Windows NT, 2000, XP - how to install them as guest? #3538
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Make sure when installing Windows NT that the hard disk and CD-ROM drive are both imgmounted as IDE devices. -ide 1m for the hard drive, -ide 2m for the CD-ROM drive. Make sure there is enough memory. Windows NT 4.0 should have 16MB, Windows 2000 should have 32MB-64MB, Windows XP should have 128MB. I tested these OSes with a hard disk image that is 900MB, except Windows XP, which needed a hard disk image that was larger than 1GB. The disk was formatted FAT16. Windows XP was tested from a FAT32 partition on a 4GB hard disk image. All but Windows XP worked properly. Windows XP could never get OOBE to work and could never log in even as Administrator. |
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As for OS/2 none of the versions I tried (from 1.0 through 4.0) were able to boot in DOSBox-X. Getting OS/2 to run is going to take more work. OS/2 1.0 to 2.x use their own protected mode drivers that talk directly to the floppy controller, however floppy controller emulation does not seem to work with whatever way OS/2 expects, which prevents OS/2 1.x and 2.x from even booting at all. |
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Thanks, will try like that. Tests above I made with the default IDEs (e.g. just imgmount c: HDD.IMG, imgmound d: CD.ISO). So, if I use "-ide 1m", "-ide 2m", then CD will be bootable? Because that was my problem for most attempts. Or should I still try to go via MS-DOS and WINNT.EXE /b? ReactOS - CD isn't recognized as bootable and also from DOS6.22: dir show files, but no other commands can work with them: Same CD.ISO boots and installs OK in VirtualBox. Windows ISO CDs I mentioned above also boot and install OK in VirtualBox. |
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I did not know that Windows XP is an operating system that could theoretically run in DOSBox. |
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@BridgeHeadland there are step-by-step instructions on the wiki for installing Windows from 1.0 up to ME, and you can create them with a HDD size of your liking (within limits of the OS in question). Providing pre-installed versions is out of the question for me. Apart from the legality, there is also way to many possible variations. Apart from the Windows version, there is the language (English, French, German, Japanese, etc) and OS updates. And then people will want their favourite tools/utils pre-installed, etc. Or a different model video or sound card, which implies different drivers. Hopeless. |
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@rderooy I tried to install Windows 98SE once while following the instructions, but still got some errors during the installation. I have always thought that I have misinterpreted the instruction, and I misinterpret things very often. I have never managed to install old Windows in DOSBox anyway, nor do I know any computer experts who are available to me 24/7 and who can help me. |
Can you give a configuration file that can start win2000 or xp? |
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I know some XP compatible games support Dolby Digital 7.1 (and maybe higher too), but do Windows XP and DOSBox-X support Dolby Digital 7.1? |
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Windows NT versoins, such as XP are not supported at this point. You are on you're own if you want to try it. And no, DOSBox-X does not support any kind of surround-sound. Only regular Stereo. |
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@rderooy Will it ever be fixed? I just did some research, XP supports Dolby Digital and so do the games that are compatible with XP. Even Windows 9x supports Dolby Surround. |
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I left my crystal ball in my other pocket. This is a community project, not a commercial software product. It could be added, if there is a developer who wants to develop such a feature for DOSBox-X. |
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I have yet to install or own Windows XP for DOSBox-X, and besides, I know that the Windows 32-bit versions of DOSBox-X can run in Windows XP. Does that mean that one can run a Windows 32-bit version of DOSBox-X in XP, which in turn runs in DOSBox-X (any version, or some of them)? |
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I tried using imgmount with -ide 1m for the hard drive, -ide 2m for the CD-ROM drive. Using DOSbox-X SDL1 MinGW64 2022-11-20 "artifact". Those got me to:
What should I do differently?
Now a few more oddities and questions:
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Win 2003 R2 SP2 - outcome similar to WinXP: When mounting as drive number: But then I don't see how to boot from it. When mounting as driver letter - CD-ROM contents are accessible from the drive letter, but then: Can DOSbox be made to recognize the bootable part of WinXP/2003 CDs? Also why "Could not extract drive geometry from image." appears only when mounting as number? D drive when mounted as letter works, files are accessible. Next attempt - IMGMOUNT as A/C/D a Win98 floppy (MS-DOS 7.10, MSCDEX, etc.), VHD image, the Win 2003 ISO - "Reboot guest system" - same thing happens. LOG shows some errors while booting DOS: Next - started DOSbox with: Used menu Drive \ D \ Boot from drive -> drive not bootable Why is that dependent on the CPU cycles? "Reboot guest system" - stuck at: Those "using level" message increase the number every time I click outside DOSbox and then back onto its window. Next attempt - IMGMOUNT as A/C/D a Win98 floppy (MS-DOS 7.10, MSCDEX, etc.), VHD image, the Win 2003 ISO Wow... and now while I was copying that from the LOG - setup proceeded by itself! The yellow bar and percentage and file copying. Reached the following (without new LOG entries): Now I'm at about 23% yellow bar, but too many "skip file" to press... I doubt Windows will boot with so many missing files. Maybe I should try instead:
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Also interesting - blue background color looks different:
RGB values taken via Sniping tool and then Paint.
