the solutor

Ok but you mentioned VMware 8, I didn't dream about it. About real HW, I guess it all depends on the vesa implementation in the BIOS. Perhaps the author of SoftGPU seem vanished since July or so, I hope he is well.

You need at least VMware 15.x.x or VBox 7.xx to use the driver at its best, older versions may work or not with progressive lack of functionality

Obviously is MY mode of doing things and not Mikey Mouse's one, and my mode told me that the 2D VGA support was good enough in VMware since when I rewiewed it in august 2000, I generally care relatively little of VBox that has been always behind and only recently started to be usable (especially on Linux hosts). Perhaps it's called SoftGPU and not SoftVGA for a reason. 3D is the focus, then if it's brings 2D advantages as a byproduct they are welcome. Assuming that talking of 2D only makes sense today like it did in '98, given a lot of modern "2D" features are really rendered as a flat 3D surfaces (the optput settings of MPC-HC exposes a real world example of that)

Sure, but the whole point of using softgpu is to have a working 3D, if you scratch that there is little point using it over the native VMware driver or VBEMP in VBox

Aside that the drivers alone are ~130MB not 252 Aside that Win95 RTM was 35MB but Win98SE was already ~115MB and WinME 160, it's obvious that if you want have code that does modern things, you have to use modern build chains and other components that are sized as today's SW, not like ones from the DOS era. Then yes, it's not a novelty that SW constantly inflates, but personally I find more amusing that an average avatar takes more space than the whole operating system of one of early home computers like my TI994/A or ZX Spectrum, let alone something like a ZX81 or a VIC20

@RobbieB First don't use win95fix, use patcher9x, which is way better and works in any W9x version (and patchmem if you need more than 512MB) Second don't waste your time in real HW. Copy all files to a vhd/vmdk, make it bootable (active partition and sys C:) , boot it in vmware or virtualbox, fix whatever you have to fix, then copy back to real HW (if you need to) Third now we have softgpu which brings a decent display driver (with 3D) to vmware and virtualbox, which is (almost surely) a way better way to run W95/98/ME than running them on unsupported modern native HW. P.S. Speaking specifically of Win95 VMware is way better than Virtualbox: you have the tools (install them W/O the 2D driver, then install Softgpu), Virtualbox has no tools for Win9x, but using the USBtablet input device is a good workaround in Win98SE and even better in WinME. Win95 (even Win95C with USB support) doesn't understand it, so you are forced to PS2 which is obviously annoying

@reboot12 @verta or anyone else. Can you kindly re-upload the file? (first link wants premium account, second link is gone )

IMO trying to install it from the CD on an unsupported platform is basically a waste of time, even if you end with a success the process will take an exaggerate amount of time. Just install using VBOX , fully update it, replace the files you may need to replace, like acpi.sys or whatever, copy the partition, make it bootable, and use fix_hdc to avoid the 7B error. Basically that's all, you can even boot the VHD directly (just like a modern native VHD, which is a thing since W7) using grub 4 dos and firadisk or SVbus drivers, but that belongs to a different tutorial. Reversing the perspective you can also use a whole physical disk connected to VBOx (or vmware or hyper-v), so you can skip the partition copy step, but that makes sense only if you have a secondary disk dedicated to the task, not if you want to use a partition from your only HDD. For sure you need to use a SP4 install media. SP0/SP1 were possible as bad as Vista SP0, ISOs updated to unofficial SP5 may be a good idea as well, but personally I prefer to do as much as I can myself, which makes easier to identify problems.

Afaik the only thing related to VHDs on XP/W2k, was a driver installed by VirtualPC, but I' don't remember if it was called vhdmp.sys Copy it from XP directory of HBCD (or from the install media) Please read what I actually wrote. Obviously just comping a file leads to nothing useful. You need to use the FIC_HDC script, then (if needed) copy/overwrite the file. The script updates the registry, but may copy the wrong driver (too new for W2K /too old for W7/wrong architecture for XP64 and so on)

Not sure I never used the DVD. The CD was always more than enough for my needs Nice finding, whatever I never tested it, but I got working the original one on installed OS (to fix a different installed OS on a different partition/VHD). Aside adjusting some paths and providing the 7z package with actual drivers, you need also the file txtsetup.sif from the XP dir, then it will works, at least I'm sure it works from W7 x86) Check if the actual driver (ahci.sys or whatever is needed) was actually copied in \system32\drivers eventually replace it with a driver that works for sure in Win2K (try older/newer version or even a different driver. Just rename it like the old one) (the same tecnique is applicable for AMD64 (oses). IIRC the script try to use a driver that's already included, if nothing is found it copies a driver from the 7z package, but those driver are 32bit, hence let the script do its work then replace the .sys with the correct AMD64 version I would start fresh with a copying of the original partition, not touched by Paragon. Whatever, the success rate isn't 100%. Is very high but not 100%. In my experience is hard to get working old installation that included the Intel RST (Raid) drivers, they mess the system to the point that even moving a modern W10/W11 to standard AHCI or IDE becomes really hard

Until Server 2008R2 servers lacked some bits about multimedia, bluetooth and alike. Starting from WHS2011/Server2008R2 Essentials the situation changed a lot. 2012 Essentials, 2012R2 essentials + WSEMP are also completely usable as client machine Since 2016 Almost everything works out of the box (for some reasons a audio codec package is missing, but easy to install), the only disadvantage are limited to Bluetooth which is half backed on server (use the toshiba stack instead), few hid drivers are also missing, which makes Servers not working out of the box on some notebooks, and little more. Also some (especially Intel) VGA or Lan Card drivers are artificially blocked from installing on servers, that's easy to workaround. Everything else is there: BDA codecs/drivers, Video codecs and so on. The remaining disadvantages are related to licensing terms of installable SW not to problems of Server OS itself. Say most antivirus, or partitioning SW (that have a commercial Server version) aren't going to install on servers (again easy workarounds in most cases)

15.2 Like I said it's under the registry section.

vhdmp has nothing to do with xp, it's a driver used to mount VHD/VHDX images, something that XP doesn't do natively. Probably you used some dumb migration tool that messed things. Don't use anything to "migrate". All you need is to mount the source VHD and the destination physical disk, then "copy" the partition(s) with any SW capable of doing so from Easus/Acronis/Paragon/whatever. Then all you have to do is to make the boot partition active and install the bootloader using bcdboot. (then follow what I wrote in the previous message) If your source disk isn't a VHD/VHDx (say vmdk or vdi) just convert it. I suggest the free tool from Starwind, but Virtualbox itself can convert many formats

@Dietmar What about N100? Did you test CSMwrap there? I tested it briefly but all I got is CSMwrap complaining about the above 4G address, no matter how I set the related setting in the UEFI setting page.

Given you're on Vbox before migrating to physical partition you should add a dummy disk attached to a controller close to the physical one you're going to use on physical machine. Then boot once to get the controller detected and its drivers installed, then possibly remove the dummy disk, connect the OS virtual disk to such controller and let the OS boot again. The above is usually enough to move Vista/7/8/10/11 to a physical disk, but may be not enough to migrate XP or Win2K, unless you use generic AHCI/IDE drivers. For XP/2K, if the above fails still use Hiren's boot CD and use it's fix_hdc script (it's under the registry section), it's almost bullet proof, and it's the only effective way to move from virtual to physical or viceversa (or from a physical machine to a different one), also is the only effective way to migrate from a Hyper-V VM (given there the Vbox trick isn't applicable (hyper-V has only ide controllers in MBR mode or scsi controllers in GPT mode)