08 Quinta Boot
Win 98, ME
2K, XP, w7 using OSL2000
This is a quinta boot VHD with 5 Windows installs - Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and 7, for a further test of the OSL2000 boot manager.
I tried the BootitNG boot manager for comparison and I think I prefer OSL2000 as it's simpler.
These are all plain vanilla installs and I've added the VBemp VGA driver to 98 and ME and installed VirtualBox Guest Additions in 2000, XP and 7 to get a better display resolution.
There are seven partitions in the VHD:
- Partition 1 is for Windows 2000, XP and 7 boot files
- Partition 2 is a stand-alone Windows 98 install
- Partition 3 is a stand-alone Windows ME install
- Partition 4 is a Windows 2000 install (with boot files on partition 1)
- Partition 5 is a Windows XP install (with boot files on partition 1)
- Partition 6 is a Windows 7 install (again, boot files on partition 1)
The OSL2000 option "Boot NTFS" displays the Windows 7 boot menu which allows you to boot either Windows 7 or "Previous Version of Windows".
If you select the "Previous Version of Windows" you'll get the XP boot menu to boot either XP or Windows 2000.
The OSL2000 entries for Windows 98 and Windows ME work as expected.
If you select any of the last 3 OSL2000 menu items the system will halt with an error as the boot files for these are on partition 1 (the boot_ntfs menu item).
A bit quirky, but it is what it is, and it works.
The VHD was created with VirtualBox 6.1.26 and no Guest Additions are available for Windows w9x.
The total VHD size is 4.9GB and this has been zipped to a 1.6GB file, uploaded here.
I've also included a bootable floppy image with the OSL2000 install-uninstaller.
If you change any of the partitions or install a different OS, then you'll need to re-install OSL2000 from the floppy image.
Note for VirtualBox users (probably also applies for other VMs such as VMware):
Each windows install has different requirements for the sound and network drivers.
- Windows 98SE uses the Sound Blaster 16 driver and the PCnet Fast III ethernet drivers.
- Windows XP uses the ICH97 sound driver and the PCnet Fast III ethernet driver.
- Windows 7 uses the Intel HD Audio sound driver and the Intel 82540 ethernet driver.
In your VM select whichever hardware option is appropriate for the OS you want to use, else you'll keep getting windows versions constantly searching for drivers on startup.
* Note on graphics: Allocate your VM's graphic card at least 40MB of RAM or the VBemp driver in w95-98-ME will only show a black screen on startup. The more RAM you allocate, the higher the resolution you'll be able to achieve.
Thoughts on using OSL2000 and BootitNG:
Really not needed if you're multi booting Windows versions from XP on as these are all multi OS aware and create their own OS select menus.
Moderately useful for multi booting Windows 9x or a mix of 9x and later, but that's a bit of a specialist or hobbyist area now.
Even if you want to multi boot Windows I think it's unlikely most people would need to multi boot with Windows 9x and current versions of Windows will handle multiple later versions without a drama.
An interesting enough experience though.
< Click To DL Quinta Boot Windows 98-ME-2K-XP-W7 VHD > < Click To DL OSL2000 Floppy Image >
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