Windows 95 installation

Windows 95 can be installed directly onto a compatible x86 computer (typically an old machine that likely already had Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 installed in the first place). An original MS-DOS startup disk or Windows 95 floppy disks can be used to start the Windows 95 setup. By default, old computers will boot from a floppy disk if one is found in the drive.


 * If you have a Windows 95 optical CD-ROM, you may need to use an MS-DOS startup disk in conjunction with the CD-ROM to install Windows 95.
 * If you do not have an optical CD-ROM, but have Windows 95 data files on an ISO, or else where, you can create a Windows 95 CD-ROM using burning software.
 * If you also own a Windows 98 boot disk, then you can use that boot disk to kick start the Windows 95 installation process.
 * Unofficial MS-DOS startup disks can be found online.

Rationale for installing Windows 95
There are a few notable reasons for why one might want to install Windows 95 such as:


 * Full Compatibility: Windows 95 has full compatibility for old software, including commercial database systems that are still in widespread use.
 * Legacy Hardware: Windows 95 performs more optimally on legacy hardware than modern operating systems and has full support for it.
 * User Experience: The experience of using a legacy operating system is in itself an experience. Windows 9x operating systems has their feeling to them that seems lacking in modern OSs.

System Requirements
Windows 95 must meet these minimum requirements:

These additional requirements are needed for running legacy games under Windows 95:

Windows 95 will install on, but may not start on computers that have more than approximately 480 MB of memory.

Step 1: Virtual machine or physical hardware
The first step is to determine how you will install Windows 95 (i.e. a bare mental installation or a virtualization installation). In some cases, this decision is easy, but in other cases, it may be difficult. For example, installation to a virtual machine is the easiest but it does not necessarily provide the greatest performance. On the other hand, a bare mental installation is only possible if you own a physical computer capable of running Windows 95. It is worth noting that Windows 95 will unlikely run on a modern computer because of driver incompatibilities and CPU architectural differences. Emulation is a trade off between real hardware and virtualisation because it emulates legacy hardware that works nicely with Windows 95, but it requires time and resources to configure an emulation environment. This choice will also be impacted by the installation mediums that are available to you.

Step 2: Determine Installation Media
The second step will be determine the installation medium that you have avaliable for installing Windows 95. In most cases, this will either be: (a) a series of 3 and a half floppy disks; (b) an optical CD-ROM containing Windows 95; (c) Windows 95 setup files on a computer or network; (e) a disk image of a Windows 95 CD-ROM or (f) Disk image(s) of the floppy disks. Windows 95 was typically installed from a series of 3 and a half inch floppy disks, or from a Windows 95 installation CD-ROM. However, floppy disks are prone to wear and tear and should not be relied upon for long-term use or archiving. Existing floppy disks should be converted to disk images, especially if Windows 95 is being installed into an emulated or virtualized environment. Windows 95 may also come on an optical CD-ROM. If you own a Windows 95 CD-ROM, then it should first be converted to a disk image to mitigate wear and tear on a dated CD-ROM. Barring exceptional circamstances, Windows 95 CD-ROMs are not bootable like Windows 98 or Windows XP boot disks. This means that if you put a Windows 95 CD-ROM into your computer, or load a disk image in your virtualization software, the Windows 95 setup will not start. Generally, Windows 95 setup disks simply contain the data that is copied over to a hard disk when Windows 95 is installed.

Windows 95 CD-ROM
Follow these steps if installing Windows 95 onto a bare metal hardware using an optical CD-ROM.

(1) Insert the physical 3+1/2 in floppy disk into the floppy disk drive, containing the MS-DOS startup boot files. Alternatively, you can use the Windows 98 CD-ROM to boot into an MS-DOS environment. (2) Insert the Windows 95 CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive in the computer. If you are using the Win98 boot CD, you may need to copy the Windows 95 setup files to another location (such as a modified Windows 98 CD or second IDE hard disk drive). (3) Ensure that the BIOS is configured to boot from the floppy drive. We do not want to boot from the CD-ROM (most old computers may not support this anyway).

1. Boot from an MS-DOS startup floppy disk
The computer will boot from the MS-DOS startup disk into MS-DOS. Always start the command prompt or enter MS-DOS when prompted. You do not want to install Windows 98 here.

You should see the following:

A:\_

2. Backup and format hard disk
You will need to erase any existing data on the hard disk and then create a new FAT16 filesystem on the physical drive. Ensure that you backup any existing data that you wish to keep. '''ANY EXISTING DATA WILL BE LOST BY FORMATTING THE DRIVE! PLEASE BACKUP ANY DATA FIRST!!!'''

After backing up, you can format the drive.

Locate the format utility bundled with Windows 95. The MS-DOS startup disk tends to lack the utilities needed to format the disk but Windows 95 setup disk contains the utility. On the CD-ROM, it tends to be bundled in the win95 folder located on the CD-ROM. MS-DOS maps drive D as the CD-ROM in most cases.

D: cd D:\win95 format c: