UTM frontend for QEMU on M1 MacBook Pro: Creating a VM and installing Windows 98 (part 2 – MSCDEX driver issue resolved)

A while back I was playing with UTM to setup an x86 VM on my M1 MacBook to install Windows 98 from an iso. I got as far as booting and starting the install but then ran into issue with the MSCDEX driver on subsequent boots during the install where it would no longer see the virtual CDROM drive and so could not complete the install:

From some additional playing around, it seems there is a major difference in the virtualized x86 PC hardware between this x86 2009 option which has the CDROM driver issue:

and this older 1996 version which does work and the install will complete successfully:

A couple of additional findings:

  • if you don’t disable the USB input support, when you get to this screen in the install you will not have a mouse pointer:

In the Input settings disable USB input (the default is USB3.0 support) and this will give you a mouse:

Success!