Windows 9x experiences and suggestions

[DotNetTester]

I finally did some testing related to Windows 9x on my AMD machines.

Windows 95 OSR2 runs without issue and I used the old Windows 95 CPU fix v3 ISO. Windows 95 appears to be unaffected by the TLB invalidation bug.

A tool in the style of the Windows 95 CPU fix v3 ISO would be convenient to have for Windows 98 and Me. I think a tool that can take your Windows 98 Second Edition (or Windows Me) ISO, grab the files, modify the files to fix the problem and spit out a bootable ISO with everything patched would be even better. Creating a new bootable ISO can be a PITA at times. None of the original Windows Me CDs were bootable by default.

I remember seeing in the past that OEMs would update and change files on the installation media of the Windows 9x releases. The modified files would sit outside of the cab files and I believe setup would see an .inf file that directed it to use the newer files. I wonder if that strategy could be used here.

The installs of Windows 98 and Windows Me tend to proceed with less problems, if USB is 100% disabled in VirtualBox. I'm curious about whether or not there's a TLB invalidation bug in the USB drivers included with Windows 98 and Windows Me. O.O All the problems that do occur during setup, happen towards the end when it's almost finished.

On a personal note, It is interesting to see Windows Me a little less affected by the TLB invalidation bug and Windows 95 OSR2 completely unaffected. With my my experiences on Windows 2000 and reading information about it on the web, I thought all the Windows 9x releases would run poorly on my modern AMD CPU.

[DotNetTester]

I do find Patcher9x tool to be confusing. I run the tool both during setup or after install and none of it fixes anything. The tool extracts the files from the .cab files but Windows 98 and Windows Me don't appear to use the files during setup. There's a boot floppy and a boot ISO image.