USB Support for Windows 95 Guest

[jaydub222]

I have Workstation Pro 15 and a fairly new computer that has USB 2.0/3.0/3.1  I've successfully loaded a Windows 95 guest.  The guest is OSR 2.5 aka 4.00.950C which is USB aware.

• Before loading the guest, I enabled the USB Controller with USB 1.1 compatibility.  "Show all USB input devices" is checked.
• Once the OS was loaded, I installed VMware Tools.
• Then I installed the necessary drivers from the install disc (usbsupp.exe and usbupd2.exe in that order, rebooting the VM after each file was installed).

But when I plug in USB devices and direct to the guest, Workstation says it can't connect but will try.  And in fact I don't get any connectivity.

Before I re-install the operating system and select USB 2.0 compatibility in the USB Controller, is there something that I'm missing?  Or is just a fundamental limitation of Workstation 15 and this particular guest, with no viable workaround?

[bluefirestorm]

Windows 95 does not support USB, not even USB 1.1. So it is not an issue of the host computer hardware nor of VMware Workstation Pro 15.

As far as I know, proper USB 1.1 support only came with Windows 98 Second Edition. You can always search for the Bill Gates demo of USB that resulted in a BSOD.

Windows NT 4.x also did not support USB 1.1. Support for USB 1.1 only came in Windows 2000.

[jaydub222]

Actually, that is not correct.  See attached.

[bluefirestorm]

Ok. I was not aware of special release of USB drivers for Windows 95. I am pretty sure about NT 4.0 not having USB support. My first USB thumb drive was a 256MB drive  (it was around US$1 per MB!!!) and it didn't exactly play nice with all Windows 2000 physical hardware; sometime not even with the same laptop/desktop.

But anyway, I don't think there is any point to try USB 2.0 setting on the Windows 95 VM.

What I suggest you try is to bring a USB hub in between the USB device and the host USB controller. I don't know the explanation of how and why it works, but it has resolved USB device problems for other people (not necessarily Windows 95 VM) but with more recent release of Windows (such as 7).

Other than that, there are just too many factors to get USB 1.1 to work inside Windows 95 VM.

[jaydub222]

Yes, it seems quite problematic.  Thanks for your help though.

[bluefirestorm]

The best chance to get it to work (assuming VMware software supports it), is that the USB device itself is USB 1.1. If it is a storage device, probably best if you have one that is in the MB (not GB) size; and it is in FAT format. If in the GB range, maybe 2GB is the tops.

If you want to get files in/out of the Win95 VM, you could enable copy/paste and drag/drop. I don't think "Shared Folders" work for Windows 95 VM.

If drag/drop or copy/paste between host and Windows 95 VM does not work, your other options

use a secondary virtual disk that you attach/detach between Windows 95 VM and another VM

use the Map Virtual Disk function

[jaydub222]

Your comments make sense.  It's not exactly the end of the world.  Dragging files from the host desktop to the guest desktop works quite well.  I suppose though that there is some file size limitation on doing that.  You are right, shared files is not available for a Windows 95 guest.  And attaching a second hard drive, while awkward, would get the job done.  So if I did that, I would attach a virtual hard drive to say a Windows 10 guest, move files from the host to that, then detach the virtual hard drive from the Windows 10 guest machine and attach it to the Windows 95 machine?  Is that right?  How does "Map Virtual Disk" function come into play?

[bluefirestorm · Accepted solution]

The official documented limit for drag/drop and copy/paste is 4MB but it seems to work beyond that.

The "Map virtual disk" is in the File menu of the Workstation Pro UI. It will mount the virtual disk as a drive on the host machine. You can then get files in and out of the virtual disk. The default is "read only". The VM should be powered down before you map and remember to unmap before powering up the VM.

The more awkward one is the secondary virtual disk (which maybe better to be IDE disk type and formatted as FAT) that you can attach/detach. It would be the VM equivalent of attaching a physical hard drive in one machine, do the necessary copy, and then attach to the second PC and then transfer over.

[jaydub222]

For this to work, it looks like I need to uncheck "read only", is that correct?

[bluefirestorm]

Yes, unchecking "read only" will let you copy the files into the mapped virtual disk; otherwise the default read only direction of copy lets you get files out.

[jaydub222]

Hmmm.  When I do that, I get a message saying that doing so will invalidate any snapshots I've taken.  That's not good.  I want the snapshot to remain in tact.  To understand you correctly, I'm trying to map the Windows 95 disk to the host as drive "z", correct?  Or am I mapping some other drive?

[bluefirestorm]

Yes, there is that lengthy warning message. And yes, it is mapping the Windows 95 virtual disk as drive Z of the host.

If you want snapshots retained, I guess you should just stick to plain drag-and-drop or copy/paste (it appears to work well beyond the documented 4MB file size limit but I don't know what is the real limit now). That is the most straightforward way to get files in/out without connecting to a network (Personally, I wouldn't risk connecting an old OS VM such as Win95 to the internet and local network).

If you are indeed hitting the limitations of drag/drop or copy/paste between VM and host, and want to retain snapshots, you would have to go through the rigmarole of the secondary virtual disk.

[jaydub222]

Yeah.  I can't even install old web browsers on Win95...they crash, and those that don't, don't let you view https sites, which is just about everything today.  Guess I'll give up that idea.  Thanks for your help.  Really appreciate it.