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Looking for ISO of W98 or WinNT WS "lite" version


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Posted

Hi to everyone,

I was wondering if anyone could help me: my problem is that I am very stubborn and I want to make a very old Unisys 486DX2 miniPC run Windows!!!. To top it up, the HD is "only" 500Mb and can't be bigger because the BIOS wouldn't recognize it. I tried to install one of those Windows XP Lite versions that are running around but I was not succesful because during the initial screens, where one has to choose in which HD to install, the program warns me that it "requires" minimum a 1Gb free space in the HD, same stuff with Windows 2000 Lite which demands 780Mb free.

In case someone wonders what the heck do I want to do this for: simple, I have a brand new laptop runing Vista, Office and so on and so on. That's my "work" computer. But I still have this old, cute and tiny miniPC from Unisys (dated circa 1995!) which works fine -with DOS of course!. My mum -which is quite technophobic- has moved to a remote rural area and we'd like to email each other and to send pictures from time to time. She's not letting me spend not even 300$ on a PC because she says she's not going to use it for anything else. Hence I thought I could re-use my old Unisys with a stripped down version of Windows which allowed her to use Firefox, a simple image program and an email app (she certainly will never manage in DOS otherwise!). Since it seems I will not be able to install any 2000/XP lite version I am willing to settle with W98 or NT if necessary.

I've seen some posts talking about 98lite and a set of instructions to strip down W98. I'm not really that 'techie' -tried to follow it up but I didn't hv any success!. So, is there anyone out there that could point me to a RS, MU, Depositfile... ISO file of a Windows98 Lite or WinNT WStation version???

Thanks.


Posted

Presuming you've got enough memory (8 MB, 16 would be better), you can install Win95 on it. This needs only ~200 MB harddisk. Main difference between W95 and W98 is the integrated IE and USB support, which you both don't need.

Don't know if Firefox runs on W95, but Opera does. If you don't have enough memory, you could try Off By One.

When you've got less than 8 MB, or when W95 is too heavy, you can use W3.11, eventually in combination with Calmira, which should run fine on 4 MB.

Posted (edited)

Get yourself Windows 95 OSR 2.5, and strip it down by following these instructions. The result is a clean install with no IE, with plenty of free hard drive space (between 100 and 200 MB, including the necessary updates).

You'll need DCOM95, WinSock 2 (make sure to install TCP/IP first), and eventually a newer comctl32.dll.

For your laptop, I would recommend K-Meleon. Preferably K-Meleon 1.02 (with bmpmenu.dll and rebarmenu.dll deleted to remove incompatibilities). It's a little outdated, though, I wonder if there's a 1.02 that's been updated to the latest 1.8.0.x Gecko for download without having to do it yourself.

This might sound like some work, but believe me, it's worth it. :)

Edited by BenoitRen
Posted

Thanks a lot for your suggestions... I will definitively try them.

BTW, I didn't mention earlier but when I deared to ask for ISO's it's because I must say I legally "own" both W98 and WNT/WS. Unfortunately though I don't have any W95...

Posted
She's not letting me spend not even 300$ on a PC because she says she's not going to use it for anything else.

You'll find tons of PIII for less than 100$ on ebay, even laptops, they'll run XP or 2K if you want. I know this is not the right place for directing people to something else than 9x, so you can even install 98, but I think after all the efforts you'll do to install 95 on your 486, you'll end up with something that yourself will not be pleased with. The HD will get full in a year as well. For that problem, there are programs that modify the boot record and alow old PCs to use up to 8Gig I think.

Like most here that are old enough, I've ran 95 on a 486DX40, it had 3.11 before and I couldn't stand the speed difference, so I upgraded from 4 to 20Meg. It got kind of okay. Forget opening big pictures with 4meg.

Posted
Thanks a lot for your suggestions... I will definitively try them.

BTW, I didn't mention earlier but when I deared to ask for ISO's it's because I must say I legally "own" both W98 and WNT/WS. Unfortunately though I don't have any W95...

Youre in for a lot of hassle and no satisfaction in the end.

You can make usable installation down to ~60MB, but no matter how "lighted", Win95 will still crawl with this amount of memory (and forget NT entirely).

Yes, K-Meleon will work, 1.02 or even latest 1.1 too, but no matter what - youll be in for loooooooooooooooong wait until it even starts...

I doubt you'll really use it, Im sure you'll get tired of "THE wait" all the time.

Unless you get more RAM, IMHO that system belongs to Windows 3.11 & DOS only.

RAM is everything.

Posted
Don't know if Firefox runs on W95, but Opera does. If you don't have enough memory, you could try Off By One.

Firefox from version 1.0 to version 1.5.0.12 do run under Win95 as I've confirmed this a few months ago.

Posted
BTW, I didn't mention earlier but when I deared to ask for ISO's it's because I must say I legally "own" both W98 and WNT/WS. Unfortunately though I don't have any W95...

For installation CDs you can contact Microsoft, MSFN.org isn’t a medium to ask for ISOs.

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