So called "abandonware" isn't supported at vogons.
9x as a guest isn't supported inside DOSBox, you'll need to use DOSBox-X or preferably pcem if you want to run 9x as a guest. If you want speed in 9x then use the virtualization provided by qemu or vmware.

DOSBox is designed to run games so the features are geared to that. Installing DOS on an image and booting from it has always been a last resort as such features like the usage of the CDROM while booted from an HD image are not available. If a DOS game doesn't work the normal way then it should be reported here so it can be fixed.

If you want to continue with 9x as a guest in DOSBox then you can copy the install files to the HD and install from there this also eliminates having to put in the CD whenever 9x prompts for it.

DOSBox provides CD support by emulating mscdex, not by implementing IDE hardware so loading an operating system means there will be no CD detected.

DosFreak wrote on 2022-01-13, 00:30:

So called "abandonware" isn't supported at vogons.

I wasn't asking for help with abandonware itself. I was asking for help with an OS, which I happened to have gotten from an abandonware site. I only mentioned the site so that others wanting to help me with the issue I was having could get the exact OS I was using. The best tech support is available when the tech support crew has access to the same software you do, so they can attempt to duplicate any bugs you describe.

By the way I used to have Win95 YEARS ago by legit purchasing the OS. The original CD I had is LONG GONE now though. I probably threw it out after getting Win98 or XP. So I have no possibility to be trying it from a legit source now. Basically any old software I'm asking for help on here, even if I don't explicitly say so, should be assumed to be downloaded from an abandonware website, because I've gotten rid of most of my original copies of really old software years ago.

jmarsh wrote on 2022-01-13, 07:08:

DOSBox provides CD support by emulating mscdex, not by implementing IDE hardware so loading an operating system means there will be no CD detected.

I assumed that ALL disk images (floppy, cd, and hdd) mounted by the imgmount command, would be usable after the boot command was called. After all, if the boot command can see a mounted image (for example "boot -l A" works, meaning the boot command can see the floppy labeled A from the previous use of the imgmount command) then that guarentied that the booted OS from calling the boot command would be able to see every disk mounted from previous uses of the imgmount command, so a mounted ISO would be seen as a real CD drive.

DosFreak wrote on 2022-01-13, 00:30:

If you want to continue with 9x as a guest in DOSBox then you can copy the install files to the HD and install from there this also eliminates having to put in the CD whenever 9x prompts for it.

That doesn't work. The largest HDD image that DosBox recognizes is about 500MB. The total size of all the files on the Win95C ISO is almost 600MB. That's too big to copy to the largest HDD image that DosBox will recognize.

We don't support so called "abandonware" here so if you don't care about our rules then at least don't mention from where you got it otherwise the thread will be locked as this one already should have been.

You don't need to copy the entire cd just the 9x files.

videogamer555 wrote on 2022-01-13, 09:12:

I assumed that ALL disk images (floppy, cd, and hdd) mounted by the imgmount command, would be usable after the boot command was called. After all, if the boot command can see a mounted image (for example "boot -l A" works, meaning the boot command can see the floppy labeled A from the previous use of the imgmount command) then that guarentied that the booted OS from calling the boot command would be able to see every disk mounted from previous uses of the imgmount command, so a mounted ISO would be seen as a real CD drive.

Floppy and hard drives are accessed by the booted OS via BIOS calls (which DOSBox emulates), CD drives have no such common interface. That's why they needed special drivers to be loaded to make them usable under MS-DOS on a real machine; they don't "just work" like floppies and HDDs.

DOSBox can work with hard disk images up to 2GB in size, more than enough to hold a win95 install cd but it's still a waste of time, windows 95 will not run correctly under any current public version of DOSBox.

jmarsh wrote on 2022-01-13, 13:17:

videogamer555 wrote on 2022-01-13, 09:12:

I assumed that ALL disk images (floppy, cd, and hdd) mounted by the imgmount command, would be usable after the boot command was called. After all, if the boot command can see a mounted image (for example "boot -l A" works, meaning the boot command can see the floppy labeled A from the previous use of the imgmount command) then that guarentied that the booted OS from calling the boot command would be able to see every disk mounted from previous uses of the imgmount command, so a mounted ISO would be seen as a real CD drive.

Floppy and hard drives are accessed by the booted OS via BIOS calls (which DOSBox emulates), CD drives have no such common interface. That's why they needed special drivers to be loaded to make them usable under MS-DOS on a real machine; they don't "just work" like floppies and HDDs.

DOSBox can work with hard disk images up to 2GB in size, more than enough to hold a win95 install cd but it's still a waste of time, windows 95 will not run correctly under any current public version of DOSBox.

Its odd that people expect DOSBox which is designed specifically for games to be able to emulate enough correctly to run windows 95, pretty sure it'll run Win3.11 but that has far less hardware requirements than 95 does.

Perhaps its because people forget that DOSBox is not a PC emulator or VM.

It is a PC emulator, it just doesn't emulate every little piece required for correct win95 operation.

jmarsh wrote on 2022-01-13, 21:10:

It is a PC emulator, it just doesn't emulate every little piece required for correct win95 operation.

not sure I would call it a PC emulator as its only emulating hardware required to run DOS and none of it is 100% correctly emulated, its more of an OS emulator for DOS, its certainly no WINUAE which I would happily throw into the PC emulator category.

Its really its own thing not fully one or the other but built for the specific purpose of running DOS games and only correctly emulating that which is required to do that task.

It fully emulates an x86 CPU, BIOS, video hardware, PIC(8259A), serial ports, sound cards... and can boot several other OSes besides MSDOS. If that's not a PC emulator I don't know what is.

