, and now the message was that Windows was experiencing a protection error and to restart.
"Some protection error" is not very specific. Exactly what message do you receive?
I saw a suggestion that, if system.ini had been adjusted, the problem could be that I'm running an AMD processor. So I go burn amdk6upd.exe onto a CD and followed instructions from Microsoft's page to boot into safe mode command prompt, type win /d:m to get it into safe mode so I could run the update... and I get 'himem.sys is missing.' But it's *not*. It's in the correct directory, in C:\Windows. I searched for it in ms-dos and I found it there.
himem.sys fails to load on Win9x if there is more than a certain amount of memory installed. I believe it is anything more than 512MB. None of the specifications I Found for the Dell Lattitude D620 had an AMD Processor. And if they do I Doubt they would have a K6 Processor making an update for a K6 processor useless (Also, I ran it on an AMD-based K6-2 system and it required nothing special)
I went to fix config.sys... only to find I didn't have the file, and I didn't have autoexec.bat, either.
Windows 98SE doesn't include a config.sys or an autoexec.bat by default.
So I put those on a disc, copied them into C:\, then I went to edit config.sys, fixed the first line to read: DEVICE=C:\Windows\himem.sys...... and it still tells me himem.sys is missing. Because of this, I can't boot into safe mode. I also tried to boot by step-by-step configuration and skip over himem.sys, but then it still tells me himem.sys is missing.
himem.sys is missing also occurs if it fails to load. I don't recall off-hand what the actual limitations are but I remember 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB having their own issues with Win98's Himem.sys. Anything more than 2GB I believe prevents windows 98 from starting at all because himem.sys fails to load.
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How did Win95 install without DOS ? ?
Or am i off on that assumption ? ?
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How did Win95 install without DOS ? ?
Or am i off on that assumption ? ?
I don't remember if the Win95 CD is bootable, myself, and am too lazy to check. I don't think it was. I think the real question is how they installed Windows 95 with a Windows 98 CD:
I'm trying to install Windows 95 on a Dell Latitude D620. ... I did this booting up with a Windows 98 CD
I think they are actually installing Windows 98, since 98SE's disc was bootable.
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Understood.....thats why i asked.
Win95's weren't bootable...however he stated he installed 95 using the 98 CD...how exactly i have no idea.
He also stated the app he needs only ran on 3.1 ...and 95.
So i'm perplexed as to what has transpired.
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@camerongray @BC_Programmer @patio
Hello, thanks for your replies! Indeed, the Windows 95 cd-roms were not bootable. To clarify, I was using a Windows 98 emergency boot disk just to get myself into MS-DOS and do the drive formatting I needed to do, then used MS-DOS to copy the installation files from my Windows 95 disk and was able to run setup from there. I've seen other people talk about doing this, so as far as I can tell, it's a legitimate workaround to not being able to use a floppy drive. My machine, as far as it seems concerned, is running Windows 95 (or, well, would be if I could get past the splash screen, haha).
But, yeah, it's looking like I'm just not going to be able to run it. :/ I didn't realize that the hardware incompatibilities were so insurmountable.
I don't really understand what a virtual machine is or how it functions. I've never heard of it before (sorry again, very little base knowledge, haha). I've tried looking it up and it seems like an emulator? But I'm confused by it. This was suggested to me by a friend, too, but he neglected to explain what a virtual machine is or how I'd run it. Is this something I'd be running on my regular laptop (Windows 7) as an emulator?? Or do I have to install it on the Dell that I've been trying to get Win95 on, in which case, how do I accomplish that if it won't boot into the graphical interface (do it through ms-dos??)?
Thank you again for your help! :)
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fwiw, the protection error is literally "Windows protection error. You need to restart the computer," that's why I didn't get very specific about it, sorry, haha.
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A virtual machine is a machine that exists entirely in software only, it runs on whatever physical machine you install it on but it emulates the hardware. You can then install whatever software (OS & programs) on to this emulated machine.
There are several really good VM setups that are completely free, my personal favorite, VirtualBox and another good one called VMWare Player. Another possibility is for you to use a program called DOSBox which is a DOS emulator where you could install Win95.
