If your hard drive is large enough that Windows has breathing room and you're running with at least 16mb of memory, Windows 95 is the way to go. While it's not as period-correct as Win 3.1 which is probably what the machine shipped with, audio requires less work to get working and memory management with DOS programs under 95 is much, much better than memory management with plain DOS or DOS/Win3.1. Also, Windows 95 has a much nicer and much more powerful shell and better file management.

I remember running a cpu just like that with win95 with 16mb RAM and it was terribly slow. I would definitely go with 3.11 and DOS. With 32MB RAM win 95 might get more usable, but is it really worth it?

elfuego wrote:

I remember running a cpu just like that with win95 with 16mb RAM and it was terribly slow. I would definitely go with 3.11 and DOS. With 32MB RAM win 95 might get more usable, but is it really worth it?

Then it's cpu bound, or you're just spoiled now by all this modern hardware 😁

With 16MB of ram, W95 ran fine on our P100.

elfuegio, I am logged on this form with this very same 486DX2 system with 16mb, and it's just nearly as fast as my daily driver 2.6Ghz system, In IE 3.0 everything looks like sh*t but it's still very use-able. I am amazed it works this well 😉. My 1st post from a 486DX2!

I suppose everyone has their own tolerance, but I can barely stand web browsing on a 5x86 160.

I'd only use that hardware with DOS. Windows is useful for network access though (but sadly 9x can't access Vista/7 shares).

On a Gateway 2000 486DX2-66, MSDOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 is definitely the way to go (and also was what was originally installed on it IIRC).

SavantStrike wrote:

With 16MB of ram, W95 ran fine on our P100.

A P100 is considerably faster than a 486DX2-66 though 😉

There was a topic about Windows system requirements, perhaps it would provide you with a good read?
Link: What are your minimum Windows system requirements?

SavantStrike wrote:

elfuego wrote:

I remember running a cpu just like that with win95 with 16mb RAM and it was terribly slow. I would definitely go with 3.11 and DOS. With 32MB RAM win 95 might get more usable, but is it really worth it?

Then it's cpu bound, or you're just spoiled now by all this modern hardware 😁

With 16MB of ram, W95 ran fine on our P100.

Oh man, I dont know whats it bound by, but I do remember installing it (it took hours!) and for the first time since I've known PC's it took minutes to load up (DOS was loading up immediately).

And for the record, I installed that 18 years ago or smt, when it was brand new. Not now 😀

With 52x cd drives (god I'm so glad we're finally just about over with floppies but WHY haven't they totally gone yet!?), ethernet, much improved drivers and easy to access communities packed with people who hold crap computers in higher regard than a proper love life, setting up an old computer with an OS newer than what it's designed for isn't nearly the chore it was back in the day.

Dos anyone have any leads on working MS-DOS Mouse and CD-ROM DRIVERS? I would need step by step unless they install them self's and update the config.sys and autoexe.bat automatically. Don't know much about Pure DOS I am a all windows 😉 Tetrium thanks for that post, very helpful!

ibm5150pc wrote:

Dos anyone have any leads on working MS-DOS Mouse and CD-ROM DRIVERS? I would need step by step unless they install them self's and update the config.sys and autoexe.bat automatically. Don't know much about Pure DOS I am a all windows 😉 Tetrium thanks for that post, very helpful!

Drivers you can get easily, an actual serial mouse won't be quite so easy. You may have to hunt for one of those.

I used to use Win95 with 66mhz, worked fine.

Dos anyone have any leads on working MS-DOS Mouse and CD-ROM DRIVERS?

I use ctmouse, read about it here:
http://www.bootablecd.de/FreeDOS/help/en/hhst … ase/ctmouse.htm

Works fine with serial and PS/2 mice under DOS. You may need to adjust the sensitivity/acceleration but that's described in the linked page.

