Using Windows 98 in a Virtual PC | Tech Off

Shining Arcanine

I have been playing with virtualization software (VMWare Player) the past few days and I decided to try installing Windows 98 for fun. This is the original edition and not the second edition because I do not own a copy of the second edition.

Anyway, I managed to install it without issues, but its GUI felt less responsive than it was on my Pentium II PC ten years ago, so I tried installing VMWare Tools, which are supposed to support Windows 98, but would not install, for a multitude of reasons. The first was that Windows 98 thought that the installation CD was an audio disc. After resolving that, the setup.exe file would cause an exception, so I tried running the msi file directly, only to find that Windows Installer did not exist. Then I installed Windows Installer and ran the msi file to be greeted by an error message regarding a missing dll. I reran it with logging enabled and dug though the logs. Googling the error codes, I discovered that installing Internet Explorer 6 would some times resolve the issue for certain applications, so I installed it and received a slightly different set of error codes, which point to some sort of issue with the Windows Script Host, which I assume is either not present or horribly outdated compared to the last version Microsoft published for Windows 98.

Windows Script Host 5.6 is the latest version avaliable for Windows 98, being the last Microsoft published for that operating system, but it seems to have disappeared off the internet. Does anyone know if it is still avaliable from some sort of mirror?

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Hmm, I recently installed Windows 98 SE in VMWare workstation, but although the VMWare tools installed properly, I couldn't get sound or networking to work. Then I tried it in VPC, and that worked fine.

Shining Arcanine

In reply to Sven Groot

#Jul 21st @ 8:52 PM

Sven, I think the reason it worked for you is because you installed Windows 98 SE while I installed Windows 98. Windows 98 SE has updated components, so you would be less likely to get the following error message:

"Product VMWare Tools -- Error 1723.There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A DLL required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. Action VM_LogStart, entry: VMLogStart, library: C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\MSI133.TMP"

Anyway, I managed to find a mirror for the Windows Script Host:

http://www.filewatcher.com/m/scr56en.exe.680408.0.0.html

After installing it, I discovered that it was not the cause of the problem.

Someone else had a similar issue with Windows 2000, but I am not sure if it is possible for me to apply his solution, which was installing Microsoft Project, as I don't own a copy of that:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/11256

I am going to give Virtual PC a try when I have more spare time.