All about
Installing 
There are several ways to install Windows 95 and it all depends on wether you are going to upgrade an existing Windows operating system, install it on a blank hard drive or install on a hard drive with data already on it. Lets look at the differents ways to install. |
On a hard drive with nothing
on it? |
| 1. First you will need to use Fdisk to create a File Allocation TABLE (FAT) partition on your hard drive to install Windows 95. If you bought the Windows 95 package designed for a computer without Windows ( not the upgrade) it will come with a start-up disk for this purpose. The start-up disk will create a partition and format it for you. It will then ask for Setup Disk 1 or the CD-ROM, which will install Windows 95. You will need a boot disk that has the DOS utilities Fdisk, Format, Sys. An excellent place to download one is at http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm |
I have found that Windows
98 Custom, No Ramdrive works well and it
will load your CDROM drive as you will need the CDROM to loads
Windows, unless you are using floppies. It works with Windows 95 |
Don't forget to set the
computer to boot from a floppy as the 1st boot device. |
To create a File Allocation Table (FAT) read THIS |
| 2. Once the partition is made then you will need to format that partition to accept data. Please read THIS, I suggest you format with the S switch. e.g., format c: /s (hit <enter>) this will transfer the system files to the hard drive and make it bootable. |
| 3. Once the format is done you are not ready to install Windows 95, assumming you are now at the A:/> prompt and you watched the screen and it told you what drive letter it assigned to your cdrom then you would type the following with the Windows 95 CD in. |
| D: (hit<enter>) - substitute D: with the drive letter assigned to your cdrom |
| Setup (hit<enter>) |
Now there are many switches that can be used when installing
Windows 95: |
/d - If you do not want Setup to use your existing copy of Windows. filename - Runs setup with the specified setup file /id - Ignores the Disk Space check /in - Runs setup without the Network Setup Module /ip - Ignores test for any Plug and Play devices /iq - Skips the test for cross-linked files /is - Ignores the routine System check /it - Ignores "dirty" or "deadly" terminate-and-stay-resident programs (TSRs) that are known to cause problems with Windows 95 Setup. /l - Use this switch if you have a Logitech mouse and want it enabled during Setup. /n - This switch causes Setup to run without a mouse. |
| If you have an older CDROM or one that is plugged into your sound card, then the bootdisk you downloaded from bootdisk.com may not work. You have have to find your cdrom drivers and load them separately in order for the cdrom to work. Do this before trying to install Windows 95. |
You may be able to find your CDROM drivers HERE |
If you are upgrading from Windows 3.x Windows 95 may ask for a previous version of windows, so have Windows 3.1 Disk 1, as proof that you're eligible for the upgrade |
On a hard drive with Windows
already on it. |
Microsoft recommends you to run the Windows 95 setup
from within Windows 3.x, which does work, but if you plan on installing
Windows 95 in a separate directory than your existing Windows, you
should run setup from DOS instead. |
Make sure that all your peripherals work properly with
Windows 3.x before you upgrade. If you don't plan
on dual booting between Windows 95 and Windows 3.x and you just can't
wait to install all your applications from scratch again (?), it is
still the best to install Windows 95 from scratch! It will take some
time, but you will have the best chance of a good working Windows 95. |
If you installed Windows 95 "on top" of
Windows 3.x and you experience a lot of errors which you can't explain,
try installing Windows 95 from scratch! (meaning: start with Format C: ).
Just back-up all your data files, and check that you have all the installation
disks. See above on installing on a blank hard drive. |
| If you are going to dual boot between Windows 3.X and Windows 95 you may be able to Share your Swap file between the two operating systems. By setting MinPagingFileSize in the [386Enh] section of the Windows 95 SYSTEM.INI greater than or equal to the physical size (in Kbytes) of the swap file. Take the size in bytes of the 386SPART.PAR file (usually found in the root of drive C:) and divide by 1024. (One way to get the true size is by typing dir c:\*.par /a:s at the DOS prompt.) |
| Using notepad open up the Windows system.ini file then look at these entries: |
| [386Enh] PagingFile=C:\386SPART.PAR MinPagingFileSize=8196; True size (in bytes) of 386SPART.PAR divided by 1024. |
| If you installed Windows 95 over the top of Windows 3.X then the setup program does not always remove the old swap file. The file is called 386spart.par, and to be able to see it in explorer you need to tell explorer to show hidden files. (see How do I show hidden files (such as Msdos.sys) to see how to show hidden files in explorer). |
| You can safely delete this file, but also check your "system.ini" file (Open it with a text editor like EDIT) if you see these lines: (under the [386enh] section) |
Delete these entries. Windows 95 uses another swap file called "Win386.swp". |
And now you have Windows 95 installed |
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