Upgrading Win95

Dave

I want to upgrade my old old old old laptop from Win95 to Win98. The problem is when I try to install Win98 it tells me I already have an operating system installed and I'll have to get Win98 Upgrade pack.

The way I've tried so far to get around it is rebooting into dos and renaming win.com and winver.exe, then trying to run the setup from the CD Drive through dos. Unfortunately I can't switch to the CD dir as DOS for some reason won't recognise it.

Is there any different way around the upgrade or a solution to above.

Any help would be great.

DonkeyStyle \o/

First of all, Win9x upgrades are a bit dodgy and can leave you with some buggy problems... it's better to do a fresh full install.

Dave wrote:

Unfortunately I can't switch to the CD dir as DOS for some reason won't recognise it.

Yeah DOS will need a driver/TSR for CDROM support... like mscdex or whatever... but if you can't be bothered arsing around with config.sys (etc), you should be able to boot off the win98 cd and select 'command prompt with cd support enabled' (or words to that effect (it's been a long time )), this'll let you access the cd drive in DOS... or if this isn't an option, you can copy the files off the 98 CD onto the harddrive from within windows and run setup from the harddrive while in DOS.

Really though, I'd seriously consider backing up your personal data and doing a fresh install.

woolymammoth

you could try formatting the entire hard disk, then installing Win98. this wold probably get around the problem of it telling you that there is already an OS installed.

as for DOS not picking up the CD drive.. try using a newer version of DOS?

if the PC will boot off the CD drive, and if you've the hard disk formatted, and your win 98 disc is bootable of course, there shouldn't be any problem.

i say shouldn't very lightly though!

hth..

Dave

How do I go about doing that? I don't need anything backed up.

edit: disc isn't bootable. Lets say my cousin gave it to me as a present.

Capt'n Midnight

You need a Windows 98 license to do this and not an OEM one, even though Win98 is more or less Win95 OSR3 + IE.

Why 98 - unless the laptop has USB ports or something ?

Have a look at 98lite - this will allow you to use the win95 interface on win98, if it's a laptop that shipped with 95 it's a no brainer as explorer in 98 is much slower.

The files to copy from the CD are the Win98 folder - drop it to C:\win98 rename the win.com file and run setup in safe mode command prompt only.

Any problems you have in 95 will most likely be inherited rather than fixed, windows upgrades in general don't fix problems, they mainly add features.

DonkeyStyle \o/

edit: disc isn't bootable. Lets say my cousin gave it to me as a present.

Then your "cousin" should have ripped/burned from the original CD properly with the bootstrap still intact :P
Naughty naughty.
Thread locked.

Capt'n Midnight

Dave wrote:

How do I go about doing that? I don't need anything backed up.

edit: disc isn't bootable. Lets say my cousin gave it to me as a present.

Lets say two week ban for Warez since your cousin doesn't appear to have given you a COA

Windows is expensive for what it is.

Have a look at puppylinux for a lightweight install 60MB download + 256MB data file on C: if you want to try another OS.

Dave

The only reason I want to upgrade is Win95 won't recognise the usb cable modem we have (or any external usb devices). We have a proper laptop already but it's not mine. So I'm after digging up an old laptop so I can use it when the other laptop is in use (I play a nice bit of poker online).

edit:
Oh and win98 because the laptop only has 32mb of ram, every other windows OS needs 64mb