Windows 95 in DOSBox

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=24936
You just can't do it while in DOSBox's own DOS shell--you need to boot up from p
ure DOS.
Let me know if you want anything elaborated; I kind of wrote this in a hurry sin
ce I've got a ton of other work to get done today and should really be getting s
tarted
1. Get a boot disk
First off, get an MS-DOS boot disk. You'll need a .img file. I myself used 622C.
IMG from Bootdisk.com.
I don't
be fine
sion by
you'll

know exactly which versions of MS-DOS will work, but I suppose 7 should
too. I've read that you can cheat Windows into accepting a different ver
using set ver 6.0, but I can't confirm this myself since if you use 6.22
never run into this problem.

Make sure this file is in your DOSBox directory.

2. Make a hard disk image
You can do this using the bximage program that comes with Bochs. HAL9000\'s Mega
build contains a built in command for creating these from within DOSBox. (Would
be awesome if that could be merged with the main branch.)
Making an image using bximage is extremely straightforward. There's a section on
using it on the DOSBox wiki too.
All you really need to remember when using bximage is the cylinder count, since
everything else is standardized and shouldn't be changed. In my example I'm maki
ng a 400 MB image which has 812 cylinders. Only flat images are supported (as of
this time of editing). Sparse images will not be recognized. However, it's poss
ible to still compress flat files using your host OS's filesystem; in Windows XP
, this is the default behavior (hence the blue filename).
Copy this file (let's call it c.img) to your DOSBox directory.
3. Mount and format your new hard disk image
So now we have a hard disk image that we're going to be installing Windows 95 on
. The problem is it doesn't have a filesystem yet. This is where our boot disk f
irst comes in.
Start up DOSBox and type the following:
Code:
imgmount 2 c.img -size 512,63,16,812 -t hdd -fs none
Note: you may need to replace c.img with the name you gave your image file, and
replace 812 with the cylinder count you used when creating the file using bximag
e. It should say Drive number 2 mounted as c.img. You might notice that we're no
t giving it a drive letter: basically, every drive needs to have a filesystem, w
hich is a sort of file index, before it can be used properly. Without a filesyst
em (like FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, etc.) a filesystem is just empty, unorganized space
that the operating system can recognize but can't really do anything with, so un
til we fix this problem we can't mount it under C or any other drive letter yet.
Modifying filesystems on a drive is called partitioning.

Now type the following:

Code:
boot 622c.img
DOSBox will now boot up from the MS-DOS boot disk.
The first thing we'll do is use fdisk to create a filesystem. Run fdisk, choose
option 1 (Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive), then option 1 (Create Prim
ary DOS Partition). When asked if you want the new partition to comprise the who
le hard disk, choose Y. A system restart will be prompted. Press enter; DOSBox w
ill quit.
Now that we have our newly partitioned drive, we need to format it to effectivel
y bring it to a completely empty and consistent state so that we can start putti
ng files on it. To do so, we need to restart DOSBox and boot back into MS-DOS. T
his time, however, we'll mount our drive differently:
Code:
imgmount c c.img -size 512,63,16,812
At this point, DOSBox should say "Drive C is mounted as c.img". If something is
wrong, start this step over. Don't attempt to access the C drive from DOSBox's o
wn DOS shell or you might make it unreadable for pure DOS. Now boot into MS-DOS
by using the same command as last time:
Code:
boot 622c.img
When you enter the DOS prompt, format your new C drive by typing:
Code:
format c:
Note: if at this point DOSBox is incorrectly
k, that may be due to either a DOSBox bug or
exactly which one, but I've found that hard
MB (or a cylinder count of over 1000?) tend
t you'll only be able to use a portion.
4. Copy
At this
matter
with my

reporting the size of your hard dis

a problem with MS-DOS. I don't know
disk images with a size of over 512
to be problematic. They'll work, bu

over setup files and start Windows 95 installation

point you should have your Windows 95 disc ready. The version should not
all that much; I'm using a Dutch OEM version myself, the same one I got
first Pentium computer about 17 years ago.

