where to find win 95

[mountaineer]

I want a copy of Windows 95. The old system we are playing with has Windows 98 on it and it crashes constantly. Am I right in thinking 95 will run better on this system? Pent.1 166 Mhz, 72 Megs of Ram, 1.2 Gig Seagate Hard disk. It looks like a clean install of 98 on it now. There is very little on the drive other than the O.S.
I need to know where I can find a copy of 95. The local stores here will not sell me a copy. One here will install it for $100- what a rip off.

[jamesrpm]

I don't think 98 is your problem. I've run it on similar and much slower systems with no problems. Can you tell when it is going to crash ie. like doing a particular task. Have you looked in device manager to see if there are any conflicts going on? Do you get particular error messages? if so what do they say.

[Markoman01027]

Usually when you upgrade an OS, it's suppose to fix issues with the current OS you are having :-)

[mountaineer]

I recieve the "illegal operation" a lot. Windows Explorer and IE mostly from what I can see

[mountaineer]

You truly think I wouldnt be better off with 95 on this system? I'll stick with 98 if not. I really have no preferance because its not for me to keep. Do you know where I can find 95?

[Sumdumgi]

Try Ebay

[GaryRouth]

Could be bad RAM - could also be that the memory timings or processor settings aren't quite right in the Bios Setup.

Things to try:
Test the RAM (DocMemory) - http://www.simmtester.com
Test the Hard Drive (SeaTools Desktop) - http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/
Try setting the Bios to Fail-Safe Defaults - At system startup, press the key mentioned in the banner message "Press F1 (or Del or F10, etc.) to enter Setup". Look for a menu item "Save Defaults and Exit"

If those all come up Ok, & you're still having trouble, try:
Remove sound cards, modems, network cards, all peripherals - and reformat the hard drive. Use fdisk to delete all the DOS partitions on the drive (leave any non-Dos partitions alone, esp. if this is an old Compaq). Create a new Primary Dos Partition, and mark it active. Say "Y" to "Enable Large Disk Support?" when prompted (=FAT32). Then do a clean install of Win98 & test for errors. Find recent drivers for your video (and all other cards, too). This should help if it's drivers conflicting in the background.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[p.s. the cpu and memory are fine for Win98, the drive is a little small . . . see if you can scrounge a used 4gb or so: that would work a little better. Ebay does sound like a good bet for Win95]

[mountaineer]

I do have two different pairs of ram installed. It said to pair them together with the larger pair in the 1and2 positions. The system wouldnt boot like that. I then paired them with the smaller pair(origonal pair) in the 1 and 2 positions. It booted and recognised all the memory. The other thing that I added was the video adapter. The computer tells me to put in my windows 98 disk so it can configure the driver for the adapter. I cannot do this because of the cd rom doesnt work. Oh I also changed the jumper settings on the mother board so I would have 166 processor speed instead of the 120 it did have. Guess it could be any of the above.

[GaryRouth]

Did you find a manual for the board - or just read the silkscreened numbers on the circuit board? (for the jumper settings, etc.) . . . & those older systems like to have Simms of the same speeds (usually). Some can be a little strange as to the limits for what size stick can fit where (in what order/combination in the Simm slots). - - - and I think I'd still recommend using a testing program to test the memory. Even though it's recognized as the right amount, it might not be able to function correctly.

If you are certain that the cd-drive of the current box is a goner, you could briefly borrow one from another computer (if you've got a spare) and reformat/reinstall/load newer drivers - from that. Then you can put it back where it was borrowed from.

If you think the cd-drive might just be configured incorrectly - go over the jumper settings and the cables & recheck. Since cd-drive support is built into Win98, it can't really be a driver issue.

If you don't have a manual for the board, they are usually not too hard to find on the Internet, as long as you can find the make/model of the board.

Every now & then I take parts out of my spare parts box & throw together a Spare Parts Box with some old OS . . . it's a little like a jigsaw puzzle
. . . Gary

[mountaineer]

I dont have a manual for the board. I have a nice manual for the entire system. It tells all about memory configurations, jumper settings, etc., etc. I have the cd rom working now. In device mgr. there are two problems showing up. The first is power management, the other is with the graphics adapter and the onboard video. Will the adapter be much better than the on board? The onboard is 2MB of shared and the adapter is only 4MB, I think. This machine wont be used for anything but EMail, internet browsing, and word documents.

[GaryRouth]

See if you can disable the onboard video in the Bios. If you're pretty sure you have the right driver for the 4mb card, try it out (and if not, look around at what Win95 or "Win9x" drivers are available & pick one). If its an STB Velocity (which came with 4mb of memory, sort of an odd size that was a transitional part) you might have an nVidia Riva128 powering it, and you can get a nice driver for it at the nVidia site. [I just did this exact thing for a computer that was donated to a local preschool - the nVidia reference driver was quite an improvement]

The power management might be fixable just by removing it in Device Manager and letting it reinstall when your reboot.

To help clean up the Registry, try a run of RegClean 4.1 - that version was updated to work with Win98 & Win98se http://download.com.com/3000-2094-881470.html?tag=list
(might need cleaning up after changing the video around a bit)

To save space on the drive, you can uninstall themes and screensavers by changing what options you want/don't want from the Windows Setup tab in Add/Remove Programs [Control Panel]. Uninstall things like unused Accessories, too. Or unused System Tools. The Personal Web Server option is usually installed by default in the Internet section - few ever use it.

Lots of other things can go, too (such as the Welcome.exe and the Tour), but the space savings aren't all that great. Performance can be sped up by avoiding Active Desktop, limiting the fancier display settings [don't animate menus, go with high color rather than true color, do without patterns, wallpaper, etc] . . . and absolutely cleaning background jobs down to Explorer, systray, and your antivirus.

And if you find the 1gig drive still filling up all the time, you can give back a little speed and compress the drive.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[mountaineer]

Thank you for your help. I will try a few things Wed when Im off. I also have a friend who is willing to trade a 4gig for the 1 gig I have. He wants it for a 386 machine.