Keeping Windows 98 alive via a virtual machine?

Since this is the newsgroup where Windows 98 die-hards hang out, are there
people here who keep a Windows 98 environment for themselves by installing
it on a virtual machine within XP or Vista, via VM Ware or similar programs?
I've picked up a few things about virtualization, and I'm interested in
learning more about how it is done.

Basically, with virtual machines, older operating systems (and applications)
can remain viable for however long one wants to use them. This is great
news.

I use VPC 2007 in XP Pro and have Win98Se, XP Pro, XP Home, Server 2003,
Vista and ? installed in VPC.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Using Virtual PC to run Windows 98 is very common. People have a variety of
reasons for using W98. Software that won't run on newer operating systems
and hardware that does not have drivers for anything other than W9x are
common reasons.

Hard drive format becomes relevant here. If the Virtual PC
has its home on a NTFS drive, data files from the FAT
environment can be imported to it only within the NTFS
environment (e.g. via WinXP Network Places.)

Say What?

VPC 2007 installed on XP w/all drives NTFS format.
Have a .vmc with 98SE installed on FAT32 formatted .vhd in VPC.
Can drag/drop files/folders both ways, from XP host directly into the VPC
window running 98SE and from 98SE directly to XP.

Or

In the VPC console > .vmc 98SE configuration settings, the user can select
and set folders which are on XP to be shared in 98SE.

Or

The user can Right click on the folder icon at the bottom of the VPC window
to set a shared folder.
In 98SE the shared XP folders are mapped drives, which the user has full
access to do anything with that the user wants to do.

I was curious in regards to the software that won't install or run in WinXP,
but will (only) run on Win9x (disregarding some games and DOS programs, and
some very old utility type programs). Is there anything really common
that really stands out? (Just curious)

No. I just run win-98 as my PC's only, native OS.

There is really nothing I want to do, or software I want to run, or
hardware I want or need to install or attach to my systems that _really_
requires 2K/XP.

(I recently bought an HP 2133 netbook and formatted it's drive as 100%
FAT32. It dual-boots DOS / Win-XP. I'm still working on getting win-98
to run on it, but I doubt that some functions such as video or wifi will
work.)

I also recently bought a very small GPS reciever (Photomate 887). It
also functions as a data logger (it can log GPS positions once per
second, with capacity for 125k points). It's also has blue tooth. It
connects via USB and appears as a serial port to the PC. When you
connect it to an XP machine, it will ask for drivers (apparently XP has
no native support for this device and it will seek an source for
drivers). The 887 comes with a small cd which has drivers. It includes
a directory for win-98 drivers.

Cases include:
(Borland) Quattro Pro v.8
(Corel) Paradox v.7

Perhaps not common. My favourite 3D modelling and animation software (which
was bought out by a competitor, and is now available for ten times the price
that I paid for it) generates an error in one particular module if run in
anything newer than NT4 or W98. I also have software for a specialist
printer that appears to be hard-wired to run on W98 only - the printer
itself works just fine with any OS, but it seems they want users to invest
in upgraded software, and will not provide newer versions of the (much
simpler, and faster) free software.

I do not understand what you are saying. The file system (NTFS or FAT) is
not relevant for operating systems installed in a virtual machine other than
for drives created within that VM. These drives have to be created as a
type that the installed OS understands. All other drives accessible to the
host are mapped as network drives for the VM and can be in any file system
that the host recognises.

I use VPC 2007 in XP Pro and have Win98Se, XP Pro, XP Home, Server
2003, Vista and ? installed in VPC.

Just curious, how much RAM do you have on your machine? Do you run these
guest OS's simultaneously, or one at a time?

Also, doesn't the maximum RAM capability of the computer put a limit on
getting the RAM needed for the guest OS's?

For a person who wants to have just one, or maybe two virtual machines on
the computer, is there any advantage to VM Ware over Virtual PC?

4GB. Due to the RAM alloted for each of the .vmc I run mainly two
although occasionally I will run 3.

From VPC help:

For host disk space and memory, refer to the following table to determine
the minimum required by the host operating system. This disk space is only a
starting point in determining how much disk space you will need. You also
must calculate the additional space that will be required by adding the
requirements of all guest operating systems you plan to deploy.

Windows Vista Ultimate 512 MB 15 GB
Windows Vista Enterprise 512 MB 15 GB
Windows Vista Business 512 MB 15 GB
Windows Server 2003,
Standard x64 Edition 128 MB of RAM required; 256 MB or more
recommended
1.25 to 2 GB of available
hard-disk space
Windows Server 2003,
Standard Edition 128 MB 2 GB
Windows XP Professional 128 MB 2 GB
Windows XP Home Edition 128 MB 2 GB

The following table lists the disk space and RAM required by each operating
system that Virtual PC supports as a guest operating system. The minimum
required disk space is the sum of the required disk space of each guest
operating system and the host operating system, in addition to additional
disk space for any applications to be installed on the operating systems. If
you plan to run more than one guest operating system simultaneously, you
will need to add the RAM requirements for all of those operating systems in
addition to the RAM required by the host operating system. To enhance
performance, consider increasing the amount of memory beyond the minimum
requirement.

Windows Vista Ultimate 512 MB 15 GB
Windows Vista Enterprise 512 MB 15 GB
Windows Vista Business 512 MB 15 GB
Windows XP Professional 128 MB 2 GB
Windows XP Home Edition 128 MB 2 GB
Windows 2000 Professional 128 MB 2 GB
Windows 98 Second Edition 128 MB 2 GB

Someone else would need to answer that, I've never used VM Ware.

Correction to the Host system requirements:
Windows Vista Ultimate 512 MB 15 GB
Windows Vista Enterprise 512 MB 15 GB
Windows Vista Business 512 MB 15 GB
Windows XP Professional 128 MB 2 GB
Windows XP Home Edition 128 MB 2 GB
Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition 512 MB 4 GB
Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
128 MB of RAM required; 256 MB or more recommended
1.25 to 2 GB of available hard-disk space

Last I checked VMWare's workstation was not free.

VMWare has USB support, VPC does not. Not a big deal if you only
want to access a folder on a USB device. In that case you can "share"
the host folder.

VMWare supports non-MS OS. VPC does not. You may be able to install
a Linux distro (for example) in VPC, but good luck finding the guest
"additions" software needed to allow some guest to host interactions.
Things like drag & drop, copy/paste, folder sharing, and mouse integration
between the host and guest (you will want these capabilities) would only be
available for supported MS OS guests in VPC.

There may be other differences that I'm not aware of. I've only installed
VMWare for a trial period, and was a while ago. I suspect that VMWare
puts more into their product development when it comes to the workstation
model. VPC's good, but MS seems to be sitting on it as a standalone package.

If you're only going to be guesting MS OSs, VPC is a good choice (and free).
You might also want to have a look at VirtualBox. All that said, you can always
install more than one virtual machine package and go from there.

I have the 9x and 3x going on u-lite linux. I use vmware-player. I
create the machines at.

I have a couple of win98 machinees that I would like to transfer to VPC

What imaging software did people use that will run on the win98 machines?

What is the easiest way to produce vhd from the win98 hard drive?

I have used VPC for testing, have installed win98 but never took an actual
win98 system and virtualized it.

thanks

Google on p2v (physical to virtual) software. You might also want to post
this question to microsoft.public.virtualpc.