Can I install Windows 9x on my Laptop?

menassa

These days, I have tried to install Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows 2000 in my laptop with USB and no sucess. I have tried so many things of so many forums and nothing works.

I have this laptop: "HP Mini 210-1000", from HP with this specs:

-Processor: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N450 @1.66GHz (2 CPUs);
-Memory (RAM): 2048 MB;
-Hard Disk: SATA 300 GB;
-Video Card: Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 3150;
-DO NOT have a CD driver, neither a Floppy Disk driver;

Is currently running Windows 7 32-bit normally but i really like the Windows 9x and I really want it in my laptop, even if I can not have the right and recommended drivers. Even because I do not use this laptop anymore (of course). xD

I do not even know if I can install Windows 9x in my laptop because of the hardwares or because I can only boot with my BIOS on SATA mode and no IDE... I do not even know if that has anything to do with the instalation.

Sorry if this is an obvious topic and thank you for any help.

[Deleted User]

I don't really think that it is possible. But don't be afraid to try.

jamie1130

You can do that is you use an optical drive, but it won't have any drivers and will generally just be a waste of time. You won't be able to do much on a Windows 9.x laptop with no drivers.

nick99nack

I think the oldest you *might* be able to go is Windows 2000 on that one, trying drivers for Windows XP. Windows 9x is out due to lack of drivers. It would also freak out with that much RAM. 512MB is the max (although some people have figured out how to make it use more).

ubuntuxp

With that much RAM, you can't use Windows 9X without tweaks, you might get Windows 2K to work though. Also, Windows 9X/2K installers won't see the hard drive unless it's running in IDE compatibility mode or SATA drivers are slipstreamed with them.

BigCJ

Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 includes the SATA drivers, so download the copy with SP4 already slipstreamed. Doesn't 2k still need a patch to support disks larger than 127Gb?

Check for Win2k drivers on your hardware manufacturer's websites. If driver downloads are included, you're good to go. If there are no drivers, you can still use 2k, but performance not be as good.

For best results, get an external optical drive to install Windows 2000 w/SP4. Then you can use flash drives to bring disc/diskette images to the system to install additional software.

menassa

I do not really care about the drivers, because as I said, I will not use it except 1 software of programming (that has win9x support). And I think with no drivers, the OS can handle it, because when i install windows 7 on it, i can run the basic even without the drivers.
Apparently, Windows 2K is the best option for me, I will search more about that, about how to install the 2K one with USB, and no IDE mode.

Thank you, guys, it helps me alot.

jamie1130

menassa wrote:

I do not really care about the drivers, because as I said, I will not use it except 1 software of programming (that has win9x support). And I think with no drivers, the OS can handle it, because when i install windows 7 on it, i can run the basic even without the drivers.
Apparently, Windows 2K is the best option for me, I will search more about that, about how to install the 2K one with USB, and no IDE mode.

Thank you, guys, it helps me alot.

Just because Windows 7 works decently without the proper drivers doesn't mean something a lot older would work. Heck I've had Pentium 4 laptops that don't like Win2K. Without the proper drivers, it would be unstable and pretty much useless. Trust me, I know from trying to do something like what you're describing before.

whistler2250

You can try, but as I found out when I tried to install windows 2000 on my mac, there will likely be driver problems and storage limitations (aka Windows 9x supports FAT32, which can't have a partition size of 120GB (if I remember correctly).

whistler2250

Also, I'm pretty sure there aren't proper sata drivers for windows 9x anyways, so you would have to set your data to identify compatibility mode in the bios, and even then you won't have video, sound, and chipset drivers needed for any kind of use. Save yourself the trouble and install something like Windows XP SP3, which will have proper drivers.
P.S. Why do you even need to install Windows 9x on your laptop? Is there a piece software that you need that only runs under Windows 9x, or are you just curious and want to see if it is possible?

menassa

jamie1130 wrote:

Just because Windows 7 works decently without the proper drivers doesn't mean something a lot older would work. Heck I've had Pentium 4 laptops that don't like Win2K. Without the proper drivers, it would be unstable and pretty much useless. Trust me, I know from trying to do something like what you're describing before.

Yeah, I thought about that, and I think it's more correct use the Windows XP, since the laptop have the Windows XP driver support.

whistler2250

Also, if you don't have a cd driver, you CAN'T install Windows 9x, although Hiren's boot cd might have DOS USB support.

birdy

First off, lets get this straight: Windows 2000 is part of the NT series, it also uses by default NTFS. No FAT no FAT32.

Now even though that your Windows 7 32 bit OS was installed with little to no drivers, that doesn't really add much. Windows 7 and Windows 2000/9x are completely different operating systems respectfully. Windows 7 comes bundled with generic drivers for the hardware that it supports out of the box.