Tutorial for Win95 in VirtualBox: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=9918 (https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=9918)
Tutorial for Win95 on DOSBox: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hvgFvAYjPG93h-Avun3sprvZX2GfkRhl4YJBT15FTx0/edit (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hvgFvAYjPG93h-Avun3sprvZX2GfkRhl4YJBT15FTx0/edit)
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Thank you so much, strollin! Just want to make sure, when I get ahold of an external floppy drive, I can typically get the VM to recognize the drive via usb, right?? The program I need to run on win95 is on a floppy.
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I don't really understand what a virtual machine is or how it functions.
Your question here has pretty much been answered in this sense.
At any rate I have a Windows 95 Virtual Machine setup myself. I have it set to use 64MB of RAM because 64MB is absolute gobs for Win95. if I increase the RAM size to 1GB, I get the insufficient memory error (I haven't changed my config since I could just reduce the amount of physical RAM it sees- basically the setting allows me to use some of my 16GB of RAM on my system as the RAM in the virtual machine while it's running).
After making the appropriate change it seems to boot fine with 1GB as the setting. It sees 940MB. Note that in this case Windows 95 is running not on my actual machine but is actually seeing "pretend" devices that the Virtual machine is providing (eg. the Display Adapter is "VMWare SVGA II" or something similar).
However, here's something interesting. When I set the Memory setting in the Virtual Machine to 3.5GB, the same system which boots fine with 1GB now shows an error about there not being enough Extended Memory to run Windows. Might be similar to the problem you were having, or at least a similar cause. Other new hardware might cause problems, in particular you would probably be stuck at 640x480 with 16 colors since I doubt you would be able to find workable drivers for anything for Win95.
Thank you so much, strollin! Just want to make sure, when I get ahold of an external floppy drive, I can typically get the VM to recognize the drive via usb, right?? The program I need to run on win95 is on a floppy.
As it happens, I have a USB Floppy Drive. I can't seem to get it to work at all under the Win95 system. It works fine as A:\ on my host system when connected but doesn't work in the win95 VM.
It might work in other Virtualization Software.
Best bet would be a physical Floppy Drive that actually works as a Floppy Drive. You can connect devices like that directly and use them. You can connect a USB Floppy Drive directly as well- but that's not very useful since Win95 doesn't support USB At all and just ignores it.
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Thank you so much, strollin! Just want to make sure, when I get ahold of an external floppy drive, I can typically get the VM to recognize the drive via usb, right?? The program I need to run on win95 is on a floppy.
Yes, VMs recognize external floppy drives (not sure about DOSBox) but is there some reason you couldn't copy the program from the floppy disk? Is it copy-protected? If you can create an image of the floppy (similar to an ISO of a CD/DVD) then VMs can load programs from a floppy image.
BC_Programmer brings up a good point though, the USB floppy may not work with Win95. Floppy disk drives are still available so an internal would definitely be a better choice.
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Yes, VMs recognize external floppy drives (not sure about DOSBox) but is there some reason you couldn't copy the program from the floppy disk? Is it copy=protected? If you can create an image of the floppy (similar to an ISO of a CD/DVD) then VMs can load programs from a floppy image.
An image would work, and an Image can be created on the host system with the USB Floppy.
For some reason I cannot get the drive I have to work in the win95 VM, since it is only connectable as a USB Drive and Win95 of course doesn't recognize USB devices. It doesn't show up in the list of Floppy Devices at all under VMWare. Might work on other systems.
A Image is probably the way to go, unless it uses weird anti-piracy measures and is an original disk of the software (eg excessive disk tracks, purposely bad sectors, etc.)
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Hmm, okay, hopefully I can pull the image off of it, haha. I haven't gotten a chance to actually handle the floppy or try anything with it since I'm still waiting on getting a floppy reader, so I don't know if it has some kind of anti-piracy on it or anything.
BC_Programmer, in what sense do you mean 'a physical floppy drive that works as a floppy drive'? Do you mean a an internal floppy drive that has been removed from its tower/the rest of the CPU? If that's what you mean, what's the short version of how one connects that to a laptop?? If that's not what you mean then just ignore my stupid question LOL.
