Howto: guide to installing NT 3.1
OK, to start with, I'm no virtualization nor hardware expert, I just enjoy playing with old OSs, mainly Microsoft. I'm more used to VMware than VirtualBox, so I used the former. So probably some things may vary if you use a diferent virtualization environment.
It wasn't too hard. True, I had a couple of BSOD, and had to try with different configurations, but was able to install WinNT31 Wks, haven't tried the server version but I pressume there shouldn't be much difference.
After a couple of failed attempts, I reduced it to the minimum requirements possible. I removed all the unnecessary hardware I didn't need for the installation itself. If you need to, you may add these later.
Hardware Configuration:
+ 1 CPU 1 Core
+ HD 200 MB IDE, single file, preallocated
+ Floppy
+ Display
- No CD, I copied the CD\i386 folder onto the VM HD and installed it from there
- No sound
- No printer
- No NIC
This is basically what I've done:
1. When creating the VM, I selected the oldest hardware compatibility option availave (VM Workstation 5.x).
2. When prompted for OS to be installed, I selected other (WinNT31 is not on the list) to avoid wrong presets.
3. Selected IDE channel and preallocated 200 MB of HD space.
4. 32 MB RAM.
MSDOS Installation:
5. Partitioned HD and installed MSDOS 5.0.
Windows installation:
6. (After VM shutdown) I copied the i386 directory from the CD image (mounted on Win10) to the VM HD.
7. Started the VM, moved to the C:\i386 directory, and run winnt.exe from there.
8. I chose XGA 800x600x256 graphics, which is giving me some error on event viewer.
9. Unmarked printers and netwrok setup.
10. I went for the minimal instalation, readme files, local HD applications (there weren't any but MSDOS's exes.)
This basically worked for me. Now if you need/want to, you can start adding hardware components and drivers, grapgic, sound, cdrom, printers... anything you fancy.
(This guideline asumes the reader is used to playing around with VMs, CD and floppy iamges, etc.).
It wasn't too hard. True, I had a couple of BSOD, and had to try with different configurations, but was able to install WinNT31 Wks, haven't tried the server version but I pressume there shouldn't be much difference.
After a couple of failed attempts, I reduced it to the minimum requirements possible. I removed all the unnecessary hardware I didn't need for the installation itself. If you need to, you may add these later.
Hardware Configuration:
+ 1 CPU 1 Core
+ HD 200 MB IDE, single file, preallocated
+ Floppy
+ Display
- No CD, I copied the CD\i386 folder onto the VM HD and installed it from there
- No sound
- No printer
- No NIC
This is basically what I've done:
1. When creating the VM, I selected the oldest hardware compatibility option availave (VM Workstation 5.x).
2. When prompted for OS to be installed, I selected other (WinNT31 is not on the list) to avoid wrong presets.
3. Selected IDE channel and preallocated 200 MB of HD space.
4. 32 MB RAM.
MSDOS Installation:
5. Partitioned HD and installed MSDOS 5.0.
Windows installation:
6. (After VM shutdown) I copied the i386 directory from the CD image (mounted on Win10) to the VM HD.
7. Started the VM, moved to the C:\i386 directory, and run winnt.exe from there.
8. I chose XGA 800x600x256 graphics, which is giving me some error on event viewer.
9. Unmarked printers and netwrok setup.
10. I went for the minimal instalation, readme files, local HD applications (there weren't any but MSDOS's exes.)
This basically worked for me. Now if you need/want to, you can start adding hardware components and drivers, grapgic, sound, cdrom, printers... anything you fancy.
(This guideline asumes the reader is used to playing around with VMs, CD and floppy iamges, etc.).
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