Windows 98 on VirtualBox - How to do it properly. 32bit Graphics and ACPI. NEW Version 6

How to install Windows 98 on VirtualBox.

A brand new video for version 6 of VirtualBox. Install Windows 98 in VirtualBox 6 the right way! Includes ACPI support so no 100% CPU usage. 32bit Graphics at resolutions up to 1600x1200. Networking and Internet access setup and working. Modern(ish) web browser installed and finally I install a game and show it working.

Emulating Windows 98 successfully is possible.

If you install everything correctly, Windows 98 will run in VirtualBox like a dream, this video will show you how.

SciTech Display Doctor: Here is the key for display doctor. I have included this as the company does not exist anymore and there is no possible way to buy and/or register the product.

Name: CSCKnight
Serial: 0B5E-12B4-A8A4-0B

Command line for mouse: (You can run this in a command window before you start the Windows Install if you wish, it will give you use of the mouse sooner this way.)

Links:

[steve]

I will make an updated version for Virtualbox as soon as I can but will be a few weeks at least.

[danielbueno]

Thank you so much for this video, it was a complete blessing to watch this. My mum has been asking me about this one cute educational game we played like 20 years ago when I was 4, and she wanted so much to play it again just for the nostalgia. Last month, after over 5 years of scouting the web for it I finally found a copy in my native language, and the only way I was able to make it run on modern hardware was with your tutorial. So again, thank you so much for making such a high quality and easy to understand tutorial on such a complicated subject. You're a hero, sir. Have a great week! :)

[RCTCrashes]

A really comprehensive and concise guide! Windows 98's notoriously finicky to install as a virtual machine compared to other Windows versions, but this lays the process out in a way that shows everything you need to know.

[frikipulpo]

Thank you sir. After struggling for, like, 2 or 3 hours straight, I abandoned the idea of a working Windows 98 machine, because my brain couldn't even handle so much information (note that I tried to do what you exactly did in this video, but on my own).

I myself do love going retro from time to time, and thanks to you, I can now finally get that thorn I had on my back since I tried to do this almost like a year ago. Thanks to you, I now have a fully working Windows 98 machine, as well as a real way to "insert CDs" on it, which I didn't even know how to do =)

[FlintG]

This is just amazing. I love being able to run old windows games again on my modern gaming pc! I already got windows XP installed and now doing windows 98 lol!

[MrChickenspit]

18:33 dont click on "Windows 98 Second Edition.iso" instead click on "Controller IDE" and then click on the blue floppy disk icon on the bottom to add your doctor iso file.
LIKE THIS so people can see.

[TheSims]

Awesome, clear, well-paced video. I went from knowing near nothing of virtual machines to being up & running for my purposes half way through the video.
Thanks!

I wanted to highlight two errors & solutions for everyone. From the comments, many others ran into them too, but I really had to dig to find a comment that solved each, so I am putting the solutions together here. Note that I am using VirtualBox 6.1.28.

These two problems appear to be caused if you're using a Ryzen CPU.

First, upon a successful install and getting to Windows, you'll get this error:
"The SHELL32.DLL file is linked to missing export SHLWAPI.DLL: tFileAttributesA." Explorer will probably also crash and you cannot do anything with the desktop.

To solve this, go to your VM settings -> system -> acceleration tab -> uncheck "Enable Nested Paging" under Hardware Virtualization. The error should no longer occur.

The second issue is that once you install SciTech Display Doctor, you may get a blue screen. Upon any further boots, you will encounter this error: "Windows Protection Error, you need to restart your system."

The solution is outlined in this video:


But, in case that video ever disappears, here is the solution: in your computer (not the VM), open the command prompt and navigate to where VirtualBox is installed (probably C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox).
Input one of the following commands. Remember to replace "VM name" with the name of your VM (if you followed this tutorial, it would be "Windows 98"). You may need to try more than one to find a suitable fix. I used the fourth one (Intel Core i5-3570) and that worked:

VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --cpu-profile "Intel Xeon X5482 3.20GHz"
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-2635QM"
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-3960X"
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i5-3570"
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-5600U"
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-6700K"

Hope this helps someone!

