Hello everybody! Dualbooting is a great way to try other setups without losing any data
as well as retaining full compatibility with otherwise
out of reach software. A prime example of dualbooting should be Windows 10 and
a linux distro sharing the same machine. Here on my channel though I like to take ju-ust
a bit too far.
Today I will attempt to dualboot Windows 98 and Windows 11.
Now you might be thinking - that's impossible! These operating systems are way too far apart
to be installed on the same machine! Well, you are partially
correct - it is indeed impossible to get it working on 99% of the hardware,
especially with Windows 11 enforcing more new imaginary hardware limitations and Windows
98 slowly disappearing in the abyss of past. Despite such an age gap,
there's some hardware in the middle that still can boot both Windows 98
and Windows 11. I happen to own a laptop that *apparently does* boot them. It's the newer
Sandy Bridge Lenovo G570.
The older one did not boot Windows 98 for some reason. More on that later, meanwhile
take a look at the specs of this rocker.
And with that, let's begin the install! I will get Windows 98 going first, because it
might scream about an existing NTFS partition or literally everything else,
I don't even want to imagine what would happen if Windows 11 was present
during the 98 setup process. Anyway, here's the CD of it.
First of all, SATA controller mode must be set to compatible, because Windows 98 does
not support AHCI, what did you expect? Obviously, you can't just outright install
it after tweaking the controller mode either. The DVD-rom won't work at all.
Don't worry, though, it's not necessary to set up Windows 98. Sounds pretty dumb, but
it's just a nasty workaround. What I will do is I'll boot to Windows 11
installer, partition the disk for Windows 98, copy the installation files
in a separate directory and start the installation from a hard drive.
All right, there's the partition I've made and the win98 folder
containing all necessary installation files. I'll just run
setup.exe from there, and we'll be good to go.
And we are in!
Obviously, there's an NTFS caution, but it's just a caution, so we can skip it. The copying
process flows without any errors. But here we run into a big issue.
Remember, this machine has 4 gigabytes of RAM, which is a theoretical limit of
a 32-bit system, and it is running. a. system. from. 1998. *giggle* Back then even a single
gigabyte of RAM was considered absolutely gigantic and massive. Think about
Linus' 1 terabyte of RAM setup. Yes, that's exactly what was thought of a
gigabyte back then.
This is a huge issue. Let alone theoretical 4, Windows 98 was limited just to a gigabyte
of RAM. Want to know why? There was a certain OEM that decided to create
a beastly machine with Windows 98 onboard. Not like they could have
used Windows NT, but Microsoft surprisingly accepted that offer and amped up the memory
limit to 1 gigabyte. They did sacrifice the minimum memory requirement
for that stunt, though. All due to the nature of memory manager Windows has.
Either way, that's not the point. What can we do with that thing? Lucky for us, there
was a fantastic programmer Rudolph Loew, which was primarily writing 9x patches and
compatibility fixes to help these versions run on newer hardware. One of them
exactly patches the virtual memory manager to accept those theoretical 4 gigabytes of
RAM. Just so you know, Windows 11 minimum memory requirement is exactly 4 gigabytes.
This dualboot is on a real thin ice there!
*q* Just kidding, Windows 11 requirements are a meme
Anyway, to install that patch I will just copy it over using a Windows 11 installer
and run it inside a command prompt mode. Now Windows 98 boots with a full RAM set.
The
driver setup begins, that's the most unnerving part of installing Windows 98
on seemingly unsupported hardware.
Aaaand, we get a blue screen. This is exactly the part where my old G570 got completely
denied. It would just get to that part and always throw a blue screen. (Hey,
that's a cool effect, actually.)
Let's restart... and, just as if nothing happened, it continues the setup.
We take what we can get, I got no issue with that.
The rest of the setup goes well. So, with that, Windows 98 was installed. and... that's
it?
You thought that was it, right? Well, you're WRONG! We've got unfinished business here!
(gotta set the cloud wallpaper first) Let's deploy a bunch of drivers on it! Or,
at least, attempt to.
First I installed the USB patch, then the 9x unicode layer, then the sound blaster driver
for kicks and giggles (it didnt install) and finally, the VBEMP
display driver, which worked. 16:9 display patches don't work in conjunction
with that driver, so I didn't even bother to try them.
And with that, Windows 98 was pretty much finished. That's probably the best you can
set it up on new hardware. Let's move onto the Windows 11 meme. Oh, sorry,
didn't mean to say the last word, my bad...
This laptop doesn't support Windows 11. That means we can freely install it on this bad
boy with almost no effort. With a few magic registry keys we can bypass
all the Windows 11 requirements and continue with the installation.
I'll skip the first time setup, by this point it's already stale and generic to show. Gotta
appreciate that screen though, it's looking damn good.
I'll set the dark theme and a wallpaper, of course put the taskbar to the left, since
it being centered is just an insult to Windows. family of products. Finally, I just have to
set up the dualboot. People actually suggest to install newer versions first to
enjoy the perks of automatic bootloader setup, but let's be real, we have hands and knowledge
and we can set up a bootloader ourselves.
First, we create the Windows 98 bootloader entry and specify that it uses a boot sector
instead of a Windows loader. Next, we set the first volume as a boot source
(remember that partition and volume symlink indexes begin with 1)
Now we need to set the 98 bootloader path, which is in fact a copy of the boot sector,
the first sector on our logical drive.
Finally, I'll put that boot entry to the bottom, so the WINDOWS 10 is on the top. And that's
pretty much it for the dualboot part. So, just to clarify, both Windows
versions boot and function correctly. Here's 98 and here's 11 (or 10)
I hope you enjoyed the video. Thanks you all so much for watching. Take care.