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Windows 95 support? #172
Description
I understand the trouble with non-PNP hardware being detected during the DOS-based installer and that posing an issue, but fundamentally, don't all PCs have pretty much the same non-PnP hardware? The I/O ports and memory regions and IRQs used for the most fundamental PC devices are pretty much the same on all PCs (basic VGA, COM ports, keyboard, floppy, disk -- even if there's no IDE compatibility, there's always the real-mode mapper --, etc), so is there really much to worry about?
Maybe I'm missing something, but what is stopping someone from using this tool to deploy a "generic" Windows 95 image (i.e. with no drivers installed but the most basic ones applicable to every PC) and then installing the drivers on top of that?
Activity
oerg866 commentedon Sep 26, 2026
Fundamental architectural differences between 95 and 98(SE) prevent this from being a thing without substantial development effort on both sides (image creation + installer support).
So, no, it will not happen. Compared to 98, Win95 is very incomplete, buggy and not even faster if you install a Micro 98 variant. There is no real benefit to a Win95 QuickInstall at all.
(and this, again, is Q&A, not a bug tracker issue...)