You don't have to reinstall XP. You can create a space at the beginning of the disk for the older OS.

Does Windows XP allow you to resize partitions? If not, a tool like PartitionMagic will be necessary.

Then install Windows 98 into the space, and use a boot manager to allow you to choose which OS you want to use at startup.

Errius wrote on 2020-12-25, 22:24:

You don't have to reinstall XP. You can create a space at the beginning of the disk for the older OS.

Does Windows XP allow you to resize partitions? If not, a tool like PartitionMagic will be necessary.

Then install Windows 98 into the space, and use a boot manager to allow you to choose which OS you want to use at startup.

There is already a smaller (20gb) D: partition. Could I install it into that?

Yes, that is a good size. Where is this partition? Is it at the beginning of the drive?

Errius wrote on 2020-12-25, 22:42:

Yes, that is a good size. Where is this partition? Is it at the beginning of the drive?

No it is listed after the C drive.

I don't remember if W98 can be installed on extended partitions. Have you tried running the Windows 98 installer to see if it can see both partitions?

Also, if you put W98 there, it will be drive D: not C:, which may not be desirable

Errius wrote on 2020-12-25, 22:56:

I don't remember if W98 can be installed on extended partitions. Have you tried running the Windows 98 installer to see if it can see both partitions?

Also, if you put W98 there, it will be drive D: not C:, which may not be desirable

Everything I've seen says it cannot be installed on anything other than the primary partition. My dad found a copy of XP so I think I'm just gonna blow this install up and try 98se and see what happens.

What is the best resource for drivers? I've Google stuff but it's hard to know what is reputable. I'll need older versions of ATI Catalyst (if that was even a thing on 98?)

Yeah, if there's no important stuff that urgently needs to be preserved, it's simpler to just reinstall both OSes from scratch

You'll have to find individual drivers for all of your audio/video/USB 2.0 hardware. If you don't need DOS you can install Windows ME, which comes with a lot more drivers than W98.

Errius wrote on 2020-12-25, 23:28:

Yeah, if there's no important stuff that urgently needs to be preserved, it's simpler to just reinstall both OSes from scratch

You'll have to find individual drivers for all of your audio/video/USB 2.0 hardware. If you don't need DOS you can install Windows ME, which comes with a lot more drivers than W98.

My main concern is Windows 98 and 95 compatibility for games. I have a few DOS PCs so it isn't a concern. I have hard copies of 98SE and ME so I can install either. XP seems to have some compatibility issues with many of the games I've tried to install.

Pretty much any Windows game that runs on Windows 95 and 98 will run on ME. It's the way to go if DOS compatibility isn't a concern. It's true that many older Windows games won't run properly on XP, so dual booting both is advisable.

I myself have a dual boot ME/XP machine which covers the late 90s early 2000s period well.

ya maybe but very little computers designed to run 95 or 98 run ME right becasue a lack of WDM driver support on older hardware. IF you want to run DOS games ME is a poor choice compared to 98se. Lack of real dos unless patched, and its buggy and crashes a lot with vxd drivers and you need vxd drivers to have good dos box experience under 9x.

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-26, 04:09:

ya maybe but very little computers designed to run 95 or 98 run ME right becasue a lack of WDM driver support on older hardware. IF you want to run DOS games ME is a poor choice compared to 98se. Lack of real dos unless patched, and its buggy and crashes a lot with vxd drivers and you need vxd drivers to have good dos box experience under 9x.

I do not want to run DOS on this build. My only concern is 95 and 98 gaming.

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-26, 04:09:

ya maybe but very little computers designed to run 95 or 98 run ME right becasue a lack of WDM driver support on older hardware. IF you want to run DOS games ME is a poor choice compared to 98se. Lack of real dos unless patched, and its buggy and crashes a lot with vxd drivers and you need vxd drivers to have good dos box experience under 9x.

You don't need dosbox on wi9x to have a great Dos gaming experience.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-12-26, 04:58:

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-26, 04:09:

ya maybe but very little computers designed to run 95 or 98 run ME right becasue a lack of WDM driver support on older hardware. IF you want to run DOS games ME is a poor choice compared to 98se. Lack of real dos unless patched, and its buggy and crashes a lot with vxd drivers and you need vxd drivers to have good dos box experience under 9x.

You don't need dosbox on wi9x to have a great Dos gaming experience.

I think Warlord was referring to running DOS games in a DOS command prompt under Windows (i.e. a DOS box), not to the DOSBox program itself .

yes I'm referring to the real dos box not the emulator.

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-26, 05:24:

yes I'm referring to the real dos box not the emulator.

You don't even need win9x in that case....

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-12-26, 05:34:

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-26, 05:24:

yes I'm referring to the real dos box not the emulator.

You don't even need win9x in that case....

Depending on the hardware you own and what you want to do with it, there are valid reasons to run DOS games under Windows 9x rather than under pure DOS.

For example, if you have an AWE32/AWE64/SB32 and want to use the EMU8000 synth in DOS protected mode games that only support General MIDI for music, running under Windows 9x will allow MIDI data sent to the MPU-401 to be redirected to the EMU8000 synth (thanks to Creative's Windows drivers for the AWE32/AWE64/SB32) .

EDIT : Another reason to run DOS games under Windows, is if you have a sound card without native Sound Blaster compatibility or any DOS-based emulation ability . Running under Windows 98SE (or ME) would then allow you to leverage Windows' integrated SBEmul subsystem for Sound Blaster emulation ( see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows-hard … udio-components ) .

same goes for cards Like SB LIVE with Audigy 2 drivers for midi in dos box, Yamaha XG, A3D. Plenty of examples. Theres those integrated controllers on motherboards that will support dos games under 9x but not under pure dos. For all of that you need vxd drivers.

Anyways, there a thing called 98se2me anyways if someone really liked ME they could use that and convert 98se to me and have all the benefits of 98 with none of the downsides to me. Thats a ok mod for a relatively strong computer, if you have a weak computer youre always better off with 98lite and going either chubby install or shell swap to osr2.1 shell.

Like other said You can dual boot Xp and 9x or you can just get rid of xp reformat and install 9x instead. Id recommend finding a copy of symanctec ghost 7 or 8 and just making a backup image of XP and saving it to a thumb drive or a dvd or something. then you can put it back if you ever decide to.

You should find all the drivers you need for your hardware to run on 98. chipset, gpu, sound etc and put them on a cd, your fileserver, etc so you have that for 9x.

Anyways you cant "technically" downgrade operating systems. Only upgrade, if there is an upgrade. Only case i can think downgrade works is if you had like win 2000 then used xp upgrade disc and the install made a backup of 2k during install, you might of had a option to roll back like a service pack but dont hold me to that.

omgfoz wrote on 2020-12-25, 22:03:

Do a fresh install on a new hard drive (I would set up a CF card for this)?

I would recommend against using a CF card for 98 - IMO the best disk option is a 120gb SSD.