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When trying to "boot c:" from VHD where Win 2003 is installed via VirtualBox: IMGMOUNT -ide 1m (both as letter and as number - same result) |
Sorry if I'm asking a silly question, but how do I use "-ide 1m" and "-ide 2m"? I've done some research but can't find any tutorials or anything, and I was thinking of trying my hand at installing Windows XP in DOSBox-X. |
https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3AManaging-image-files-in-DOSBox%E2%80%90X#_mounting_harddisk_images In my attempts so far CD images for me are bootable in VirtualBox, but not in DOSbox-X. So I run WINNT or setup from DOSbox shell or guest MS-DOS floppy. As you can see above - no success, so I'm interested what you'll get. |
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There are multiple ways to create bootable CD images, not all are supported in every environment. This was even true of real PCs back in the day, as the PCs BIOS may not support every CD boot option. In particular DOSBox-X only supports bootable CD images that use the "virtual floppy" method, as used by select OEM versions of Windows 9x/ME. |
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I found this article explaining the journey to install XP as guest: |
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Fantastic! I'll try as well (install Win98SE, upgrade it to Win2000 Update Rollup, upgrade that to WinXP). I think WinXP emulation will become relevant, because hypervisors will lose support for 32-bit operating systems and 16-bit applications when x86-S CPUs become a reality. To preserve software not running on Win9x and not running on 64-bit Windows (e.g. XP games using a 16-bit installer or something else missing in Vista+) Intel recently announced also APX (adding 16 extra general purpose registers). Also, the x87, MMX, and 3DNow! instruction sets are already deprecated in 64-bit modes - thus it's likely CPUs will lose support of those if AVX gets quad-precision floating point support (to cater for the software that needs 80-bit x87). x86-S, APX and a hypothetical AVX-FP128 together would make a sensible cut-off point for CPUs/Windows to move forward. Does somebody know a place listing the software potentially affected?
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@Torinde I want to confirm that I tried to upgrade to Windows 2000 from Windows ME, because WME is better than W98SE, but that's my opinion. It looked like it didn't work. In a couple of hours or so, I'll install Windows 98SE onto a VHD file, to see if I have better luck upgrading to W2K then, W2K actually came between W98SE and WME after all. On the other hand, there is probably something I have misunderstood during the tutorial that SuperPat45 has linked to, the thing about upgrading from 9x to NT is actually very new to me. |
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After a long time it has succeeded for me to install Windows 2000, from Windows ME, it obviously takes a long time to start up this NT-Windows for the first time. The memory size is 128, the core is at normal, and the CPU type is Pentium MMX. Could the reason why Windows 2000 takes a long time to start up be because of the values I mentioned, or could it be because the VHD file is 16GB? Is there anyone who knows? |
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I test installation using the MS-DOS based initial install program in I386/, you don't have to install from Windows. Make sure you have a formatted hard disk image mounted as drive C: for it to install to. You may use FAT32 only if installing Windows 2000 or higher, older Windows NT systems cannot handle FAT32. |
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@joncampbell123 Wow! Can you describe the configurations during the installation? There is nothing in the wiki about how to install Windows 2000 in DOSBox-X. |
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Here's my config, based on the Windows ME config from the wiki but with a few tweaks: [sdl]
autolock=true
output=openglpp
[dosbox]
title=Windows 2000
memsize=128
[video]
vmemsize=8
vesa modelist width limit=0
vesa modelist height limit=0
[dos]
ver=7.10
lfn=auto
hard drive data rate limit=0
floppy drive data rate limit=0
[vsync]
vsyncmode = on
vsyncrate = 60
[voodoo]
voodoo_card = software
voodoo_maxmem = true
glide = true
lfb = full_noaux
splash = true
[cpu]
cputype=ppro_slow
core=dynamic_rec
cycles=max
[sblaster]
sbtype=sb16vibra
[fdc, primary]
int13fakev86io=false
[ide, primary]
int13fakeio=true
int13fakev86io=false
[ide, secondary]
int13fakeio=true
int13fakev86io=false
cd-rom insertion delay=4000
[render]
scaler=none
[autoexec]
imgmount c hdd.img -t hdd -ide 1m
imgmount d "win2000.iso" -t iso -ide 2mCopy the contents of D:\I386 to C:\I386, run the following commands in dosbox-x: c:
cd I386
WINNT.EXE /s:c:\i386I can't report on its success as I'm currently in the process of installing, but so far so good... |
Having replied before I got up this morning... yes, that's basically how I do it too. :) |
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@joncampbell123 The "inaccessible boot device" BSOD, and the primary HD vanishing mentioned above, when Windows NT 4.0 is updated with a Service Pack >1 could be related to #4837 ? Perhaps SP2+ disk drivers talk with the hardware in a different way? |
