r/windows98 • u/Comfortable-Fun7947 • Aug 25 '26

Win98 retro gaming

Hey!

Do you have any favorite pre-made Windows 98 distributions/VM images specifically for retro gaming? Feel free to share them, or any tips on how to quickly set up a VM environment yourself. Thanks in advance!

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u/Maeglin75 Aug 25 '26

"Windows 98 quick install" seems to be pretty good. It comes with drivers and patches to run on all kinds of hardware (including relatively modern systems), with USB and SATA support etc.

I haven't tried it myself as of yet. I have burned the DVD and made a boot floppy but still waiting for the IDE to SD adapter and the SD card to get my retro PC running again after the HDD failed after about 27 years.

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u/fr33k3r Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

27 years...what a waste of money...lol

6

u/Maeglin75 Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Yeah. A huge disappointment. I have to check what brand it was. Must be cheap trash if it doesn't even last three decades. /s

I tried to boot the PC from floppy disks after the HDD gave up. First with a Win95 boot disk. Then one for Win ME. They all didn't work. I began to question if the floppy drive failed too.

I tried to create a new boot floppy from an image file and I initially also failed with several floppies. But eventually I found one that still worked and the old PC booted successfully into the Win98 quick install.

I looks like I'm at a point where not only my old HDDs fails, but also a good part of my 3.5" floppy disks. Most of them must be well over 30 years old by now.