Hi,
I use Virtual PC 2004 on Windows XP Pro and I tried to install Windows 95, but it won't boot from the retail virtual CD drive for win 95. What do I have to do?
Dear David
First of all you have to make sure that you set your CD rom as 1st boot device then of HDD. To ensure it just check your bios when you boot up. If it is already there than there must be a problem with your image file that you build earlier. So try to build a new image file from a real bootable disk.
Thanks and hope you can get out of your problem.
If that’s how you want to install Windows 95 on your computer via Virtual PC 2004, you really won’t be able to install it. Virtual PC is a virtual machine. When you install and run it on your computer, it creates a virtual computer within your computer which is like you are running two separate computers at the same time.
So, since they appear like two separate computers, they will also have separate sets of hardware. Your Windows XP which runs the actual physical computer is called the “host” operating system and the virtual machine created by Virtual PC where you want to install Windows 95 is called the “guest” operating system.
Since they appear like two separate computers, you won’t be able to boot and install Windows 95 from the virtual CD drive because it runs under Windows XP which is outside the virtual machine. In this case, it is Windows XP who owns and can only use the virtual CD drive. To install Windows 95 on your virtual machine, you need to load the Windows 95 ISO file directly within the virtual machine.
To do this, first, start Virtual PC 2004 then start the Windows 95 virtual machine. In the Windows 95 virtual machine, go to “CD” then select “Capture ISO Image”. Navigate and select your Windows 95 ISO file to load and boot the virtual machine. Now, just follow the instructions when installing the operating system.
Note: selecting “Capture ISO Image” is limited to ISO files with up to 2.2 GB file size. If your ISO file is beyond the 2.2 GB limit, you can’t boot and install using the ISO file. In this case, you need to use the actual Windows setup CD or DVD.