Maybe SP1 and higher changed how the IDE driver works. |
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This is my experience of Windows XP in a dynamic VHD file created in DOSBox-X with VHDMAKE: Unlike a VHD file created with IMGMAKE, where the storage capacity limitation of Windows XP is 31.25 GB (if the file system is NTFS), the the limitation of the storage capacity of Windows XP is 2 TB (if the file system is NTFS), and I'm happy about that, because when Windows XP is in a dynamic VHD file of 31.25 GB, Windows XP behaves as if the storage capacity is about 4 GB, if the VHD file is fixed. Even at 2 TB in dynamic VHD file, I experience getting messages with the heading "Windows - Delayed Write Failed", like you see in the pictures below, if I update something Windows-related, or install components. Windows XP agrees to be activated with xp_activate32.exe, but to update Windows XP to the latest version from 2019, and components from the installation CD (ISO) of Windows XP (MCE2K5), which I have already tried, I am experiencing the errors that I have mentioned, there has never been a problem if Windows XP was installed in a fixed 31.25 GB VHD file. Could it be because DOSBox-X, Windows XP, or the VHD file currently thinks that the total size of the storage capacity is 23.9 GB (7.3-4 GB to go), and that there is 20.5 GB of free space? I think that might be the reason, but I'm not entirely sure. |
I tried to install WinXP according to the document you provided below |
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I haven't updated the post for a while, as I've been busy testing out VHDMAKE. If you created a dynamic VHD file by typing "VHDMAKE hdd_xp.vhd 2040g", you must mount the VHD file as 2, not C. Do not open the D drive, i386 folder, and type ""winnt.exe ", but write "Boot -el-toroto D:" from the Z drive. Remember that you must initialize the VHD file to MBR with Disk Manager before mounting. |
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After several experiments with installing Windows built on NT technology, not least Windows XP, I have noticed that if you, in a dynamic VHD file that is MBR-initialized and is 32000 MB (31.25 GB) , created in either DOSBox-X with VHDMAKE, or in Disk Manager in Windows 1x, installing Windows 2000 or XP, I see that Windows will be installed on a 31997 MB hard drive, and that's a good thing, but doing the same in such VHD-file, only at 2040 GB (2 TB), I see Windows being installed at 24XXX MB (can't remember the exact number at the moment, but it's equal to 23.99 GB) and I can't see how this make any sense. I've done some research and it appears that Windows XP, also Server 2003, Home Server, and probably pre-reset Longhorn (Beta-Vista), can be installed on 2TB. |
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I have created a dynamic VHD file in Disk Manager in Windows 11, installed Windows Vista Ultimate (x86) with SP2 in the VHD file with VirtualBox 7.0, and tried to run Windows Vista in the said VHD file with DOSBox-X (not latest developer build), although Windows Boot Manager was the only thing I expected to see. The only thing that happened was that I had to restart the entire DOSBox by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete. I did the same procedure once again, just the W11 Disk Manager created VHD file was fixed, this time I got Windows Boot Manager running, but not Windows Vista, as expected (this is the first time I tried it in a raw, fixed VHD file), because DOSBox-X does not emulate SATA. NTLDR by the way, cannot run in VHD files made with Disk Manager or VHDMAKE, which is sad if someone wants to multi-boot in such VHD files, DOSBox-X skip NTLDR, and start Windows directly - you can multi-boot both Windows 2000 and Windows XP in the same VHD-file/partition (IMGMAKE only |
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Admittedly, Windows Longhorn (up to build 4015) is unable to continue installation from the second phase, in any of the versions of DOSBox-X, for now, not even the latest nightly build, but still… |
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@Torinde I see you are replying to a comment that I have deleted, I deleted it because I thought I found the answer and it seemed silly to have the comment posted here, but according to your reply I realize there are certain things I had no idea on, and which I still do not understand. |
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@Torinde I understand. |
It looks as if it was not possible to update Windows XP to the version from 9 April 2019 as of today anyway. It was apparently an earlier version that I updated to last time. |
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Yesterday I converted the dynamic VHD file to fixed, to see if the April 9, 2019 update worked, just to be safe I installed Service Pack 3 first. |
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i wanted to know how this going what is the last version we can run on dosbox-x now |
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@Pierrestro I'm not a developer so I don't know how it going. It has been quiet here since May 13th. Three of the workflows for recent nightly builds have each errors during the processes - as I have mentioned at #5011, and it has not been used since the issue was new. |
