Are you interested in installing Windows 95 using Oracle VM VirtualBox 7.0 on your Windows 11 & 10 operating system? In this article, I will help you to install Microsoft Windows 95 on a new virtual machine without any problems.
First of all, Microsoft released the Windows 95 operating system on August 24, 1995. We can say that this development is a significant turning point in Microsoft’s history. Although it is no longer supported, it still has nostalgic value for many users. So let’s configure this great old and popular system!
How to Set Up Windows 95 on Windows 11 / 10 using Oracle VM VirtualBox 7
Windows 95, released on August 24, 1995, was undoubtedly one of Microsoft‘s most significant sales accomplishments.
With the development of Windows 95, peripheral devices were more accessible to integrate thanks to their plug-and-play feature, and new hardware installations became even more accessible. The latest update to the operating system substantially enhances the user interface. Furthermore, the TCP/IP protocol is now supported, simplifying user network connections.
Microsoft officially discontinued Windows 95 operating system support on December 31, 2001. Although this system is not used today because it is old, it is a nostalgic operating system that most users remember. Suppose you desire to continue using this system. In that case, you can employ it within a virtual machine on your computer, leveraging more recent and advanced technologies.
Today, with the increase in Internet security, the vulnerabilities of operating systems are eliminated almost every day. Hence, we suggest utilizing a system no longer supported on a virtual machine, utilizing virtualization software like VirtualBox or VMware.
How to Create a New Virtual Machine for Windows 95
After installing Oracle VM VirtualBox on your host computer, you can run all old Windows or Linux systems on the virtual computer. However, when installing old Windows systems, you need to configure some settings for the virtual computer correctly.
Step 1
To create a new VM for all operating systems, you must confidently initiate the virtual machine creation wizard by clicking the “New” button within the Oracle VirtualBox virtualization program.
You can start the wizard by pressing the Machine / New option from the program tool menu or pressing the Ctrl + N keys together from your keyboard.
Step 2
After typing Windows 95 in the name of the virtual PC, the fields in Type and Version will be automatically configured. At this stage, click Other from the ISO Image section to add a Windows 95 ISO file to the virtual machine.
Step 3
From the table below the article, select the Windows 95 ISO file you downloaded to your computer and open it.
Step 4
7.x versions of VirtualBox now have an unattended installation option to configure the settings of current operating systems better and quickly. Suppose the OS type cannot be identified from the image file you added to the VM. In that case, you must continue with the manual system installation.
Step 5
You may get an Insufficient memory to initialize Windows error when you specify a RAM size larger than 512 MB for Windows 95. Hence, it would be more appropriate to confidently configure the RAM size of the virtual machine as 512 MB.
Step 6
Since you will set up a clean system from scratch in the Virtual Hard Disk window, check the Create a Virtual Hard Disk Now option, specify a disk size of 10 GB for the virtual system, and continue.
NOTE: Since the virtual machine installation interfaces are different in the 6.x versions of VirtualBox, select the recommended VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) for the virtual HDD file type at this stage and click Next. Suppose your host computer’s hardware could perform better, or your host disk’s write and read speeds could be higher. In that case, you can use the virtual machine with more performance by configuring the virtual disk as a Fixed Size. The disk space that the virtual PC will need will be allocated before the system setup, and thus, the host will not try to give space to the disk again. Choosing the Dynamically Allocated virtual disk structure will make more sense if you have a computer with new technologies such as SSD or NVMe.
Step 7
Check the hardware settings of the Windows 95 virtual machine one last time and close the wizard.
Step 8
Effortlessly access the Settings window to fine-tune the Guest operating system’s settings expertly.
Step 9
You may encounter incompatibilities when installing Microsoft’s older Windows systems in 7.x versions of VirtualBox. For example, you cannot use Shared Clipboard and Drag’n’Drop features for Win95 as Guest Additions are not supported.
In this article, we mentioned enabling these settings as Bidirectional because you are using either version 5.x or 6.x of VirtualBox.
