After initially booting from disk 1 and following the prompts to format the disk, you’ll reach a prompt where it asks you to remove the install media and reboot. Note that it also says to only remove the media after the machine has reset before you eject- this is important otherwise the disk will not be bootable:
The sequence that appears to work is:
press Enter
wait for VM to reset
remove mounted iso in VirtualBox just as the VM is restarting and you see the VirtualBox logo/BIOS screen
At this point you’re asked what partition to boot from (select 1) and the installer will continue as normal from that point:
If you remove the iso from the VM before it resets, you’ll see the screen to select either the boot disk or the cdrom (the initial installer screen, not the partition selection screen above), and if you select the disk at this point it will not boot (after pressing Enter it appears there’s a few seconds delay where there is a disk sync step, and this needs to complete before the machine resets and when it’s safe to remove the iso).
My first job out of college was with IBM as a contractor, working in the IBM Software Center, Basingstoke, providing technical support for OS/2 and Communications Manager/2. I ran OS/2 on my own PC at home for a few years after this, before moving to Windows 95.
In the past few years I’ve installed various versions of OS/2 in virtual machines for nostalgic reasons. I’ve also kept an eye on Arca Noae’s ArcaOS as a current day commercial offering of OS/2 complete with updated drivers and hardware support for current day hardware. For a personal install though I’ve been reluctant to pay the $120 for a personal license, but recently decided to bite the bullet and buy a copy.
I like collecting screenshots of OSes during the install process, and this post is one of those 🙂
After the typical ‘white square’ top right and ‘OS/2’ text, we get to the first installer screen:
After accepting the license agreements, the next page is interesting, it prompts you to select a ‘personality’, a pre-configured set of features depending on how you intend to use this installation. I’ll select the default/first option for now. I don’t remember seeing options like this during a typical OS/2 install, maybe Warp 4 provided options like this (I’ll go check later):
I have a blank 2GB virtual disk on VirtualBox for this install, so I’ll select the option to format it. Later when I do a bare metal install I’ll be doing the same on a blank partition on a new SATA SSD:
Prompted to reboot:
The familiar shutdown compete dialog!
After rebooting, you’re back at the first page of the install again. Stepping through the same options we’re now prompted to select the install volume:
There’s no volumes in the dropdown yet, so press the Manage Volumes button:
I clicked on the Volume menu option, then ‘Create new’, then the ‘Standard/bootable’ option:
I kept the default C and named the volume:
I’m using all the free space on this volume, so kept the defaults:
Volume manager now looks like this:
Closing this dialog I’m prompted to save and now the volume is selected:
Next up, location settings. Huh, remember code pages? I set my timezone, DST, and internet time sync:
This next one is interesting and allows you to configure your hardware options. This is obviously where ArcaOS shines in it’s ability to support hardware of the time as well as updated support for current hardware:
Also interesting that support for VirtualBox is selected by default as the installer recognizes we’re installing on VirtualBox:
I kept all options as default for now. When I do a bare metal install next I’ll check out what the Display options are.
Network driver install next and prompted for machine name, workgroup, and username:
Ready to install – let’s go!
Off we go. Noticeably absent and the messages telling you about the various features that you get during a Warp install:
Time to reboot:
During the install there’s a couple reboots we are automatic if you leave the checkbox selected.
My attempt to install Windows 95 on Virtualbox on my Mac Pro didn’t turn out too well as by the time the installation completed it refused to boot with the error:
"While initializing device IOS. Windows Protection Error"
What on earth Windows 98 was doing back then initializing iOS devices is interesting, but beside the point 🙂 This error is described in this KB article but I’m not sure updating the BIOS in my Quantum hard disk is really applicable in this case. More likely the issue is related to VT-x virtualization  (I can’t find the option to turn off VT-x support on my VirtualBox install), or other posts suggest this is most likely to do with host CPUs faster than 2.1GHz, and my Mac Pro has dual 2.8 Xeons.
Moving on then, next up, installing Windows 98. There’s a great post here that describes VM specific settings compatible for installing 98 – I went with 1GB RAM and a virtual 10GB disk and followed the other suggested settings.
I booted the VM from a floppy disk image (the same I downloaded for my 95 installation attempt, from here), partitioned and formatted the virtual disk, and then ran ‘setup’ from the CD:
Welcome to Windows 98 Setup: “the software that makes your computer more powerful, reliable, manageable, and entertaining”.
I remember using this ‘active desktop’ feature in 98, where you could have web content pinned to your desktop. An interesting IE feature that was discontinued from Vista onwards.
It’s alive! Welcome to Windows 98. Given that VirtualBox does not have any supported/provided Guest Additions for WIndows 98 (or 95 for that matter), running under VirtualBox is incredibly slow and sluggish. However for nostalgia’s sake, if there’s something you want to play around with to re-live just how awesome Windows 98 was (?), then it’s definitely doable in VirtualBox, but not a great experience.
