Win10 to 98

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I have an older pc I would like to downgrade to Win 98 so I can use some old games. This pc does have some useful files( a LOT of music) I would like to keep. Any help will be greatly appreciated..........Jay
 
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Hi Jay,

firstly you should check that you have the Windows 98 drivers for the old PC. Secondly, copy all the files you want to keep to an external drive. And third, you wiping a different OS from the HDD or do you want to dual boot?. I don't think Win 98 would be able to boot Win 10 using MBR but I might be wrong?.

The specs of the older PC might help determine your course of action. :)
 
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os How old is it? Was it bought new with Windows 10 preinstalled?
Otherwise, it should have the previou older os, with a serial number on a sticker somefwhere
 
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That is probably not going to work anyway. You are trying to put a wind-up motor in a race car... :D

I have tried it with Windows 95 in a computer that was originally build with Windows 2K. It did not work as Windows 9x will have issues with memory..
 
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That is probably not going to work anyway. You are trying to put a wind-up motor in a race car... :D

I have tried it with Windows 95 in a computer that was originally build with Windows 2K. It did not work as Windows 9x will have issues with memory..
I’m assuming from his wording, that it could have been an upgrade, as he says he “still has” some old sofware on the machine?
 
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I'd think it may be possible to use 32-bit programs and some 16-bit on the 32-bit version of WinXP [Yes, there was the 64-bit Pro version of WinXP]. Memory shouldn't be a big issue, a Notebook with WinXP I gave my son several years ago [think 15-20] ran fine with 384MB RAM, he needed DBase 5 on it.
 
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Specs would be the first thing we would need to know. I built a Windows 98 PC last year out of some harvested, and donated parts. I'd say the biggest issue you'll have is finding drivers. Fortunately mine was an old gateway, which I found a driver cd on archive.org's software section. A virtual machine would be a good choice, although I don't know how much 3d graphics support it would have for playing games. I've run windows 95 and 98 in a VM before. It's not that hard to setup.
 

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Best bet would be to run Win 98 in a VM. To virtualize hardware conditions so that Windows 98 can run.
This 10000x! If it's a relatively recent machine, I wouldn't bother trying to install Windows 98 on it directly - hardware has changed so much over 22 years. Instead, run W98 in a Virtual Machine like https://www.virtualbox.org/ - you'll be able to keep Windows 10 on the machine and then run Windows 98 as if it were an application on your desktop. Best of both worlds :).
 
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Food for thought, after pondering the posts here!
I don’t know the answer, but, in a virtual machine, would’t the os still be trying to use the host software/drivers?
The op seems to have vanished for a while, so we may never know what he tried
 

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Food for thought, after pondering the posts here!
I don’t know the answer, but, in a virtual machine, would’t the os still be trying to use the host software/drivers?
The op seems to have vanished for a while, so we may never know what he tried

You can virtualise hardware as well as pass-through, so it should be possible to select older/compatible hardware :).
 
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This 10000x! If it's a relatively recent machine, I wouldn't bother trying to install Windows 98 on it directly - hardware has changed so much over 22 years. Instead, run W98 in a Virtual Machine like https://www.virtualbox.org/ - you'll be able to keep Windows 10 on the machine and then run Windows 98 as if it were an application on your desktop. Best of both worlds :).
Went with this suggestion, but am having issues during the install process on virtualbox. Does anyone know how to get around this error?
1584208148956.png
 

Trouble

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Looks like you may have configured the VM for 98 with more RAM than the OS wants to support by default.
Read this and see if it helps at all.
 
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Yes, when I ran 98 in virtualbox I had to set the ram at 512mb I'm pretty sure. There was another .iso you had to load after to get 256 color and full resolution, but I forgot what it was called. 256 something.
 
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I have an older pc I would like to downgrade to Win 98 so I can use some old games. This pc does have some useful files( a LOT of music) I would like to keep. Any help will be greatly appreciated..........Jay

Well it depends where those useful file are. What i would do is get an external drive and copy the useful files there and then you can install WIn98. Im surprised that a PC that came with WIn98 would run WIndows 10. IDE drives had problems with WIndows 7 and today's PC's mostly come with SATA drives or even newer PCIe drives.
 
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Well it depends where those useful file are. What i would do is get an external drive and copy the useful files there and then you can install WIn98. Im surprised that a PC that came with WIn98 would run WIndows 10. IDE drives had problems with WIndows 7 and today's PC's mostly come with SATA drives or even newer PCIe drives.
Thank You all for the replies. The pc I am working on is a newer(2-3yr old) machine I want to install 98 on to run old Sim City versions. Thanks to you guys I have changed the max ram to 512mb and the VM box comes up. It still is not full screen but is OK. How can I install Sim City to the virtual 98 hard drive?? Or should I format another Win 10 machine I have and just make it a 98 or XP pc???
 

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