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#4907 |
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I have mentioned this issue in a recent issue. |
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At least it seems that we can now start the installation of Windows NT 4.0 in a dynamic VHD file created in Disk Manager, slowly formatted to FAT16 with allocation unit size 32K, and again format the VHD to NTFS during installation , but before I could complete the installation this happens. What does this mean? This is the configuration I use. Edit: Just now I have found out that you can install WNT40 on a 4098 MB VHD, if WNT40 is installed this way. Maybe it works with WNT35X too? |
As I mentioned earlier today, I had trouble completing the installation of Windows NT 4.0. I finally got it and it was 4096-4098MB (4GB), which is the maximum storage capacity that WNT40 can be installed on, simply because it is the maximum storage capacity that supports FAT16, even though I formatted the file system to NTFS. |
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I did some configuration experiments and it seems that you can actually run Windows XP in DOSBox-X and at the same time emulate Pentium 2 and 3, just increase the cycles, max isn't enough, even if 3.40 GHz is the basic speed of my PC device (I use an Intel Core i7). I increased the cycles to 3481600, although the cycles of my PC is 3400000, then I set the CPU type to Pentium 2 to see if Windows XP would then be able to run with Pentium 2 in DOSBox-X, and that worked, Microsoft Sam can even talk. I didn't stop there, next I set the cycles to 6963200, and the CPU type to Pentium 3, that worked too, and even then Microsoft Sam could talk. I didn't experience crashes like I would otherwise. I don't know either the minimum or the recommended requirement for Pentium 3 in the DOSBox-X case, but it is clearly more than the Pentium 3 requirements in real hardware, probably because DOSBox-X is a virtual machine. |
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I just checked if Windows XP can run with Pentium 3 and 4070000 cycles (407000x10) and it could. |
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Because I was able to run Windows XP with Pentium 3, I tried to install Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition and Windows Longhorn build 4020 (fixed version), because I was so confident that I would be able to do it, but it proved to crash this time too. |
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@BridgeHeadland, DOSbox-X doesn't support more than 4GB RAM (PAE might be possible, so maybe it will, one day) and no Windows requires more than 4GB (yet). Recommended size for Win2003 is way less, it should be fine with 1GB. Did you try the Win 2000 Server editions? Just to check, because you have 2000 Pro and XP Pro running, but not the XP Server counterpart. Also, there were some ACPI code additions in March, so maybe that can be enabled and Vista can run now? |
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@Torinde I have tried the Windows 2000 Server Editions and it worked very well, I even installed the RTM edition of Windows Server 2003, the only one I got to install in DOBox-X. |
Vista cannot install in DOSBox-X as I understand it because DOSBox-X does not implement ACPI. The test ACPI in the code isn't standard and Vista doesn't recognize it. |
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#4907 |
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It is possible to run the RTM version of Windows Server 2003 in DOSBox-X with Pentium 3, I increased the cycles to 40.70 Ghz, despite the low speed of the PC device I used. The point was to see if I could then install Service Pack 2, and then do a clean installation of Windows Home Server. For some reason DOSBox-X seems to be unable to install Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 and this is the message I got. EDIT: I tried the same with 4.07 Ghz, as I had an impression that the crash from last time the cycles were set to 4070000 was due to something else. The RTM version of Windows Server 2003 runs fine with Pentium 3 and 4.07 Ghz. |
Question
Version 0.84.0 among other things "fixes problems with the IDE driver in Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP and allows them to boot properly"
At NOTES there are mentioned:
My attempts with 0.84.0 are unsuccessful so far. Following the NOTES files, after first installing MS-DOS 6.22 I ran "WINNT.EXE /b" from an NT4 ISO and setup finished properly - but on first boot I got a crash:
From what I see floppy emulation is still missing (#3436), correct? So, it's either via MSDOS and WINNT.EXE /b - or via CD.ISO boot, correct?
I get "El Torito bootable floppy not found" when trying "imgmount a -bootcd d" - for ISOs of NT4, 2000, ReactOS, Vista. Strangely OS/2 4.52 ISO was accepted as bootable, but crashes:
Haven't tried NT3.1, NT3.5 and XP yet.
After mounting some of the CDs and looking inside DOSbox finds only a README.TXT file stating 'your OS needs to support UDF', 'your OS needs to support Joliet' - not sure if I do something wrong? would be nice if DOSbox-X can read those directly.
Will there be guide(s) added to the wiki about those? @rderooy
Have you checked that no similar question(s) exist?
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