If the profile doesn't work I'd just install on the 386, then install on the 486 and then do a windiff between the two installs to see what is different. Once you know what is different you can switch out the files as needed with a script depending on what you wanted to boot.

Maybe just pick a solution to easily swap hard drives? I can think of two options off the top of my head:

1) get two identical mobile racks, put a separate hard drive in each caddy, install one drive bay into your computer. Those racks can still be found really cheap for maybe a couple of bucks
2) get an IDE-CF adapter and switch between two CF cards. There are those that use an external 3.5 inch drive bay, so again, easily accessible. A bit more expensive, but you get the added benefit of being able to easily transfer data from a modern computer

Now since you're using a 386/486 motherboard I imagine that you're limited to ISA16 IDE controllers, so you can only use two IDE devices at a time. Kind of an issue if you also have a CD-ROM and want to have a 3rd shared hard drive for data and games that will be accessible to both 386 and 486. The solution here might be to connect your CD-ROM to a sound card.

jheronimus wrote on 2020-07-24, 14:39:

2) get an IDE-CF adapter and switch between two CF cards. There are those that use an external 3.5 inch drive bay, so again, easily accessible.

This would be so much easier. I think OP wants to share applications between the two installations, but since Win32 apps put so much configuration into the Registry, there's no sane way to install an app into one Win95 installation and expect the other installation to be able to use it.

Also, Win95 on a 386? Yuck.

LightStruk wrote on 2020-07-24, 14:51:

This would be so much easier. I think OP wants to share applications between the two installations, but since Win32 apps put so much configuration into the Registry, there's no sane way to install an app into one Win95 installation and expect the other installation to be able to use it.

Also, Win95 on a 386? Yuck.

I wouldn't put Win95 even on a 486, honestly (even though I used it back in the day). Anyway, I imagine that even if one does use W95 on 386/486, there aren't a lot of Win95 apps/games that would be useful on this kind of hardware.

CF card is a good one. This is what id do, but I also wouldn't be swapping boards and drives in an out of my rig. Thats too much work.

Thank you all. You’re indeed right - two installations will also require to maintain all software installations. I think the only pragmatic way is try to further push the hardware profile function to its limit.

I use two Windows installs and then just rename Windows directory when I need to.

C:\Win95.1 is install 1
C:\Win95.2 is install 2

The install that I need I just rename to C:\Windows

and when I don't need it just rename it back to temp directory.

Very interesting. How to you handle the installation of new software? Always on both installations? Try / hope to get them wOrking without registry adaptions?

few of my PC's have both Win9x and Win2k or XP installed.
Majority of software I use works fine without installing on the second OS, just run the exe and it either adds the entries or doesn't really need them.
I actually prefer this for my games which add alot of unnecessary crap to registries.

Of course some software needs installing in both.

the amount of room taken up by a second case vs the room taken up by constantly having what is going to be basically two computers completely disassembled in the room is negligible. Swapping IMO is really risking getting boards damaged.

jheronimus wrote on 2020-07-24, 15:41:

LightStruk wrote on 2020-07-24, 14:51:

This would be so much easier. I think OP wants to share applications between the two installations, but since Win32 apps put so much configuration into the Registry, there's no sane way to install an app into one Win95 installation and expect the other installation to be able to use it.

Also, Win95 on a 386? Yuck.

I wouldn't put Win95 even on a 486, honestly (even though I used it back in the day). Anyway, I imagine that even if one does use W95 on 386/486, there aren't a lot of Win95 apps/games that would be useful on this kind of hardware.

386 hardware was very common in the early days of Win95/NT 3.1x actually.. (I was there! 😉 )
Also, the CPU is not really the problem.
Most early Win32 programs were compatible with Win32s on Windows 3.1, after all. Creatures!, Sierra-Online games, Freddy Fish..
From what I remember, its main memory and a quick HDD that counts.
Say 16MiB or better (32MiB+) and a PIO 3 HDD.
SIMMs with low access time, no wait states and some external mainboard cache (128KiB+) are also nice to have.
In essence, it is all about not having bottle necks in a 386 system.

Edit: Typos fixed. 😊

^ quick hard drives are what now?!
It's just an honest typo, and I'm the last one that can comment on that but what a typo 🤣!

(should it be corrected it was originally C U Next Tuesday)

Thanks again. I managed more or less to get now all stable with hw profiles although it’s not maintenance-less. Thanks.

Win95 is running surprising slow but due to memory. I’ve 8mb installed. The only men intensive stuff I can imagine is network and tcp/ip services.
Without swap win runs suddenly after boot into out of memory. That’s not normal so I now have to figure out what’s behind it. Although outtasked to a new second hdd The swapping takes lot of time.

I'm really glad it works now. 😀

My father used to have this config, not sure if it helpful (specs as remembered) :
am386DX40, 16MB RAM, 128KB cache, 2x IDE HDDs (System 120MB, Data 250MB), Win95 RTM,
Trident 8900D 512KB, Towitoko chip card reader (for telephone cards, health care cards etc),
Sound Blaster Pro, Multi-I/o card, Mitsumi LU005S Single-Speed CD-ROM drive+ISA controller, 3.5" FDD, 5.25" FDD,
external SCSI Tape Streamer (QIC)

@chinny22 Oh. I see. 😅