Step 10
In the Boot Order section of the virtual computer’s Motherboard settings, configure the optical drive as primary and enable the I/O APIC feature to allow multiple virtual processors.
Step 11
In some cases, we recommend enabling Nested Paging from the Hardware Virtualization feature of the Processor device settings. When installing old systems such as Windows 95, this setting sometimes causes problems or sometimes makes the system work properly.
In this article, we run the Windows 95 system on a virtual computer with Nested Paging enabled.
Step 12
Likewise, as we mentioned, if VirtualBox uses one of the 5.x or 6.x versions and the operating system you will install is fully supported, you can enable the 3D Acceleration feature and configure the graphics memory as 128 MB.
You don’t need to use this feature in VirtualBox 7.x versions because Win95 is not fully supported.
Step 13
Using the ISO file you used in our article, you can install Win95 on your physical PC or virtual computer without a floppy device. Therefore, delete the Floppy Controller from Storage devices.
Step 14
Click on the disk controller of the virtual HDD and check that the Host I/O Cache feature is enabled.
Step 15
Select the Windows 95.vdi virtual disk and configure the IDE disk as Solid-State Drive (SSD).
Step 16
Select USB 1.1 (OHCI) Controller because the Windows 95 system does not support USB 2.0 controller.
Step 17
To install Windows 95 on VirtualBox, run the virtual machine, select the ISO file in the Select Start-Up Disk window, and click the Start button again.
How to Install Windows 95 on VirtualBox
After preparing the virtual computer correctly, you can continue from this step as if you were installing Windows on a physical computer.
Step 1
You will see the following screen after starting the virtual machine with the image file. On this screen, you must run the FDISK tool and edit the virtual disk before installing Windows.
Step 2
If your virtual PC has a disk size greater than 512 MB, you must enable significant disk space usage.
Step 3
After confirming the extensive disk usage, the FDISK tool will open. Since you will perform a clean system installation, you must first build a new partition on the disk.
On the FDISK Options screen, select Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive and press Enter.
Step 4
To configure the new partition as the primary partition, select Create Primary DOS Partition and press Enter again.
Step 5
Answer the related question with Y about configuring the primary partition as the active partition.
Step 6
After creating a new active partition for the Windows 95 virtual PC, restart the VM. You can use the Ctrl + R keys to reboot directly.
Step 7
After restarting your virtual system, you must format the partition you created. To do this, execute the format C: command in the A:\ directory and confirm the operation.
format C:
Step 8
After formatting the C drive, you must create a new folder to copy the Windows 95 system files to the drive on the disk.
Switch to the C directory and check for folders or files with the dir command. Since you will install a clean system, no files will be on the C drive.
The mkdir command creates a new folder in the DOS environment. Execute the mkdir WIN95 command to create a new folder named WIN95 on the C drive.
mkdir WIN95
Step 9
The drive letter that the image file automatically gets is R. You need to copy the entire contents of the folder named WIN95 in the R directory to the folder you created.
copy R:\WIN95\*.* C:\WIN95
Step 10
To start the Windows 95 installation, after executing the setup command in the C:\WIN95 directory, press Enter to confirm the wizard’s system check.
Step 11
Wait while Microsoft ScanDisk scans the file system on drive C and features such as free disk space.
Step 12
When the Windows 95 setup screen appears, click the Continue button.
Step 13
You can press Page Down to read the full text of the license agreement of the Windows operating system. Click Yes to accept the deal directly and continue.
Step 14
Click Next to continue in the window that states that the installation will be completed in 3 parts.
Step 15
Suppose the directory where you want to install Windows 95 is on a different drive. In that case, you must continue with the Other Directory option and select the Installation directory. Click Next if you’re going to use the C:\WINDOWS directory by default.
Step 16
Wait while the setup wizard checks the available disk space and other components before installing the system. Continue with Typical, which is selected by default in the Setup Options window.
Step 17
Type your Windows 95 product key and click Next.