As already mentioned, regular DOSBox (including SVN) has no support for IDE devices and is only meant for running DOS games. If you need this functionality you should have a look at DOSBox-X which has IDE support and just happens to also support Windows 95 and 98.

jmarsh wrote on 2022-01-14, 08:31:

It fully emulates an x86 CPU, BIOS, video hardware, PIC(8259A), serial ports, sound cards... and can boot several other OSes besides MSDOS. If that's not a PC emulator I don't know what is.

It ticks about a third of the boxes required for it to be a PC emulator, as said it only emulates what it requires for DOS gaming, the fact it can boot a few other OSes means little.

Get back to me when it can emulate IDE drives and CD drives and when it has enough correctly emulated hardware to run windows 95, look at what WinUAE is capable of and you will have an idea of what a full PC emulator is.

For me DOSBox is its own thing, its was designed for a specific task (Running DOS games) and it does that task exceptionally well.

Its fine to agree to disagree which is what I'm going to do here, I dont think this discussion will lead to anything fruitful so I likely wont reply to it again.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-14, 04:26:

jmarsh wrote on 2022-01-13, 21:10:

It is a PC emulator, it just doesn't emulate every little piece required for correct win95 operation.

not sure I would call it a PC emulator as its only emulating hardware required to run DOS and none of it is 100% correctly emulated, its more of an OS emulator for DOS, its certainly no WINUAE which I would happily throw into the PC emulator category.

Its really its own thing not fully one or the other but built for the specific purpose of running DOS games and only correctly emulating that which is required to do that task.

Actually it is a PC emulator, because it is actually running a compiled copy of FreeDOS, and compiled means it has all the machine instructions as bytes, and that means it needs to highly accurately emulate an x86 CPU to process all those bytes of machine code.

_Rob wrote on 2022-01-14, 22:11:

As already mentioned, regular DOSBox (including SVN) has no support for IDE devices and is only meant for running DOS games. If you need this functionality you should have a look at DOSBox-X which has IDE support and just happens to also support Windows 95 and 98.

Actually since HDDs are on the IDE bus, that means DosBox is properly emulating IDE, by interpreting read and write IDE commands as referring to real files on the host-OS's file system (which is how it lets you mount an actual folder as an emulated harddrive).

jmarsh wrote on 2022-01-13, 07:08:

DOSBox provides CD support by emulating mscdex, not by implementing IDE hardware so loading an operating system means there will be no CD detected.

If it's emulating MSCDEX driver, why can't the copy of Windows running in DosBox use the emulated driver? Why doesn't DosBox present the emulated driver to the guest-OS as a real driver so that the copy of Windows running in DosBox THINKS it has an actual copy of that driver installed, thus enabling it to read ISO disk images?

videogamer555 wrote on 2022-02-13, 01:44:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-14, 04:26:

jmarsh wrote on 2022-01-13, 21:10:

It is a PC emulator, it just doesn't emulate every little piece required for correct win95 operation.

not sure I would call it a PC emulator as its only emulating hardware required to run DOS and none of it is 100% correctly emulated, its more of an OS emulator for DOS, its certainly no WINUAE which I would happily throw into the PC emulator category.

Its really its own thing not fully one or the other but built for the specific purpose of running DOS games and only correctly emulating that which is required to do that task.

Actually it is a PC emulator, because it is actually running a compiled copy of FreeDOS, and compiled means it has all the machine instructions as bytes, and that means it needs to highly accurately emulate an x86 CPU to process all those bytes of machine code.

Till it needs anything related to ide emulated at which point your argument goes out the window , it is only emulating very specific parts that it requires for dos gaming. Anything else and you are better off with dosbox X which is a full pc emulator.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-13, 01:49:

videogamer555 wrote on 2022-02-13, 01:44:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-14, 04:26:

not sure I would call it a PC emulator as its only emulating hardware required to run DOS and none of it is 100% correctly emulated, its more of an OS emulator for DOS, its certainly no WINUAE which I would happily throw into the PC emulator category.

Its really its own thing not fully one or the other but built for the specific purpose of running DOS games and only correctly emulating that which is required to do that task.

Actually it is a PC emulator, because it is actually running a compiled copy of FreeDOS, and compiled means it has all the machine instructions as bytes, and that means it needs to highly accurately emulate an x86 CPU to process all those bytes of machine code.

Till it needs anything related to ide emulated at which point your argument goes out the window , it is only emulating very specific parts that it requires for dos gaming. Anything else and you are better off with dosbox X which is a full pc emulator.

All the hundreds of opcodes in the x86 CPU are properly emulated in DosBox as far as I know. Its x86 core emulation is 100% as far as I know. Other hardware components are less fully emulated though.

videogamer555 wrote on 2022-02-13, 01:49:

jmarsh wrote on 2022-01-13, 07:08:

DOSBox provides CD support by emulating mscdex, not by implementing IDE hardware so loading an operating system means there will be no CD detected.

If it's emulating MSCDEX driver, why can't the copy of Windows running in DosBox use the emulated driver? Why doesn't DosBox present the emulated driver to the guest-OS as a real driver so that the copy of Windows running in DosBox THINKS it has an actual copy of that driver installed, thus enabling it to read ISO disk images?

Because it's not an external driver, it's only an interface that is supported by the internal "dos" that DOSBox emulates. Once you boot a guest OS, that doesn't exist anymore.
Besides, making win95 rely on the MSCDEX interface for cdrom access is terrible. There are all sorts of issues, the main one being MSCDEX does not support long filenames. You may as well just copy the contents of the CD to a subdirectory.