It doesn't really matter if it's an image or not. The trick here is to copy the
installation files over to your newly formatted hard disk and then perform the i
nstall from there. (If you don't have an image already, consider making one anyw
ay. Discs degrade over time and will become unreadable, especially if it's alrea
dy a home made copy to begin with.)
The easiest way to do this (to my knowledge, anyway) is to mount the c.img file
in your operating system. qbix mentioned that mount -o loop dos622.img /mnt shou
ld do it on Linux. I'm on Mac OS X myself and can mount it by double clicking on
the image file in the Finder. On Windows, I'm not entirely sure if this is poss
ible, but a program like Isobuster should work too. Dominus recommends using Dis
kExplorer which is free. Make sure you close DOSBox before you move the files.
All you need to do is move over the entire WIN95 directory (the one containing a
ll the CAB files) from the CD to your mounted and now formatted image. It should

be only about 34 MB in size. Unmount c.img and restart DOSBox. We'll now start
the installation.
Mount c.img like we did the last time and boot 622c.img.
To start the installation, type the following:
Code:
c:
cd win95
setup /is
(The /is flag will prevent Scandisk from running, which is unnecessary.)
Note: if the mouse is not working at this point, exit setup and run mouse.com fr
om the A: drive.
Windows 95 will now begin installation. To have Windows start up automatically w
hen starting DOSBox, you could edit your config to contain the following under [
autoexec]:
Code:
[autoexec]
imgmount c c.img
boot c.img
In a little while, Windows 95 will be installed. If you find that DOSBox isn't r
unning anymore after a while, that's because Windows setup prompted a restart. S
imply restart DOSBox and reboot into your c.img (if you haven't already added th
e above lines to your [autoexec]).
5. Caveats and finishing up
Note that the best way to run Windows 95 under DOSBox is with machine=svga_s3, c
ore=normal and cputype=pentium_slow. I'm actually not sure about core=normal bei
ng the best choice (qbix mentioned that the dynamic core is probably as safe to
use as the normal core), but it's the oldest and most tested.
In the past, core=simple was used to run Windows 95, but these days it does more
harm than good. The simple core emulates less instructions and causes visual gl
itches today.
It's possible to get internet working using HAL9000's NE2000 passthrough patch,
but it requires compiling your own version or using his Megabuild. I'll update t
his guide later when I get that working.
On Mac OS X, make sure you don't set the screen bit depth to anything over 8-bit
(256 colors). 16-bit and 32-bit are broken and causes visual glitches. I've als
o found that it's MUCH faster in full-screen mode when using the opengl output s
ystem.
Hardware detection should work just fine, so don't worry about DOSBox locking up
.
6. Thanks!
... to qbix, Dominus, h-a-l-9000 and the rest of the IRC gang for helping me get
this working. Visit #dosbox @ irc.freenode.net. Post here if you're having tro
uble so I can add fixes to the guide.

TODO
- Get internet working
- Get CD-ROM drive working (is this possible?)
- Find out how to easily move win95 dir to disk image on Windows host operating
system

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Windows 95 in DOSBox
PLEASE NOTE: This chapter is for experienced users. It's assumed that the user i
s familiar with the basics and able to help himself in case of problems.
In this chapter we'll explain how to get Windows 95 run in DOSBox. It's consider
ed as a proof of concept, because DOSBox is intended for DOS games and Windows 9
5 works better in virtual machines like VMWare or VirtualBox.
Preparation
For use in DOSBox, either Windows 95 is already installed on a harddisk image or
you have to get setup to install Windows there. Executing "setup /is" might hel
p.
You also need the following drivers:
S3 Trio32/64 SVGA PCI or S3 Vision864 PCI (Win95's own drivers are unstable)
The rest of the hardware, like the Sound Blaster 16, should be detected automati
cally.
Configuration
[dosbox]
machine=svga_s3
memsize=32 or at least 16
[cpu]
core=normal or simple
(dynamic and auto refuse to boot)
cputype=auto
(pentium_slow or 486_slow if necessary)
cycles=fixed 127000
(approximately a Pentium 75 MHz)
[autoexec]
mixer master 63
mixer cdaudio 50
mount x /path/to/the/image/folder
x:\
imgmount c win95.img
boot win95.img
Notes
Since you boot into a separate image, DOSBox is used as a plain "PC emulator". T
hat means, DOSBox specific features like its shell or mounted drives can't be us
ed in Win95. However, you can use everything that is accessible over the keys.

Unlike Windows 3.x, it's currently not possible to install Win95 directly withou
t a separate disk image.
In order to share files with Win95 (just like installing games), you have to cop
y them into the disk image before you boot (boot win95.img). Fortunately, you ca
n use the imgmount command in DOSBox for this. A file manager like Norton Comman
der might be useful.
Since Win95 won't work properly with core=dynamic, it's pretty slow. Complex gam
es from the late 90s usually refuse to run due to insufficient performance and m
issing hardware acceleration.
Win95 should be quite stable in general, however there might be some unexpected
issues now and then. Consider that not all games and programs will run properly.
The main stability heavily depends on the graphics driver and the cpu settings.