Step 18
Specify and type a new username for your virtual system. Also, if you use your VM in a corporate company, you can write the company name.
Step 19
Click Next for the setup wizard to check the virtual hardware installed on your virtual computer.
Step 20
System analysis may take time, so do not shut down your virtual machine or press CTRL + ALT + DEL.
Step 21
Configure the Windows components you want to use in your virtual system and continue.
Step 22
In cases where Windows 95 running on a real computer cannot start due to any error, you may need a startup disk. Nevertheless, since there is no requirement for a startup disk in virtual machines, check the No option and click Next.
Step 23
Click Next to start copying the system files, which is the 2nd stage of the setup wizard.
Step 24
Wait while Windows 95 is installed on the virtual machine.
Step 25
Click Finish to restart the system, the last step of the installation phase, and complete the installation.
Step 26
When your guest machine restarts, you must type a computer and network name for Windows 95. So click OK in the Network information window.
When the Network window opens, type a different computer name than the existing computers in your network, type the common network name WORKGROUP to determine the virtual machine on the web, and click the Close button.
Step 27
Wait while Windows configures the control panel tools, shortcuts in the start menu, and programs. When the designated date and time window become available, kindly choose the time zone corresponding to your residing country and proceed by clicking the Close button.
If you want to add a printer, you can continue with Next; otherwise, you can close the printer add wizard by clicking the Cancel button. After the setup wizard completes the Windows installation, click OK to reboot the system.
Step 28
Wait while the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system restarts.
Step 29
Type your created username and click OK to log in to the system.
Step 30
Upon performing a right-click on My Computer, proceed by selecting Properties. Next, examine the pertinent details concerning the operating system installed on the guest machine.
How to Install Display Adapter Driver and Change Screen Resolution and Color Bit
You usually need to install the Guest Additions software after installing a Windows system with VirtualBox. However, this software needs to be officially supported for older Windows designs.
Therefore, you must install the SciTech Display Driver or VBE Miniport Driver to change the virtual machine’s screen resolution and color depth. VBE Miniport works better than other software because a software service will run in the background every time you restart your system.
Step 1
When you open Device Manager on your virtual PC, you will see that a standard driver is installed under Display Adapters. This does not change the screen resolution on Windows 95 or Windows 98 systems.
Step 2
After downloading the VBE Miniport driver from the table at the bottom of the article, click Devices / Optical Driver / Choose a disk file from the tool menu, select the Display Driver (VBE Miniport) ISO file in the window that opens, and click the Open button.
Step 3
Double-click the Standard PCI Graphics Adapter to open the Properties window, then click the Driver tab. On this tab, click the Update Driver button and start the wizard.
Step 4
Click Next with Yes (Recommended) selected in the driver update window and click Other Locations in the next window.
Step 5
In the Select Other Location windows, click the Browse button to pinpoint the location of the ISO file you added to the virtual machine, then select 032mb from the image file in the optical drive and click OK.
Step 6
After adding the location of the display driver, click Finish, and when you get an Insert Disk error, click OK to continue.
Step 7
When you get the VBEMP Driver Disk error, click OK to close the window, then select vbe.vxd from the 032mb location again and click OK again.
Step 8
Restart your virtual system after Windows has updated the display driver from the specified location.
Step 9
To proceed, initiate right-click on the desktop, then select “Display Properties” from the options presented. Subsequently, adjust the screen resolution settings to 800 x 600 for optimal configuration. After selecting True Color (32-bit) from the Color Palette, apply the changes and cancel adding a monitor.
After restarting your guest machine, check that the display adapter is updated in the device manager.
How to Install Chipset Driver
The drivers for some devices need to be appropriately installed in the virtual machine. If Guest Additions were supported, these drivers would be installed automatically.
For old Windows systems, you can fix these problems by installing the Chipset Driver on the virtual computer.
Step 1
When you recheck the device manager, you will see that the PCI Bridge has not been installed.
