6 ms·

What's the current recommended platform for running Windows 95/98 programs? Virtualbox sound/graphics doesn't work quite right on some old programs.

retrobox 6y ago
This is going to sound weird but for one particularly old and tricky game, I had amazingly good success with ReactOS in a virtual machine. Moreso than running a virtual machine with Windows 95/98. However, I can't help but think there must be a better way.
shmerl 6y ago
Wine on Linux. Linux has 16-bit support. For example you can run Windows 95 release of The Neverhood in Wine, which has some 16-bit parts (though practically, ScummVM is a better option).
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > Linux has 16-bit support. Does that work on 64-bit (ie any modern) linux? I remember there being some issue with switching back to 16-bit mode after entering (I think they were calling it) Long Mode, but I don't remember if that got fixed, and I don't have a 16-bit linux-userland-executable format handy to test it.
  - shmerl 6y ago
    It should. See here: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/5357F82D.8020307@zytor.com/t/#m1cede0313ce682e4e76f2f2ad4ca8393e4f3b801 https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/5357F82D.8020307@zytor.com/t/#m... But I tested it last quite a long time go.
anonunivgrad 6y ago
They are mostly 32-bit, so you can run them on any Windows 10 build. MS has worked pretty hard to maintain backward compatibility. They should mostly work, maybe requiring a little fiddling with the compatibility settings. But it’s not perfect, and I hear you might have better luck with WINE with some applications. The break is with 16-bit applications, which 64-bit Windows 10 no longer supports. You can still run them on 32-bit Windows 10. All that winevdm does is emulate the 16-bit processor and translate 16-bit-Windows api calls to their modern equivalent, so you can run 16-bit programs on 64-bit Windows again.
- Aloha 6y ago
  I'm always super impressed with windows backwards compatibility, it'd be like unmodified system 7 applications still running on a modern mac.
  - spijdar 6y ago
    I don't have the right hardware to test this right now, but I believe unmodified system 7 binaries (and earlier) should run on up to OS X 10.4.11 from 2007 on PowerPC Macs, using the Classic environment. In an alternative reality where PowerPC stayed competitive, I wonder how long they would have maintained the compat-layer. Given it's apple, probably not long, but I think it's worth pointing out backwards compat was only broken when both the OS and the CPU were changed (twice in the CPU's case). My understanding is that running 16 bit code on a modern CPU is itself a sort of backwards compat mode which isn't supported in 64 bit operation, so you need a full emulator to run the executable. Neither Apple nor Microsoft seem keen on keeping CPU emulators around long term (IIRC Windows used to have something like this built-in for emulating 80286s for Win16, mostly for non-x86 arches like Alpha/MIPS/PowerPC, I think?)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - AshamedCaptain 6y ago
      Actually, running 16 bit code is perfectly supported on 64 bit CPUs (for obvious reasons -- you still need 16 bit to boot a BIOS), and even you can seamlessly switch between 16bit and 64bit modes at runtime (early 64 bit linux could even run vm86plus). It was a political choice by Microsoft to drop 16 bit Windows support in 64 bit Windows. This is the limit of their famous backwards compatibility -- still impressive, though. This also happened during the era where they were getting criticism from all sides due to crappy Windows security (think XP pre-SP2 times) and they may have seen the 16 bit support code as a liability.
      - hackmiester 6y ago
txdv 6y ago
I still have that windows 95 that my parents paid serious money for. I can send it to you.
Aloha 6y ago
Windows 10? Like I'm running 95 era software and it mostly works fine on Win10, I have one application that cant deal with 64 bit, needs 32 bit windows, as it has serial drivers that dont work in 64 bit.
dblohm7 6y ago
Windows 95/98 programs are Win32 programs. Most of them should run just fine on modern Windows[1], with the exception of system utilities and such that shipped with VxDs to provide functionality from kernel mode. [1] Some of them might require Administrator to run if they were not sufficiently multi-user aware to support Windows NT.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Games especially seem to have more trouble working than other programs. Something like DxWnd may help in those cases.
  - dblohm7 6y ago
    This is true, though IMHO I don't think this is an issue of being written for Win95/98 so much as it is DirectX compatibility (or lack thereof).
    - dfox 6y ago
      I assume that it is primarily not about DirectX (or specifically DirectDraw) compatibility but about W9x games assuming that they can use DirectDraw to setup particular video mode, somehow get pointer to directly mapped framebuffer with particular organization and pixel format, write into that directly and completely ignore DirectDraw after the initialization.
  - garaetjjte 6y ago
    dgVoodoo is useful for old games: http://dege.freeweb.hu/ http://dege.freeweb.hu/
otterlicious 6y ago
VMware still works great for older operating systems. I've had nothing but trouble with Hyper-V and VirtualBox lately. It's sad because VirtualBox used to work okay but the legacy AMD NIC and SoundBlaster drivers have been bitrotting in the last few years and Hyper-V's predecessor Virtual PC used to be great with older OSes too. If you prefer free software KVM/virt-manager works just fine as well there's just a bit more fiddling with options to make things happy.
Narishma 6y ago
PCem if you have a strong enough CPU.
int_19h 6y ago
PCem. It's not exactly fast, because it meticulously emulates PC hardware (and thus requires obtaining the original firmware in some cases); running Win9x requires a rather beefy CPU. But for the same reason, it's really good at backwards compatibility. https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/ https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/

retrobox 6y ago

This is going to sound weird but for one particularly old and tricky game, I had amazingly good success with ReactOS in a virtual machine. Moreso than running a virtual machine with Windows 95/98. However, I can't help but think there must be a better way.

