Uncreative Labs

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

so recently, i decided to try something new. found me a 9gb 68 pin IBM ultra start scsi drive, and decided to see how good windows 95 would run.

the setup is a 386 at 33mhz, 16mb ram, sb64,etherlink3, cirrus logic vid card with 2 mb ram, windows 95b/c had built in drivers for everthing except wheel mice and sound card so that was cool. clean install without the ie4 desktop update was fairly fast and usable. ie4+ deskupdate made it a bit slower, then trying to install ie 5.5 sp2 completely messes up the system were it wont even boot to the desktop without crashing, is it my 386 or missing updates? other than that, im likeing windows 95 enuff to consider a dual boot. win95+stuff like winamp/winrar, plus other goodies fits on less that 200 mb. so any ones else got and suggestions or comments or willing to share any other windows 9x experiences, just posting here cause forum seemed dead and someone gots to pokes the embers

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

FWIW, many moons ago (i.e., 1999) I had a 486DX66 running Win95A fairly smoothly, until I tried installing IE5.5 (over 5.01). Completely hosed it, but was able to uninstall 5.5 fairly cleanly. A reinstall of 5.01 brought it back to pristine condition. I'd suggest sticking w/5.01 for a slower system for those reasons (though there's not much logic why 5.5 shouldn't have worked).

http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/win32

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

highest version of ie that'll work is ie 4. tried installing 5.01 and it did the same things as when i tried to instal 5.5 sp2, msxml dll errors, do i have to install the msxml redistribution package thingy first? if so, what version, i think its 2.5b, but i dont wana risk corupting the system

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

Go to oldversion and get the full installation of IE 5.5 for windows9x then install it clean without any internet explorer in place.

This is what I did on my systems and it worked fine. In fact I actually went so far as to get the 98 lite on my 98 systems remove IE completely and reshell then reinstall IE 5.5 ends up as a smaller installation footprint as well.

Cheers
Ryan

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I discovered that even when installed from a boot disk and cd
after the reboot, it cannot find the cd, typical.
recently I was given an old system with w 95b
I attempted to install it or repsir inb on a faster pc ( intel cpu)
I got that error,.. even after qa fresh re-insytall
the only suggestion was ton put in the patch for the amd ( over 300 mhz) cpu.
I lost interest.
w 98 will install but required a change in the system.ini casche line
if the ram is over 512
[Vcache]
MaxFileCache=524288

(system.ini to prevent locklups

also some say reduce the ram to 128m
( for w 95)

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

well, ive tried clean installs, installs without ie, but no luck, movin on to 98 se usin 98 lite , no luck, i keep gettin i need a 80486 minimal error, even when using setup /nm switch, unfortunetly, i dont have ascess to my other pc's so i cant install it on another pc, then transfer the drive back, one idea was to install on a vhd, then copy it to a cd, then copy it to the pc. any ideas? this is makin me crazy

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

Is it mandatory that you have IE? I did have success installing Win95(A) on a Compaq 386s20n (386sx20) w/16MB of RAM & a 60MB HDD to see if it would connect to broadband (it did, but with disappointing results). I used Opera 3.62 (32-bit) instead of IE (3.02).

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

ie 5 is pretty much compatible with most modern webpages, got firefox 1.5 running on it now, never tried opera tho.. so far i got my vurtual machine running good, about 220 mb total with addons like firefox, winamp,winrar etc

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

386er wrote:

ie 5 is pretty much compatible with most modern webpages, got firefox 1.5 running on it now, never tried opera tho.. so far i got my vurtual machine running good, about 220 mb total with addons like firefox, winamp,winrar etc

Is that A DX or SX, oddly enough I've many issues with 386sx's that I couldn't explain under windows 9x. But DX's that don't have the infamous 386 multiplication error have worked fine for me.

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

ive got the vhd image on the 9gb scsi drive now usin winimage, and the 386 booted it up, now im installin drivers, its the dx version, its running good, mabey when its complete i'll take some pictures

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

firefox and ie5 fail to load, so its plan H, install ie4 and or opera and then have a dual boot with win 3.1 and ie 5. whats the best version of opera, for a 386 and win9x?

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

The "best" version for low-end equipment is 3.62, however it isn't free and licenses aren't being sold any longer (You may be able to find a hack somewhere).

Starting with 5.0, Opera moved to an "ad-supported" version. Free as long as you don't mind getting hit with random ads all over the place.

The first "free" and "ad-free" version was 8.5, though it may or may not work on Win95 (seems like I've read you need the Windows Installer platform to get it to work).

Have you tried a legacy-version of Netscape?

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

opera 8.5 works, i think ima stick with that one, altho, id be intrested in trying out netscape, whats a good version for win98 and slow hardware thats has the least amount of errors, also, anyone know how to install ie4 browser only? i want a bare bones install without java/outlook/netmeeting

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

Quote:

id be intrested in trying out netscape, whats a good version for win98 and slow hardware that's has the least amount of errors

Well, if Opera works, I don't think I'd risk a Netscape (or IE) install. There weren't any versions of Netscape (maybe 2.02 - which would have too many java-script errors and compatibility issues) that were anywhere near "light on resources". Only other exception might have been the later Mozilla-based (8.0+) versions, but since you said Firefox didn't work then that rules that out. Nothing personal, but you're kinda pushing the limit (hard) if you're running '98 on a 386 anyway (unless it's something like 98lite)...

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

yep, 98lite, with win95 shell, runs fast, opera 8.5 takes a while to start, but once its started, loads pages fast, was kind of hoping to get ie installed for compatability. will try just a regular ie4 install and leave it