Virtual PC is the shell environment for hosting a number of virtual machines each running whatever OS.

Windows 95 came in bootable and non bootable CD formats so you 'may' be able to map the CD drive in VPC to your physical CD as soon as you start the virtual machine starts and it will boot from it thus starting Win95 setup. If this doesn't work I'd imagine there'd be some boot/setup files on the floppy which in the same way as the bootable CD, would be inserted into your floppy drive before you start the virtual machine.

If the floppy doesn't have a setup environment then you could install DOS and then run the Windows 95 installation on the CD from there.

It's been a *long* time since I've looked at a Win95 CD so I cannot give you any more specific details.

You can install from the command prompt, but if you do not have ant memory managers loaded, it might take a lot longer for the installer to unpack the cab files.

here's a lil Virtual PC tutorial I created...hope it helps.

Instructions for use:

INSTALLING AND CREATING A NEW VIRTUAL MACHINE

- Mount/burn image file.
- Install.
- Launch Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. The first time you launch the program, you will be prompted to presented with the New Virtual Machine Wizard.
- At the Options window, select Create a virtual machine.
- Next you will be prompted to select an Operating System for this new virtual machine. Select the Operating System from the list. For the remainder of these steps, we will assume that the Operating System selected is Windows 95.
- When prompted with the Virtual Hard Disk Options window, select the A new virtual hard disk option. The virtual hard disk is important because this will serve as the hard drive for the particular virtual machine that you are creating. Without this virtual hard disk, you will be unable to install the Operating System, as well as, any programs.
- Choose the location where the virtual hard disk will be stored on the host hard drive.
- Click Finish to complete setting up the new virtual machine. The newly created virtual machine will appear in the Virtual PC Console.

ENABLING CD-ROM SUPPORT FOR THE VIRTUAL MACHINE IN PREPARATION FOR INSTALLING THE OPERATING SYSTEM

- Assuming that you have the Microsoft Windows 98 installation CD or a Microsoft Windows 98 startup floppy disk, insert the CD or floppy disk (this is the easiest way to enable CD-ROM support so that you can install the Operating System on the new virtual machine; do not believe that the Microsoft Windows 95 installation CD or startup disk has the feature to enable CD-ROM support that is why you must use the Microsoft Windows 98 installation CD or startup disk). The steps below refer to enabling CD-ROM support via the Microsoft Windows 98 installation CD (the steps would be similar for enabling CD-ROM support via the Microsoft Windows 98 startup floppy disk).
- If necessary, launch Microsoft Virtual PC 2004.
- From the Virtual PC Console, select the virtual machine that you wish to start and then click Start. Do not be concerned if you receive the message "Reboot and select proper boot device or Insert Boot Media in select Boot device". This message is appearing because there is no Operating System installed yet.
- In order to have the virtual machine recognize the CD drive(s) present on the host operating system, you need to make the CD drive(s) available in the virtual machine. You can do this as follows:

- Make sure that the virtual machine is started.
- From the top menu, select CD.
- Select Use Physical Drive X:, where X represents the CD drive letter on the host operating system that you want to make
available for use in the virtual machine.

These steps must be performed periodically, as sometimes the CD drive will be released when the virtual machine is
restarted or shut down (you will know quite easily when the CD drive has been released for use in the virtual machine
because the CD drive will be inaccessible.

- Go to the Action menu and select either Ctrl+Alt+Del or Reset, to restart the virtual machine. After restarting the virtual machine, and enabling the CD drive with the Microsoft Windows 98 installation CD present, in the virtual machine, you should be presented with a Microsoft Windows Startup Menu.
- From the Microsoft Windows Startup Menu, select Boot from CD-ROM.
- Next, select Start computer with CD-ROM support. A CD-ROM driver should automatically load and assign a temporary drive letter (usually D) for accessing the CD-ROM drive for the CD drive that is currently being used by the virtual machine. In this example, typing D: at the prompt would allow us to access the Microsoft Windows 98 installation CD since the Microsoft Windows 98 installation CD is the CD that is currently in the CD drive from the host operating system which has been made available to the virtual machine.

PARTITIONING AND FORMATTING THE VIRTUAL HARD DISK

- Before the Operating System and any programs can be installed on the virtual hard disk for the virtual machine, the virtual hard disk must be partitioned and then each partition must be formatted.