shmerl 6y ago

Wine on Linux. Linux has 16-bit support. For example you can run Windows 95 release of The Neverhood in Wine, which has some 16-bit parts (though practically, ScummVM is a better option).

a1369209993 6y ago
> Linux has 16-bit support. Does that work on 64-bit (ie any modern) linux? I remember there being some issue with switching back to 16-bit mode after entering (I think they were calling it) Long Mode, but I don't remember if that got fixed, and I don't have a 16-bit linux-userland-executable format handy to test it.
- shmerl 6y ago
  It should. See here: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/5357F82D.8020307@zytor.com/t/#m1cede0313ce682e4e76f2f2ad4ca8393e4f3b801 https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/5357F82D.8020307@zytor.com/t/#m... But I tested it last quite a long time go.

anonunivgrad 6y ago

They are mostly 32-bit, so you can run them on any Windows 10 build. MS has worked pretty hard to maintain backward compatibility. They should mostly work, maybe requiring a little fiddling with the compatibility settings. But it’s not perfect, and I hear you might have better luck with WINE with some applications. The break is with 16-bit applications, which 64-bit Windows 10 no longer supports. You can still run them on 32-bit Windows 10. All that winevdm does is emulate the 16-bit processor and translate 16-bit-Windows api calls to their modern equivalent, so you can run 16-bit programs on 64-bit Windows again.

Aloha 6y ago
I'm always super impressed with windows backwards compatibility, it'd be like unmodified system 7 applications still running on a modern mac.
- spijdar 6y ago
  I don't have the right hardware to test this right now, but I believe unmodified system 7 binaries (and earlier) should run on up to OS X 10.4.11 from 2007 on PowerPC Macs, using the Classic environment. In an alternative reality where PowerPC stayed competitive, I wonder how long they would have maintained the compat-layer. Given it's apple, probably not long, but I think it's worth pointing out backwards compat was only broken when both the OS and the CPU were changed (twice in the CPU's case). My understanding is that running 16 bit code on a modern CPU is itself a sort of backwards compat mode which isn't supported in 64 bit operation, so you need a full emulator to run the executable. Neither Apple nor Microsoft seem keen on keeping CPU emulators around long term (IIRC Windows used to have something like this built-in for emulating 80286s for Win16, mostly for non-x86 arches like Alpha/MIPS/PowerPC, I think?)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - AshamedCaptain 6y ago
    Actually, running 16 bit code is perfectly supported on 64 bit CPUs (for obvious reasons -- you still need 16 bit to boot a BIOS), and even you can seamlessly switch between 16bit and 64bit modes at runtime (early 64 bit linux could even run vm86plus). It was a political choice by Microsoft to drop 16 bit Windows support in 64 bit Windows. This is the limit of their famous backwards compatibility -- still impressive, though. This also happened during the era where they were getting criticism from all sides due to crappy Windows security (think XP pre-SP2 times) and they may have seen the 16 bit support code as a liability.
    - hackmiester 6y ago

txdv 6y ago

I still have that windows 95 that my parents paid serious money for. I can send it to you.

Aloha 6y ago

Windows 10? Like I'm running 95 era software and it mostly works fine on Win10, I have one application that cant deal with 64 bit, needs 32 bit windows, as it has serial drivers that dont work in 64 bit.

dblohm7 6y ago

Windows 95/98 programs are Win32 programs. Most of them should run just fine on modern Windows[1], with the exception of system utilities and such that shipped with VxDs to provide functionality from kernel mode. [1] Some of them might require Administrator to run if they were not sufficiently multi-user aware to support Windows NT.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
Games especially seem to have more trouble working than other programs. Something like DxWnd may help in those cases.
- dblohm7 6y ago
  This is true, though IMHO I don't think this is an issue of being written for Win95/98 so much as it is DirectX compatibility (or lack thereof).
  - dfox 6y ago
    I assume that it is primarily not about DirectX (or specifically DirectDraw) compatibility but about W9x games assuming that they can use DirectDraw to setup particular video mode, somehow get pointer to directly mapped framebuffer with particular organization and pixel format, write into that directly and completely ignore DirectDraw after the initialization.
- garaetjjte 6y ago
  dgVoodoo is useful for old games: http://dege.freeweb.hu/ http://dege.freeweb.hu/

otterlicious 6y ago

VMware still works great for older operating systems. I've had nothing but trouble with Hyper-V and VirtualBox lately. It's sad because VirtualBox used to work okay but the legacy AMD NIC and SoundBlaster drivers have been bitrotting in the last few years and Hyper-V's predecessor Virtual PC used to be great with older OSes too. If you prefer free software KVM/virt-manager works just fine as well there's just a bit more fiddling with options to make things happy.

Narishma 6y ago

PCem if you have a strong enough CPU.

int_19h 6y ago

PCem. It's not exactly fast, because it meticulously emulates PC hardware (and thus requires obtaining the original firmware in some cases); running Win9x requires a rather beefy CPU. But for the same reason, it's really good at backwards compatibility. https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/ https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/