Step 2
Please acquire the Intel Chipset driver by downloading it from the table in the article’s lower section. Following that, proceed by incorporating the ISO file into the virtual machine.
Step 3
After viewing the CD content on my computer, go to Chipset Driver / infinst_280_win32 / Disk1, respectively, and double-click the Setup file to start the setup wizard.
Step 4
When the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility V2.80.008 program opens, click Next to continue the installation. Click Yes to accept the license agreement of the Intel Chipset software. Click Next after checking the supported Chipset types in the Readme window.
After installing the chipset driver, restart your virtual PC for the changes to take effect.
Step 5
While the Windows 95 VM is booting, you will see the window showing that new hardware has been found. At this stage, Windows will automatically install drivers for new hardware. When the driver update wizard opens, continue with Next and specify the default driver location.
Step 6
Upon booting up your system, you will notice that the PCI Bridge driver has been effectively installed and is now appearing in the device manager.
How to Install Sound Blaster Audio PCI128 Driver
The audio device must be fixed when you want to play MP3 audio or MP4 video files on a Windows 95 virtual computer. This is because Windows does not automatically install the drivers for the relevant hardware.
Step 1
Add the Sound Blaster PCI128 Driver ISO file you downloaded to your PC to the virtual system.
Step 2
Then click My Computer and run the Setup file after viewing the CD content.
Step 3
Click My Computer, and after opening the Control Panel, open the Add New Hardware wizard and click Next. Check the No option to reject Windows’ automatic search for new hardware and click Next.
To manually add the audio device, click Creative Labs in the manufacturer tab, then check Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 or AWE-32 and click Next.
Step 4
After manually installing the sound device of your virtual machine, restart the guest machine.
Step 5
Check that the system sounds are working. You can also see that the Sound Blaster device is now available under Sound, Video, and Game Controllers in the device manager.
How to Install PCI Peripheral Serial Bus Driver and Enable USB Support
Due to the absence of USB 2.0 support in Windows 95, choosing the USB 1.1 Controller option within the virtual machine creation wizard is imperative. Since Windows does not automatically install the USB 1.1 driver during system setup, you must do this manually.
Step 1
First, select the PCI Universal Serial Bus device from Other Devices in Device Manager and click Remove.
Step 2
Add the USB Driver ISO file you downloaded to your host computer and your virtual computer.
Step 3
Then, after viewing the CD content, run the Xusbsupp file and click the Yes button in the window that opens. Restart your guest machine after enabling USB support for Windows 95.
Step 4
The Standard OpenHCI USB Controller device will be found when your system boots up. In this window, click Next to install the driver and then click Finish directly to install from the default location.
Step 5
Begin by inserting a flash drive into your computer’s USB slot and formatting it as FAT32. Then, proceed to create a new folder within the drive.
Step 6
Click Devices / USB / Name of your USB to mount your USB flash disk in your VM.
Step 7
After inserting your USB stick into the VM, install the Generic USB Mass Storage Class Device driver.
Step 8
You can access your USB memory via My Computer and check its functionality. Also, in the device manager, you can see flash memory listed under disk drives.
How to Install PCI System Peripheral Driver
Some device drivers may not be installed automatically because older Windows systems are incompatible with VirtualBox. Suppose you see a yellow exclamation point stating that the drivers are not installed on the PCI System Peripheral device. In that case, you must manually install this driver or remove the warning somehow.
Step 1
Select the PCI System Peripheral device in Device Manager and click Properties. In the driver update wizard that opens, tick “No, select the driver from the list” and click Back in the Unsupported Device section in the next window.
Step 2
In the Manufacturers window, select System Devices and click Next. Next, choose Standard System Devices / MCA Bus and click Finish.
Step 3
After installing the MCA Bus driver, you will no longer see any driver issues in Device Manager.
How to Install TCP/IP Protocol and Configure Internet Connection
After installing Windows 95, it is essential to configure the TCP/IP protocol to establish internet connectivity.