- Carrying off from the previous section, type the temporary drive letter of the CD-ROM drive that was created when you selected Start computer with CD-ROM support in the step above, followed by :. In this example, you would type D:. The prompt should then change to D:/>. With the Microsoft Windows 98 installation in the CD drive and the CD drive from the host operating system still made available to the virtual machine, type fdisk at the D:\> prompt. The FDISK utility should load.
- At the prompt, choose Y to enable large disk support.
- From the FDISK Options menu, select 1. Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive.
- From the Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive menu, select 1. Create Primary DOS Partition.
- When prompted to use the maximum available size for the Primary DOS Partition and make the partition active, select Y.
- When prompted, press ESC to exit FDISK.
- Restart the virtual machine.
- Repeat the steps above to enable CD-ROM support via the Microsoft Windows 98 installation CD.
- It appears that the Microsoft Windows 98 installation CD does not contain the FORMAT.COM file. As such, you will need to either insert a CD that does have this file, such as the Microsoft Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) Upgrade CD, or insert a floppy disk that contains the FORMAT.COM file (if you insert a floppy disk, you will need to Capture the floppy drive from the host operating system in the virtual machine, in the same fashion that you would capture the CD drive. Keep in mind that you should only insert the CD or floppy disk containing the FORMAT.COM file after you've enabled the virtual machine to Start computer with CD-ROM support. The steps below refer to accessing the FORMAT.COM file from a CD.
- At the prompt, type the temporary drive letter of the CD-ROM drive that was created when you selected Start computer with
CD-ROM support in the step above, followed by :. In this example, you would type D:. The prompt should then change to
D:/>. Insert the CD containing the FORMAT.COM and then type format C: at the D:\> prompt (where C represents the drive letter of the Primary DOS Partition you created in the above steps. The FORMAT process should begin.

INSTALLING THE OPERATING SYSTEM

Due to a certain bug in Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 and the way that IDE controllers are configured during the installation process, it is best when installing either Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows 98, to copy the files that will be needed to install the Operating System, to the virtual hard disk, if you want the Operating System to install successfully:

- After formatting is complete, insert the Microsoft Windows 95 installation CD (since this is the Operating System which we will be installing) into the CD drive that is currently available to the virtual machine.
- Switch to the now-formatted Primary DOS Partition by typing C:, where C represents the drive letter of the Primary DOS Partition).
- Next, type MD win9x (where x is either 5 or 8, depending on whether you are installing Microsoft Windows 95 or
Microsoft Windows 98; remember, this example assumes that one is installing Microsoft Windows 95).
- Next, type copy D:\win9x\*.* C:\win9x (where D represents the temporary drive letter of the CD-ROM drive that was created when you selected Start computer with CD-ROM support; x is either 5 or 8, depending on whether you are installing Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows 98, and C represents the drive letter of the Primary DOS Partition). A number of files should copy over from the Microsoft Windows 95 installation CD to the Primary DOS Partition on the virtual hard disk. If you receive a message stating "Not ready reading drive D", this means that the CD drive from the host operating system is no longer available to the virtual machine. If this is the case, make the CD drive from the host operating system available to the virtual machine using the steps mentioned previously, and then retype the command.
- After all files have copied, from the C:\> prompt, type CD win9x (where x is either 5 or 8, depending on whether you are installing Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows 98).
- The prompt should change to reflect that you are currently at the C:\win9x directory.
- At the C:\win9x prompt, type SETUP to finally begin the installation of the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system.
- During the installation process, if you receive any "System Error. Cannot read from drive A" errors, click Cancel to continue through the installation.
- To enable Full Screen mode for the virtual machine, from the Action menu, select Full-Screen Mode, or press
Right Alt+Enter.

If everything goes as it should, you should notice that Microsoft Virtual PC is emulating an S3 Trio32/64 PCI video card and a Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 or AWE-32 sound card on I/O Port: 220, IRQ: 5, and DMA 1 and 5 (you can see this in the Device Manager). However, one time installing a Microsoft Windows 95 virutal machine, the sound card emulation was NOT working for me. I noticed that the Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 or AWE-32 did not show up in the Device Manager (actually there was not even a Sound, video, and game controllers category present). As such, I ran the Add New Hardware wizard from the Control Panel, but no sound card was detected. Then I ran the Add New Hardware wizard again, but this time chose to manually configure device, and then selected the Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 or AWE-32 sound card manually. I then change the Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 or AWE-32 settings through the Device Manager to I/O Port: 220, IRQ: 5, and DMA 1 and 5. After doing so I restarted the virtual machine. When the virtual machine booted back into Microsoft Windows 95, I got a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). I therefore had to boot into Safe Mode, by restarting the virtual machine and then pressing F8 repeatedly when the Starting Microsoft Windows 95 prompt appeared. In Safe Mode, I removed the sound card settings Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 or AWE-32 sound card through the Device Manager and then restarted the virtual machine normally. When Microsoft Windows 95 started this time, it automatically detected the emulated Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 or AWE-32 sound card and the sound has been working properly even since. This is just one suggestion to try in case you have a similar problem.

