Need a VirtualBox VM for windows 98

G

Grimlaking

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May 9, 2006
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Anyone here that can steer me in the right direction? This is only so my grand daughter can play some old kids games (95/98 era) on the laptop I got for her. (older i5 system running windows 10.)

Any help appreciated! I don't even know if you CAN get a real copy any more.
 
I would find such a VM pretty nifty myself. Specially if it had reasonably decent Video/Audio integration and the ability to remap keys.

Would enjoy playing Ultima Underworld again and not having to deal with the messed un changeable movement keys.
 
Not like it's a difficult thing to create, I can imagine using a modern machine with SSDs and fast CPUs and RAM installing 98SE in a VM would take mere minutes if even that much.

Lemme see what I can pull outta my bag of tricks. :)
 
Tiberian said:
Not like it's a difficult thing to create, I can imagine using a modern machine with SSDs and fast CPUs and RAM installing 98SE in a VM would take mere minutes if even that much.

Lemme see what I can pull outta my bag of tricks. :)
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Much more difficult than you would imagine. There is not extensions or integration for Windows 98 and installing updates in Windows 98 is darn near impossible now.
 
It's not all that difficult:

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=9918

Sure there are some aspects that can be problematic but Windows 98SE does pretty well based on the instructions. As for updates there's a user created "Service Pack" floating around out there but obviously this entire exercise is not meant to become a day to day actually useful OS, the OP has a specific purpose for it - playing some very old games - and in that respect it would work great, probably wouldn't even actually need the network access for most purposes and since it's a VM it's fairly safe from causing issues for the host OS whatever that might be.

If the OP was that worried he could install a Linux distro on the machine then use Windows 98SE in a VM and be about as safe as possible. It's not perfect, obviously not, but it's a workable solution overall.
 
Windows 98SE didn't have activation, that technology didn't come to Windows until Windows XP was released. Everything from Windows 1.0 to Windows 2000 Professional only required a Product Key to install and that was it, everything since Windows XP has required online activation through Microsoft.
 
Tiberian said:
Windows 98SE didn't have activation, that technology didn't come to Windows until Windows XP was released. Everything from Windows 1.0 to Windows 2000 Professional only required a Product Key to install and that was it, everything since Windows XP has required online activation through Microsoft.
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Oh, ok. At that time period I never needed even a key, uhm. :D
 
Windows ME would be a better choice - IMO.
It's the last of that line of OS'es and worked well back in the day.
Personally I would use VMWare, but I suspect Virtual Box would be similar.
Easy enough to do anyway.

If you want Win ME info and sources:
https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-me

There's a VM Ware image on that page too :)

....and VM Workstation Player is Free for home use:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/playerpro-evaluation.html

...so you could have that up and running practically as fast as you can download the VM image, extract it, install VM Workstation Player, then open the VM :)


Elf_Boy said:
Would enjoy playing Ultima Underworld again and not having to deal with the messed un changeable movement keys.
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DOSBox's keyboard mapping features will let you do what you like with this.
https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Mapper
Want gamepad integration too - something like XPAdder will add that to the mix as well.
 
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ME runs fine for me in VMW - should be similar for VBox. I keep a VM handy for when Veendows Support cold calls me and needs to remote onto my computer :D
 
PliotronX said:
ME runs fine for me in VMW - should be similar for VBox. I keep a VM handy for when Veendows Support cold calls me and needs to remote onto my computer :D
Click to expand...

What was that site again, please? (You asking for the 10th time in a row. :D)
 
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