Step 1
First, open Start / Programs / MS-DOS Prompt to check your internet connection and test your connection by pinging Google servers with the “ping 8.8.8.8” command.
Step 2
If the ping is unsuccessful and you see the “Bad command or file name” error, you must install the TCP/IP protocol. Open the properties of the Network Neighborhood tool on the desktop.
After clicking the Add button in the Network window, select Protocol from the component types and click Add again. In the window listing the network protocols, select Microsoft / TCP/IP, click OK, and restart your system.
Step 3
After opening The Internet, continue to the next window in the Internet connection wizard, select Current from the available options, and continue.
Step 4
Check your connection by visiting google.com when Microsoft Internet Explorer opens.
Video
Installing Old Versions
| VirtualBox Version | YouTube Video | Slide |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Watch | View |
| 6 | Watch | View |
| 7 (NEW) | Watch | – |
Windows 95 ISO ve Driver Download
| Item | Download Link |
|---|---|
| Windows 95 EN ISO | Download |
| Display Driver (VBE Miniport) | Download |
| Chipset Driver | Download |
| Sound Blaster PCI128 Driver | Download |
| USB Driver | Download |
Conclusion
As a result, you can install Windows 95 in a virtual machine using Oracle VM VirtualBox 7.0. Thus, you may be interested in exploring the technological developments of the past. With this comprehensive guide that I have prepared for you, you can run Windows 95 without any problems.
In addition, virtualization software such as VirtualBox supports such operating systems. And it allows us to use old software. You can also choose to use it for educational, nostalgic, or experimental purposes. In short, creating a virtual Windows 95 environment takes you back in time and refreshes your memories.
TolgaBagci
Hi, I'm Tolga, a computer expert with 20 years of experience. I help fix computer issues with things like hardware, systems, networks, virtualization, servers, and operating systems. Check out my website for helpful info, and feel free to ask me anything. Keep yourself in the loop about the newest technologies!
Great tutorial except that you FORGOT TO PROVIDE/POST THE INSTALLATION SERIAL NUMBERS FOR THAT PARTICULAR VERSION OF WINDOWS! OOPS!
Thanks for your comment, Ed!
Cmon dude i also need the serial number for the machine why
the downloads are corrupted
downloads don’t work
The download link works fine. The button will direct you to Yandex Disk, and you will be able to download files to your computer with the Download button.
I downloaded and followed the guidance via the Youtube video. After setting up a Windows 95 VB presence and going through settings, my experience was that VB opens and the word “STARTING” appeared in the VB window, then it froze.
thanks a lot for your impute I need another help from you using VMware station I get that annoy thing protection error can you help me
tolqabaqci trying to install windows 95 the installation was going fine until I got to step 49 its not copying the files from drivers folder
everything was going fine until i saw the insufficient memory thing
Thankyou It worked for me!!
inbetween steps 28 and 29 it asks for the OEM certificate numbers . any advice?
Try using 12095 0004226 12233
my Enable VT-x/AMD-V is greyed out and under System > Processor > Extended Features … i have and intel core but the update i’m using allows nested virtualizations for intel… what do i do???
Run the CMD command prompt as an administrator and execute these two commands.
1) cd C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox
2) VBoxManage modifyvm “VMName” –nested-hw-virt on
You must type the full name of the virtual machine you created in the VMName part.
Hi Tolga Bagci,
I cannot THANK YOU enough for writing such a thorough and easy to understand article with detailed photos on How to Install Windows 95 in VirtualBox, and for also providing links to the .iso files!! The world needs more writers like yourself!!
1000 THANK YOUs,
-Dan
Thank you very much for this nice comment. It makes me very happy to learn how to be helpful to people with your feedback. Preparing a detailed article can sometimes take 4-5 working days, but some people reduce the motivation of the authors. Believe that people like you write such a nice comment, it helps the authors to prepare more professional articles.
Thanks a lot again! Stay well!