For CDROM drive I use VIDE-CDD.SYS
http://digilander.libero.it/pnavato/drivers/zip/APICD214.ZIP

There's a readme included which should explain everything.

i would recommend win95osr2, sometimes called windows97. its a re-release and much more mature than the initial win95, just like win98se to initial win98. it supports fat32 and usb, in case there is one on 486 boards, and better software compatibility.
better have 32mb of ram, 16mb may be tight.

But OSR2 has Internet Explorer 4 integrated in the shell, and works slower because of that.
I am currently running Windows 98SE Winimize, which uses the original 95 shell. Without addons this is a 26 MB install. Very fast! But unfortunately it lacks all Audio functionality.

a. There's no actual "correct" version of Windows to match a particular CPU class. The faster a cpu, the better a version of windows runs.

If you're comfortable with Win95 on the DX2-66, then continue using it.

For me, I prefer to use DOS 6.22 + Win 3.1x in my 486 DX2-66.

And I prefer to run Win95 in at least a Pentium 133.

It's just a matter of preference. And tolerability, as swaaye said.

b. Use ctmouse.exe for any mice (including serial ones) - takes up little memory and can be loaded and unloaded easily and is fully "Microsoft Mouse" compatible.

For cdrom, use qcdrom.sys with shcdx33e.exe.

Resources

1. QCDROM.SYS v4.2

2. SHCDX33E.EXE

I have to say that Win95 (one of the later ones without IE?) ran quite snappy on an Intel DX4 wt with 64MB FPM and a 1GB harddrive. It was way snappier then the P3-1000 running XP with 512MB PC-133 on a 40GB harddrive I had at the time 😉

Good point Tetrium!

When I was in the UK, I saw this tiny 486 on eBay and bought it. Later I found out they are quite popular. A tiny box from Unisys with 486 CPU, PS/2 ports, onboard ethernet and video and a single ISA slot.

One of my subjects was all about HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Back in those days we had to develop and test for IE and Netscape (LOL) and I remember having W3.11 on it.

Later I tried W95 (a or b I can't remember) and it was hardly any slower.

Had a Iomega Zip 100 parallel for DOS Games and a Soundblaster 16 or 64 (it was a short one in order to fit that case).

CPU was a Intel 486DX-4. I don't remember the amount of RAM however.

I had Office on it (not sure which version) and wrote my final project (a quite substantial MS Access database with heaps of VB code) and final report 50+ pages on that machine.

I also did some VB coding for another subject. The machine was so small that I took it with me on my flight to Australia. Just had to source a monitor, keyboard and mouse locally and I was set 🤣

For some reason back in those days I hung onto that old machine. I was a lot in the Uni labs, so it was mostly a type writer and that wasn't an issue for this machine.

I did however have ZERO software installed, apart from Office and Opera. Anything else would just "upset" the machine and it would take hours to settle down...

I wish I hadn't sold that machine when I was back in Europe. I think it went to someone from Germany (eBay)...

*snief*

I was also given this IBM Thinpad notebook. It was a 386SX and it fantastic condition. But again, I had to sell it because I have no place to store all this stuff and move a lot.

In Wagga Wagga (country town in Australia), I got a taste of what modern gaming was like again. There was this gamer chick and she let me play a few games. One was Hitman 2 which was the coolest thing I have seen in a long time. I believe she had a Geforce 3, that's all I know.

Another friend let me play on his PC and I finished RTCW. I'm pretty sure it had a TNT2 card.

When I got home I didn't spare any expenses and got a northwood P4, 2 GB Ram, Radeon 9800 and a second hand Compaq 21" CRT. Gaming bliss (Farcry, Splinter Cell, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Halo)

Malik wrote:

b. Use ctmouse.exe for any mice (including serial ones) - takes up little memory and can be loaded and unloaded easily and is fully "Microsoft Mouse" compatible.

I also use ctmouse, but sometimes this 'little' memory is too much. I had some troubles running some games with both mouse and CD installed under DOS. Some amount of juggling is definitely needed.