[INFORMATICA-grkj]

Thank you very much!
I knew how to do a full installation of Windows 98 but did not know how to do it with ACPI and had problems getting the SciTech driver to work.

This has helped me a lot to replace DOSBox and to be able to better play Windows 98 games and MS-DOS games.

Regards from Spain!

[jontysalle]

Nevets this is a really clean and well done video. Relaxing to watch even. I came online praying for a walkthrough like this and was pleasantly surprised. Thanks!

[lasermouthful]

Thank you so much for this video, its almost like you read my mind lol I had spent so much time trying to figure this out and then I stumbled upon your new video and it has really made my day. Thanks again :)

[venuslove-iv]

I did it! Thank you so much for your video! I played a game I haven't seen in years! I normally hate tutorials because I'm dumb and don't understand everything that's being said. But your walkthrough made this worth it!

[DraciaNightcat]

I've been trying to get this to work for a month on my own to no avail. You have fixed it for me with these very comprehensive instructions. Thank you so much.

[katiekate]

If I could like your video a million times I would! It took me 4 days and like a million videos before I came across yours and it worked right away! Thank you so much!

[TrustNosz]

Thanks a lot! I had just built a 98 machine using your previous video. I found it is easy to share files if you create a shared folder in the guest machine (Win 98) and copy the files from the host machine there. I was not able to make Win98 see a share in the host machine. Just for the sake of nostalgia, I installed Netscape Navigator...

[JenaerSchneiper]

Nice work there! Had troubles with the path for that mouse thing. Just didn't work for me for some reason. And the display doctor part didn't work either (it said that it would require a newer version of windows - i just googled your version, found another file and it worked).

Now i can play old games that don't run on modern Win. You are a hero. If you'd install a donate button, you could become a millionaire in a year or less. ;)

Thanks again. Feel honored to help so many people.

[egate]

Very good explanations and very well detailed. It's really great to have put all the links. I am really happy to be able to play my old Windows 95 and 98 games with my children during confinement (lockdown). Thank you very much from France

[Steve-iqyw]

Thanks so much for taking the time to make this fantastic video. I wanted Windows 98 so I could run an old game of Combat Flight Simulator.

With your video I was eventually able to get Windows 98 working on my Lubuntu Linux PC as a virtual machine using VirtualBox. The mouse works great too.

I did have a few hiccups on the way and here are the steps that worked for me in the end.

1) I found it best to run the "VBoxManage" command (that modified my virtual machine for better mouse performance) before my first attempt to start the Virtual Machine using the Windows 98 ISO file.
a) On my Linux machine I didn't need to specify the path of the VBoxManage command. I also didn't need the .exe extension for VBoxManage. My command was as follows:

VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name Here" 0

If I waited till later to run this command (at the point you had in your video) I had serious mouse issues when setting the time and date and also my VM crashed with a HID mouse driver fail error when I tried to start the VM again.

2) The Link you provided to download the SciTech Version 7 Beta Doctor utility downloaded a file that was flagged by a Windows 10 PC I had as being potentially problematic by Windows Defender. The file had a non descriptive name and my Windows Defender definitely didn't like it. I was able to find elsewhere on the internet the utility with a more appropriate name. It also came bundled with the sdd.iso file already made for me. I did download it on my Linux machine though.

3) On my Linux VirtualBox setup, after I attached the ssd.iso file and configured my display for 1024x768 I got a "Windows Protecion" error when I restared.

Researching online I found out that this error was due to my SciTech driver not liking what ever CPU I had (I had an Amd Athlon II).


I was able to solve the problem with the following command which spoofed the Virtual Machine into reporting a different cpu type to the SciTech driver. I ran this command before attaching the "ssd.iso" file and encountered no more issues.

VBoxManage modifyvm "Your Vm Name Here" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i5-3570"

[steve]

This video has been re-uploaded due to an error that an observant subscriber pointed out to me. Thanks for the help!

[marinalucas]

Thank you!! It worked for me! I was receiving an error after instalation and all I had to do was to disable the nested pagination. Then it worked pretty well.

[mortblox]

Thanks, I've spent hours trying to install and it keeps giving me errors until I found this tutorial... 😁