PGalbraith's Posts

I have been able to successfully get Windows 95, 98 SE, and ME VM's working in Workstation 17 from my native host which is Windows 11 on a Ryzen 5800X.  I'm specifically having problems with the audio drivers for Windows 98 FE, however, and wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I can install Windows 98 with the help of this handy patcher, but when installing the audio drivers that I expect should work, the SB PCI128 drivers from Creative, I get a blue screen error with problem in VXD ctpci(05).  I'm wondering if this is some sort of PCI problem that VMX configuration might somehow resolve? Alternatively, if I run the 98 VM in a nested VM (which seems to help alleviate modern CPU problems with Win 9x VM's) I can get sound working if I instead install the Ensoniq AudioPCI drivers.  However, the same VM when run natively (i.e. not nested) on Workstation 17 hangs almost immediately after it starts booting (before the Windows splash screen ever appears). Does anyone have any suggestions to get Windows 98 sound working?

Workstation 17.0 does not honor the hardware compatibility setting that I specify when I create a new VM for a Win9x guest.  I want the compatibility to be "Workstation 5.x", but when I create a new custom VM and specify that, my specification is ignored and the VM is created with "Workstation 17.x" compatibility.  Worse, after the VM is created (prior to any installation), the compatibility cannot be changed.  Trying the change the compatibility to the setting I want yields the attached error, with non-working HTTP link. Is there any way to create a VM with appropriate compatibility setting for Win9x or do I need to downgrade?