You can run Windows 10/11 (x64) inside Windows XP (x86). I want to try something like that on Windows 98 (of course with the rloew ram patch applied) and see the results. So, that's why I'm answering that.

VMware never supported Windows 98 and Me as host OSes. Early versions of VMware Workstation through version 4.5 ran under Windows NT 4.0 as host OS.

At one point, I did run Windows XP Home Edition on Win2K host over a decade ago and it was a challenge!

Best bet is to use Connectix Virtual PC 5.1.370. You can run Windows 7 on it on Windows 98 SE. (Make sure CPUID limit in BIOS is enabled, apparently this makes it work)

Seeing that, I'm considering to try to run a Windows 7/8/10/11 vm inside Windows NT 4.0 system. And, modifying the BIOS of a VM inside a Windows 9x system wouldn't be easy for me as these systems don't have good ocr software and good Screen Readers. If I try Connectix Virtual PC, I would need to know the keys used with it. I'll try it firstly on a Windows XP or newer cause these systems has more accessibility improvements.

Windows 11 doesn't run on 32-bit machines anymore. As for trying to run Windows 7, Windows 8.x and Windows 10, I don't think that you'll have any luck under Windows XP and below.

9x
vmware-workstation-4.5.3
Qemu 0.15.0 w/kernelex
Bochs 2.3.7
Bochs 2.6.11 w/kernelex
Bochs 2.7 might work with kernelex https://www.bttr-software.de/download/bochs/
If above requires SSE2 then try Bochs 2.6.6 w/ kernelex
 

Edited January 25, 20224 yr by DosFreak

Not that it has anything to do with the topic but if you have a 64bit processor then with vmware player 2.5.5 or 3.0.1 (with BWC changes) you can run 7 64bit as a guest on a Windows 2000 host.

Something to try would be qemu 1.0.1 http://vpsland.superglobalmegacorp.com/install/qemu-1.0.1.7z or 2.7 (with BWC) on Windows 2000.

Edited January 25, 20224 yr by DosFreak

The machine is 64 bits, so I should be able to run a 64 bit guest. You can run a 64 bit guest inside a 32 bits host.

Virtual PC is probably your best bet on a 9x host, and you should use a fully updated win ME as the host machine, as it is the most up to date of the 9x series, and has functionality not present in the others (but loses real mode dos without a patch).  and the upper limit would be windows 7 as a guest as its the last windows to have a 32 bit version. and limit the guest updates to those before the march 2015 updates that require sse2 support for best results.   Note: I actually did this for a month to get familiar with 7 back in the day, before I finally made the move from win ME to win 7 properly.

Use either a Athlonxp 3000+ or better, or a 3.0ghz or faster P4 (preferrably prescott core as ME loves L2 cache)  Most of the hardware related crashes can be attributed to printer issues, or CPUs like the duron and celeron lines that lack or have very little L2)

 

thats assuming you have Rlowe's RAM patch.  if not then limit installed memory to 1gb or less and limit memory in windows to 512mb to avoid issues.

Edited August 28, 20223 yr by Molly Dawn