Your going to have a lot of problems if you install Windows 2000 on your laptop. Heck lets say that miraculously that it installs correctly, then what? Your default display will be 16 colors with a max resolution of 800x600 (due to no display drivers), you will have no sound (due to no sound drivers available), and wifi, there was no such thing back in the days that Windows 2000. So you can forget about that. I would think that you might have a slim chance of even having a NIC driver compatible with your hardware.

So here's my question. Why not install Windows 9x to a virtual machine? There was a recent post that goes into fare detail on how to install and configure Windows 2000 in Virtual Box.

menassa

To be honest, I want to install the Windows 9x in my laptop because it's different from a virtual machine, I saw a lot of videos, forums, tutorials, teaching how to install this OS's in virtual machines but there, everything works, with any problem and I wanted the challenge and learn how to install on a machine that do not have the properties hardwares and drivers, but I had no sucess and came here ask for help. And, I will say again, I will not use the laptop, for anything, just for some stupid tests. xD

whistler2250

I don't think you should go through the PAIN that I did when I tried to install Windows 2000 on my mac (Aluminum Unibody MacBook Late 2008, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo P8600, 4GB RAM, 250 GB Hitachi 5400 RPM Hard Drive, Nvidia GeForce 9400M 256MB). I tried and only found one guide on the ENTIRE internet, and it didn't work as my hard disk size wasn't recognized properly. I have tried many times again, but to no avail. Save yourself the trouble and just use a virtual machine.

jamie1130

menassa wrote:

To be honest, I want to install the Windows 9x in my laptop because it's different from a virtual machine, I saw a lot of videos, forums, tutorials, teaching how to install this OS's in virtual machines but there, everything works, with any problem and I wanted the challenge and learn how to install on a machine that do not have the properties hardwares and drivers, but I had no sucess and came here ask for help. And, I will say again, I will not use the laptop, for anything, just for some stupid tests. xD

It's literally just a waste of time. Do yourself a big favor and just get an old Pentium 3 laptop and install Windows 2000 on it. Your little HP whatever will be such a waste of your time and effort. As others have suggested, a virtual machine would be far easier to run and be useful. You pretty much wouldn't be able to do anything with Windows 2000 or older on that machine.

BigCJ

menassa wrote:

I will not use the laptop, for anything, just for some stupid tests. xD

Even so, you won't get very far with your tests without proper hardware support. Windows 9x does not contain proper SATA support. If your controller does not have an emulation mode, you can forget the 9x line entirely. Also, you have too much RAM for Win95 as it only supports about 480Mb. I think Win98 can handle 2Gb, but that's the absolute limit. No clue on Mistake Edition, don't bother with that one. Windows didn't support USB until Win95 OSR2.1, and booting from one came much later. You'll have a very hard time (if it's possible at all) installing anything 9x without a floppy or an optical drive.

You'd be better served by acquiring some vintage hardware.

birdy wrote:

it also uses by default NTFS. No FAT no FAT32.

While NTFS is the default, Windows NT 5.0 and up do support FAT32 hard disks.

windows10user2k17

The computer is most likely incompatible with anything older than Windows XP (Windows 2000 may be possible though) due to the fact that it's a dual core processor and the lack of driver support. Due to RAM limitations of the 9x series of Windows operating systems, the system may not be able to boot with anything more than 480MB(95)/ 1GB (98/98SE/ME) (Windows 98 can technically support up to 2GB of RAM, however, there is a bug that limits it to 1GB of RAM.) of RAM.

EDIT (26/08/2017): After being corrected by @BigCJ, I've edited this comment so it can be as accurate as possible.
Source: The Maximum supported amount of RAM for Windows 95: "Windows 95 will fail to boot if you have more than around 480MB of memory." https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnew ... /?p=42903/

Source: The Maximum supported amount of RAM for Windows 98/ME: "Windows Me and Windows 98 are not designed to handle more than 1 GB of RAM. More than 1 GB can lead to potential system instability."
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/hel ... -gb-of-ram

BigCJ

@windows10user2k17
Windows 2000 Professional can support dual core, and 95 is the only version of 9x limited to 480Mb.

HorseBatteryStaple

No, Because:
No Serial ATA drivers
No optical drive (there may be loopholes here FYI)
No support for over 1 gig or RAM on w98, 512 on 95
No (Because i can't possibly list all the issues here)
Sadly, this is frankly the worst machine in the world to try to install Windows 9X. Don't be afraid to try though, miracles do happen.(And no, my intention was NOT sarcasm, i am serious)