Dual OS

Alright so right now I have windows XP sp2 home edition installed on my computer. I'm trying to install 98 so that I can play some old games, thus making dual operating systems. However, whenver i open the setup file in the 98 setup CD a message displays saying "You cannot install Windows 98 while running this version of Windows. Start your computer in MS-DOS mode and then install Windows 98. See the Windows 98 installation guide for further instructions." So i did the logical thing and made a DOS start-up disk. I changed the BIOS settings so that the computer loaded from the a: drive, and all was went well… the computer booted up into DOS However, when i tried to type ANY command, a line displayed saying "Bad Command or File Name." I then tried running a command prompt in XP, but same message. Anyone have any advice?

Hi

My reading of your post is that you have not been able to get the Win98 installation program to run with either a boot disk or from the Window XP command window. You can still boot normally into XP though.

The are several problems in getting Win98 to dual boot when WinXP is already installed. The first problem is what file system XP is using? Most likely it is NTFS. If so, Win98 does not recognize NTFS. Win98 would need to be installed in a FAT32 parition, and would not recognize the NTFS parition that XP is installed in.

The second problem is that Microsoft wants Win98 to be installed before XP. Quoting from the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article:

You have to install Windows XP only after installing MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me to prevent these operating systems from overwriting the Windows XP boot sector and the Windows XP startup files. This is a problem unless you were planning to reinstall XP for some reason.

To create a multiple-boot system with Windows XP and MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me:
1. Ensure that your hard disk is formatted with the correct file system.
2. Install the multiple operating systems into separate volumes, in the following order: MS-DOS; Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me; and then Windows XP.
3. Do one of the following:
• If you want a multiple-boot system with MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me along with Windows XP, install MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me, and then install Windows XP.
• If you want a dual-boot system with Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me, along with Windows XP, you should install either Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me, and then install Windows XP.
Install each operating system according to the standard installation procedure.

How to create a multiple-boot system in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…kb;en-us;306559

A third party program like Parition Magic 8.0 can be used to install a boot manager and then install win98 OS when XP has already been installed. I have not personally tried this, but there is an article on symantec support site describing the procedure. The title is

Partition your hard disk to install Windows 95/98/Me on a Windows 2000/XP system with PartitionMagic

One major complication is that per that article:

In most cases, Windows 2000/XP and Windows 95/98/Me partitions must start below the 8 GB boundary to be bootable. However, if your computer supports INT13 extensions, then Windows XP/2000 and Windows Me can boot beyond the 8 GB boundary. Consult your computer documentation to determine if your computer supports INT13 extensions.

This could limit the size of the Win98 parition that can be installed.

Have you checked tried using XP's compatability modes to get the old win98 games to run?

wow thanks alot for the lengthy response. I tried the compatability feature of windows but with no luck. I'm going to try the wizard you suggested and hope that works. If not, would i lose any system files (i.e. user names and preferances) if I were to uninstall XP, install 98, then install XP? thanks alot.

Too bad compatability mode did not work. Uninstalling XP would lose all your current settings, and would require you to reinstall all your software after XP is reinstalled. Pretty drastic solution unless the XP installation is new and your have not installed anything Also if your XP disk is formatted as NTFS file system, the win98 installation would want to reformat the hard drive to FAT32 and you would lose any data and files stored on it. One of my computer dual boots win98 and Win2000, but I installed the win2000 to a win98 computer, and left the hard drive fromatted as FAT32. Don't have an old computer about to install win98 on to use for gaming?

Windows 98 MUST be on drive C: