Well these points are absolutely valid, but let's see how it goes. I like the sound of PLOP and in all honesty I don't anticipate messing with files on one OS from the other OS, so I suspect the hiding of partitions won't be a big issue. I still can't see a reason to go with Windows 95 over Windows 98 and Windows 3.1 will entertain me somewhat. I'll let people know how it goes.

As an earlier poster remarked, the main reason to run W95 is to get some of the more "pesky" Win95 games running, as some them them are not terribly "forward compatible". Examples: Hind and Apache Longbow Win95/3dfx, EF-2000 V2 Win95/3dfx-Rendition, and Aces of the Deep can be trouble to get running on anything after W95. But you will find out what's an issue for you and its very possible W95 will never be critical..

OK, so I thought I'd provide a brief update. I've had limited time so I'm still experimenting, but I have thus far had considerable success using the boot manager utility supplied with xfdisk, which has been extremely light, simple and effective.

The hardware has been changed out to a dual 700MHz Pentium 3 setup with a 440BX chipset. The K6-III was not entirely stable at 500MHz, which was a pity, but I then remembered that I had this dually board in the loft and it has worked remarkably well. Throttle is a superb utility slowing the machine right down and disabling the cache on the processor, with the result being that I can have the machine operate much like an IBM 5150 when used in conjunction with moslo in real mode DOS, or as a full bore Y2K box in Windows 2000.

I intend to experiment with a Voodoo 5500 now and I may try and add Windows 95 into the mix after all. I suspect that the Windows 3.1 drivers may work for the V5 as I believe it uses the same 2D engine which is a good performer and has decent DOS compatibility and furthermore strikes me as a more appropriate match for the power of the machine. Besides which, I've always wanted to use the Voodoo 5500 as I'm given to understand it's image quality is pretty decent for the day and a pair of P3's should compensate for the lack of hardware T&L somewhat. Before anyone says anything, I am fully aware of the fact that only one processor will be utilised outside of an NT or unix type OS and in those instances a single 700MHz P3 is still fairly awesome.

This is just an update and a lot more work is due to be carried out in the future. I don't expect to have this system exactly how I want it until some time after Christmas.

if you insist running win3.x on FAT32 partition, you may need patched win3.x.

512MBytes memory is maximum for unpatched win9x, anything more requires tweaking or patching.
512MB also theoretical maximum that win3.1x may use, but practically only up to 256 MB will be used.

137/128GBytes (depend on how you interpret the 'G' part) HDD is maximum for unpatched, using win9x's ESDI driver.

ask more in MSFN board.

Appreciate the feedback. Well aware of the Windows 3.1 memory issue and the inability to use more than 256Mb of RAM is not an issue. I simply placed an artificial limit on how much memory the OS was allowed to use to stop it from crashing. Will be interested in patches for the operating system nonetheless.

I'm not running Windows 98 unpatched so I have had no issues with the 640MB of memory the system has.

Hard drive has also not been a problem. I have a wealth of patches and service packs and I'm a regular visitor to the MSFN forums, but still a lot of experimentation to go.