I'm gonna go ahead and set up VirtualBox, since that's all I can do until I get the floppy drive. Thank you everyone for your suggestions and explanations! Once I have that and set up the VM and everything, if I begin having problems again, do I post here or on the Windows 7 board??
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BC_Programmer, in what sense do you mean 'a physical floppy drive that works as a floppy drive'? Do you mean a an internal floppy drive that has been removed from its tower/the rest of the CPU? If that's what you mean, what's the short version of how one connects that to a laptop?? If that's not what you mean then just ignore my stupid question LOL.
A Floppy Disk Drive that get's installed and connected to the machine "as" a floppy drive- that is, connected to the Floppy Drive connector on the system motherboard and being interacted with as a Floppy disk drive at the lowest level. USB Floppies aren't really "floppy Drives" in that sense, instead they just mimick a floppy; for example on my system the USB floppy appears as A:\ but the virtualization software I am using (VMWare) doesn't see it as a Floppy, only as a USB device that I can connect to the Win95 virtual machine.
I'm gonna go ahead and set up VirtualBox, since that's all I can do until I get the floppy drive. Thank you everyone for your suggestions and explanations! Once I have that and set up the VM and everything, if I begin having problems again, do I post here or on the Windows 7 board??
I'm not sure if it really matters. Since it is dealing with VirtualBox maybe Software is the best fit?
I forgot the mention- My personal preferred Disk Imaging software, for floppies particularly, is WinImage.
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+1 in regards to WinImage to create the floppy image.
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I'd get yourself a copy of DOS 6.22 to install Windows 95 with, or a Windows 95 Startup Disk. One problem you may be facing is that the himem.sys file you are using is Windows 98's version which is newer than Windows 95 is normally used with. You cant just mix and match Windows 95 and Windows 98 DOS components like you are and that may be why your running into problems.
A long time ago I was able to install Windows 95 clean to a systems hard drive via use of FreeDOS installed first to hard drive. Then Windows 95 setup.exe run from FreeDOS environment. This was a long long time ago ( 2001 ) and while it may still work, I am not sure if the current FreeDOS will work with Windows 95 or not. FreeDOS however is not Microsoft DOS, its an open source Linux kernel type of DOS that works with most MSDOS applications etc.
http://www.freedos.org/
Installing Windows 95/98 trick to setup.exe execution ( SETUP /NM /IS ) as seen in link below.
http://www.freedos.org/technotes/technote/228.html
Every so often, someone will ask about using FreeDOS to install Windows95 or Windows98. So we should have a technote on that. Bernd provides this advice:
SETUP /NM /IS
(NoMachine checking , IgnoreScandisk)
Later on the Windows install program might or might not tolerate the FreeDOS kernel, shell and programs. If installing win98, try a clean (f5, no drivers) FreeDOS bootup. No XMS driver will have been loaded then but win98 has the good old 'xmsmmgr.exe' commandline XMS driver which can install itself at runtime.
BTW: You have to add CD-ROM support to mount the CD or DVD ROM. Oaks driver usually works with most. But you will need MSCDEX in order to access the optical drive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSCDEX Also the drive probably needs to be IDE for oaks driver to work. I havent tested it with any newer systems with SATA.
http://manmrk.net/tutorials/DOS/cdrom.htm
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I'd get yourself a copy of DOS 6.22 to install Windows 95 with, or a Windows 95 Startup Disk. One problem you may be facing is that the himem.sys file you are using is Windows 98's version which is newer than Windows 95 is normally used with. You cant just mix and match Windows 95 and Windows 98 DOS components like you are and that may be why your running into problems.
That is not necessarily true. They can in fact be mixed and matched as desired. Fundamentally the only thing setup needs is access to the CD-ROM Drive- As I recall it executes in DOS mode first the reboots and continues setup after installing some basics. If himem.sys or emm386.exe cause problems for the setup program- well, they shouldn't be running anyway. I don't even think the win98 CD-ROM boot even loads any XMS drivers. At any rate, the himem.sys that windows 95 will install will be the windows 95 version.
Using FreeDOS to install Windows 95- or any OS, is going Over the top, and won't fix their problem anyway since they already have Windows 95 installed.