NOTE: To access/regain control of the host operating system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.

To switch between Window and Full-Screen Mode within the virtual machine, press Right Alt+Enter.

The virtual machine must be in Window screen mode in order to access the virtual machine menus (i.e. Action, Edit,
CD, Floppy, Help).

Remember that if you want to make a particular CD drive/mounted image virtual drive from the host operating system available to the virtual machine, you must follow these steps:

- Start the virtual machine.
- Once the virtual machine has loaded, select CD from the top menu.
- Select Use Physical Drive X:, where X represents the CD drive/mounted image virtual drive from the host
operating system that you wish to make available to the virtual machine.

It is important to note that the CD drive letter in the virtual machine may NOT always match the CD drive/mounted image virtual drive letter in the host operating system. However, you can change the driver letter of an optical device such as a CDROM, in Microsoft Windows 95/98SE, if desired, by following the steps below:

- Select Start - Settings - Control Panel
- Double-click System.
- Select Device Manager.
- Locate the device under Computer. For example, if the device is a CDROM, there should be a CDROM
link that can be expanded.
- Click on the name of the device and then select Properties.
- Click the Settings tab.
- The current drive letter being used will appear next to "Current drive letter assignment".
- Under "Reserved drive letters", change the "Start drive letter" and "End drive letter" to one of the
available drive letters.
- Click OK.
- Restart the computer and you should notice that the drive letter has changed.

These steps must be performed periodically, as sometimes the CD drive/mounted image virtual drive will be released when the virtual machine is restarted or shut down (you will know quite easily when the CD drive/mounted image virtual drive has been released for use in the virtual machine because the CD drive/mounted image virtual drive will be inaccessible.

The performance within the virtual machine will be mainly dependent on the amount of RAM that is allocated to the virtual machine to use. To change the amount of RAM that is currently allocated to the virtual machine, shutdown the virtual machine, then select the virtual machine from the Virtual PC Console, click Settings, click Memory, and then adjust the RAM slider. However, be aware that allocating too much RAM to the virtual machine can actually decrease performance since the host operating system on which Microsoft Virtual PC is running, will be lagged, causing Microsoft Virtual PC to also be lagged. Also, from the Virtual PC Console, select File - Options, then click Performance. Here you will find other options for fine tuning performance for the virtual machine.

In order to share a directory from the host operating system with the virtual machine, so that the directory can be accessed within the virtual machine, you first need to install Virtual Machine Additions for the virtual machine. You can do this by starting the virtual machine, then once the virtual machine had loaded, goto the Action menu and select Install or Update Virtual Machine Additions. The Virtual Machine Additions - InstallShield Wizard should start. Follow the instructions to install the Virtual Machine Additions. After installing the Virtual Machine Additions on the virtual machine, restart the virtual machine. Once the virtual machine has loaded, you can share a directory from the host operating system with the virtual machine by following the steps below:

- Goto Edit - Settings.
- Click Shared Folders.
- Click the Share Folder button.
- Select the folder from the host operating system that you wish to share. If you want this folder to always be
shared with the virtual machine, be sure to check the Share every time checkbox. You can also specify that
Drive letter that this shared folder will be mapped to in the virtual machine. Click OK and the shared folder
will now show up under Shared Folders.

If, after switching to Full-Screen Mode in the virtual machine, the virtual machine screen is not filling up the monitor fully, you can try the following steps (the Virtual Machine Additions must be installed for the virtual machine in order for this setting to have any effect):

- First check the resolution (aka Desktop Area) within the Windows Control Panel and make sure that it is set
appropriately. If the problem still persists, proceed to the next steps.

- Shut down the virtual machine.
- From the Virtual PC Console, select the virtual machine.
- Click Settings.
- Click Display.
- Under Virtual machine window resizing options, try selecting each option in turn to see if one of the options corrects the problem.

Also, from the Virtual PC Console, select File - Options, then click Full-Screen Mode and toggle the Adjust screen resolution so the host operating system is the same as the guest operating system checkbox to see if this corrects the problem.


When starting and running a program through the virtual machine, close as many programs/processes as you can in the host operating system as the unnecessary programs/processes running on the host operating system will affect the performance of the virtual machine. For example, for better performance you may wish to close/disable any anti-spyware/anti-adware/anti-virus programs that are running on the host operating system, prior to starting the virtual machine and also make sure to eliminate any spyware/adware/viruses as these can slow the computer performance down in general (you may want/need to UNINSTALL any anti-spyware/anti-adware/anti-virus programs for optimal performance).