Specifically, retro-gaming for Win9x games.
Games from that era can be hard to get running. Often the games just
don't work. They either rely on APIs that have been deprecated in
modern versions of windows, or want very specific hardware, or use unsupported hacks that Microsoft has forbidden. With enough sweat and
tears you can usually get games of that vintage running, but often
with caveats. Functionality may be limited on modern hardware, or
you'll use an emulator at a cost to performance, or maybe a source
port (but are you really retro-gaming then?).
Of course, the 'best' option is to run the games on hardware native to
that era... but that can get expensive, and 20+ year old computers are
often have faults of their own to contend with. Wouldn't it be neat,
though, if you could get Win9x running on more modern PCs, and then
play those old games on that?
Which, again, was always an option... but that too could also be
problematic. Win9x has no understanding of multi-core CPUs or terabyte hard-drives; heck, it still struggles with USB! Sure, you can get a
modern PC running Win9x, but again it often took a lot of work.
Enter, then, Win9x QuickInstall, which takes a lot of the work out of
the problem.
(get it here: https://github.com/oerg866/win98-quickinstall )
As the name implies, this program installs Win98/SE/ME to your
computer. It's essentially just a big script that wraps the main Win9x installer, but its designed to make semi-modern PCs more compatible
with the ancient OS. It has a huge built-in driver store and numerous pre-installed compatibility hacks built in. And it's fast. It's not
perfect, and it may not work on every computer, but it's probably the
best way to install the OS on hardware.
Some caveats:
- It installs Win9x onto your computer. It's not a VM
you can run besides Linux or modern Windows. The Win9x
was rather ruthless with how it handled the boot-sector,
so I'd recommend only using it on computers where you
Win9x will be the only OS.
- Its hardware driver selection is robust, but there's only
so much it can do. By its very nature, the 32-bit OS itself
can't handle more than 4GB (and actually less than that)
so if you want to try it on your 64GB i9 32-core CPU,
well... it's not going to work. But it's pretty good on
older hardware, up to maybe around 2010.
- It includes Windows98/ME ISOs, but isn't endorsed by
Microsoft. So, technically it includes pirated software. Since
I still have numerous Win98 CD-ROMs, I'm not so bothered by
the idea --I have a license to use the software-- but if you're
a stickler you may wish to avoid. Also, you're downloading an
OS from github, so use-at-your-own-risk.
That said, I tried it on my old Lenovo laptop and found it just as
effective as advertised. It's install was amazingly fast, and it
managed to find all the drivers necessary to get the hardware running.
I went from zero-to-Win98 in less than an hour... including time to
download and burn a CD. (I think I actually spent more time figuring
out how to boot from CD-ROM on that laptop than actually installing). Compared to how long it took me to manually get Win98SE running on my
old beige PC a few years ago (getting the joystick working especially
was troublesome!), it's quite impressive at how fast QuickInstall does
its thing. Certainly if I ever have to reinstall Win98SE on that PC,
I'll be using this app instead of doing it all myself.
Is it an absolutely necessary tool? No. There's nothing it does that
you can't do manually. But as a retro-gamer it's a very welcome one.
So if you have a 200x-era laptop or desktop lying around and were
thinking about using it to play some older games? Maybe give
QuickInstall a try.
Specifically, retro-gaming for Win9x games.
Games from that era can be hard to get running. Often the games just
don't work. They either rely on APIs that have been deprecated in
modern versions of windows, or want very specific hardware, or use unsupported hacks that Microsoft has forbidden. With enough sweat and
tears you can usually get games of that vintage running, but often
with caveats. Functionality may be limited on modern hardware, or
you'll use an emulator at a cost to performance, or maybe a source
port (but are you really retro-gaming then?).
Of course, the 'best' option is to run the games on hardware native to
that era... but that can get expensive, and 20+ year old computers are
often have faults of their own to contend with. Wouldn't it be neat,
though, if you could get Win9x running on more modern PCs, and then
play those old games on that?
Which, again, was always an option... but that too could also be
problematic. Win9x has no understanding of multi-core CPUs or terabyte hard-drives; heck, it still struggles with USB! Sure, you can get a
modern PC running Win9x, but again it often took a lot of work.
Enter, then, Win9x QuickInstall, which takes a lot of the work out of
the problem.
(get it here: https://github.com/oerg866/win98-quickinstall )
As the name implies, this program installs Win98/SE/ME to your
computer. It's essentially just a big script that wraps the main Win9x installer, but its designed to make semi-modern PCs more compatible
with the ancient OS. It has a huge built-in driver store and numerous pre-installed compatibility hacks built in. And it's fast. It's not
perfect, and it may not work on every computer, but it's probably the
best way to install the OS on hardware.
Some caveats:
- It installs Win9x onto your computer. It's not a VM
you can run besides Linux or modern Windows. The Win9x
was rather ruthless with how it handled the boot-sector,
so I'd recommend only using it on computers where you
Win9x will be the only OS.
- Its hardware driver selection is robust, but there's only
so much it can do. By its very nature, the 32-bit OS itself
can't handle more than 4GB (and actually less than that)
so if you want to try it on your 64GB i9 32-core CPU,
well... it's not going to work. But it's pretty good on
older hardware, up to maybe around 2010.
- It includes Windows98/ME ISOs, but isn't endorsed by
Microsoft. So, technically it includes pirated software. Since
I still have numerous Win98 CD-ROMs, I'm not so bothered by
the idea --I have a license to use the software-- but if you're
a stickler you may wish to avoid. Also, you're downloading an
OS from github, so use-at-your-own-risk.
That said, I tried it on my old Lenovo laptop and found it just as
effective as advertised. It's install was amazingly fast, and it
managed to find all the drivers necessary to get the hardware running.
I went from zero-to-Win98 in less than an hour... including time to
download and burn a CD. (I think I actually spent more time figuring
out how to boot from CD-ROM on that laptop than actually installing). Compared to how long it took me to manually get Win98SE running on my
old beige PC a few years ago (getting the joystick working especially
was troublesome!), it's quite impressive at how fast QuickInstall does
its thing. Certainly if I ever have to reinstall Win98SE on that PC,
I'll be using this app instead of doing it all myself.
Is it an absolutely necessary tool? No. There's nothing it does that
you can't do manually. But as a retro-gamer it's a very welcome one.
So if you have a 200x-era laptop or desktop lying around and were
thinking about using it to play some older games? Maybe give
QuickInstall a try.
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