vwin32 support, possibility to run Windows 9x?

[jschwartzenberg]

@stsp noticed the vwin32 bits in DPMIONE. I tried to run Windows 95 with DPMIONE, but that doesn't seem to work. See: dosemu2/dosemu2#988 (comment)

Might it be possible to run Windows 9x inside of DPMIONE? :)

[sudleyplace]

On 3/9/2020 1:25 PM, Julius Schwartzenberg wrote: @stsp <https://github.com/stsp> noticed the vwin32 bits in DPMIONE. I tried to run Windows 95 with DPMIONE, but that doesn't seem to work. See: dosemu2/dosemu2#988 (comment) <dosemu2/dosemu2#988 (comment)> Might it be possible to run Windows 9x inside of DPMIONE? :)

This is a memory test for me. I seem to recall that there were a couple of undocumented low numbered DPMI calls needed in order to run Win 3.1, so perhaps there are others needed for Win9x. Short of debugging the sequence, I can't tell what is needed in order to run Win9x. Sorry, but I'm knee-deep in another open source project. Situations like this are why I wrote 386SWAT. Does anybody use that, or has it been superseded by something else?

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_______________________________________________________________ Bob Smith - bsmith@sudleyplace.com http://www.sudleyplace.com - http://www.nars2000.org

[stsp]

I can't tell what is needed in order to run Win9x.

At least vwin32.vxd is needed, and your code has
a lot of vwin32.vxd API inside. And it is not needed
for win3.1, so presumably you could run win9x in
the past? Or was it some abandoned attempt?

Situations like this are why I wrote 386SWAT.
Does anybody use that, or
has it been superseded by something else?

Most emulators have built-in debuggers, and not
all emulators support stand-alone ring-0 debuggers.

By the way, does DPMIONE provide per-client
LDT and IDT, the way dpmi-1.0 specifies it? Or
is it only about dpmi-1.0 API, but not LDT/IDT
requirements?

[jschwartzenberg]

I tried Chicago 58s as I thought it might be more like win31, but it doesn't work either:

With HDPMI I get a different error:

I check the ver output, but the booted DOS seems correct (and Chicago works with its own loader):

@Baron-von-Riedesel did you ever try to get Windows 9x to work with HDPMI? :)

[Baron-von-Riedesel]

@Baron-von-Riedesel did you ever try to get Windows 9x to work with HDPMI? :)

No. IIRC, I tried Win31 Enhanced mode, with a special version of HDPMI, and I vaguely remember that at least progman.exe did run.

However, running Win32 apps under a "standard" 16-bit DPMI host (HDPMI16) seems impossible, since the stack is 16-bit only and interrupt/exception handlers also are 16-bit.

[stsp]

The question here is about running
windows with krnl386.exe directly,
rather than by win.com. For that you
do not need a special hdpmi version,
and for win95 you need 32bit dpmi +
vwin32, which dpmione seems to
provide, and hdpmi likely not.

[jschwartzenberg]

No. IIRC, I tried Win31 Enhanced mode, with a special version of HDPMI, and I vaguely remember that at least progman.exe did run.

InstallShield worked fine for me as well: dosemu2/dosemu2#380 (comment) :)

[jschwartzenberg]

Work related to launching Windows 9x is also here:
joncampbell123/dosbox-x#1217
https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/blob/1103372460eed9b1f9a6e244f68affb9d38194d2/src/dos/dos_misc.cpp

This is about using another DOS though. I don't know how much it's the DPMI server part of Windows 9x containing vwin32 that relies on specifics of the included MS-DOS 7/8 or also the client part that we're attempting to load with another DPMI server.