The download links for the drivers are not on the table but the install was easy thanks to your tutorial.
Download links are in the table and working fine.
Help when i run cd WIN95 it says Invalid Directory so i cant start the stup. Pls respond i wanted to run this
You need to copy the contents of the ISO file to C:\WIN95. Before that, you have to create the folder named WIN95 in the C drive.
I followed everything. when after win95 setup the vm reboots, shows windows 95 is starting then I get
WHILE INITIALIZING DEVICE IOS:
WINDOWS PROTECTION ERROR. YOU NEED TO RESTART THGE COMPUTER
The vm restart in safe mode then then the same error occurs
You may experience this issue on more modern computers. So you can get rid of this error with an older CPU version by booting the virtual machine with the .
Hi, I cannot access the download links to the drivers and other stuff in the table (I don’t know why, they do not appear there). Can you send me the links to all of the required files by replying to this message? Thank you .
There is no problem with the download links. Try to open it in the incognito tab.
I get the WINDOWS PROTECTION ERROR too. What do you mean by your response to Daniel on 29 June 2021 “You may experience this issue on more modern computers. So you can get rid of this error with an older CPU version by bootring the virtual machine with the .” What does that mean?
Hi!
When you see the error message, right click on the same disk button as step 26 but choose a new ISO file (you may have to filter with AllFiles) you downloaded from the comment you cited.
You can then restart the machine. follow the instructions in readMe.txt but before/ instead of restarting, remove the ISO just like in step 26. Then restart (not in safe mode, in the normal one.)
I use Ubuntu, so it may differ a little bit, but not so much.
Excuse my poor english, I’m not native 😉
good day
The drivers are downloading at .RAR files for me. Am I doing something incorrectly with them?
No, after downloading the driver, extract the RAR file to the folder.
How do i get the product key?
I have done several of these guides and my virtual machine is still giving me the “No bootable medium found! please insert a bootable medium and reboot.” i have tried different Iso files and uninstalled virtualbox and the VMs to no avail. I was sure your guide was going to work as there was more details the others didnt have, but unfortunately not.
Thanks Allah for guys like you Tolga, I don’t have any experience doing this deep job, but following your steps one by one, I was able to get it done from the 1st attempt which means you have done great job putting all these information and software together for us low IQ guys to have no troubles doing it. Thank you. All links are working, all drivers and glitch less and above all, no headache talking, just listening to a smooth acoustic melody while having fun feeling like a genius installing almost a 30 years old windows. I’ve one question my brother, I am running this virtual box on Win10 64x, I wasn’t able to get the Win95 to access the shared folder on the Win10. Please help on how to do that. Highly appreciating your time and effort. Keep the great work.
I’m trying to reinstall WIN95 again, following your instructions. I have downloaded and converted your .rar file to .iso. When I follow your instructions to install Windows 95 on VirtualBox Step 17, I get a VirtualBox VM dialog box (failure to boot) message. When I try to Mount and Retry Boot, your converted Windows 95 English.iso file does not mount.
You only need to extract the .rar file you downloaded to your computer to the folder with Winrar.
Hi !
Thanks for this tutorial. It’s perfect !
Unfortunately, I cannot download the drivers because the files are considered to contain viruses and the links are disabled except for the owners. Could you put them back somewhere else or with a password-protected archive to avoid Google’s analysis?
Thanks
Hello. Thanks for your feedback. I will update the links as soon as possible.
Have a nice day.
I found your tutorial much easier to complete – after I had downloaded all the necessary files to a single thumb drive. Then, before completing Step 25 of the Install Windows 95 section, I simply removed the thumb drive from my USB port and then continued with your tutorial. That resolved all the previous issues that I was having.
Hi !
The links work again. ^^
Thanks
I’ve followed the directions to the letter, and find that nothing, absolutely nothing will make this VM make sound. I am running it on a Win. 11 Laptop. Any ideas?
Great tutorial. Download links seem to be broken again, though. Tried in many different browsers.