Installing Windows 95 inside QEMU on Linux

If you can just install Windows 95 inside QEMU and it magically works consider yourself lucky. I tried this and got an error message that I need to create a FAT partition first where the installer can place some files. That's where it all began.

Installing

  • Create the disk image. dd if=/dev/zero of=hda bs=$(( 1024*1024 )) seek=1000 count=0. That way you create a sparse 1GB file.
  • Get a FreeDOS Floppy and CD image and install FreeDOS inside QEMU, there you can partition your disk. qemu -hda hda -fda fd0 -cdrom cdrom-img -boot a.
  • Insert the windows CD, run qemu with -cdrom /dev/cdrom -boot c so you get to the FreeDOS prompt, then go to the cdrom drive and run setup. The setup should work then

Getting networking up inside Windows

  • You need the Realtek rtl8139 driver, other network cards won't work (ne2000 at least doesn't). So run qemu with -net user -net nic,model=rtl8139.
  • Windows 95 unfortunately doesn't have the driver for the rtl8139, so you need to get it onto the system. Download it from well, the Realtek driver download page. Unzip it, put it onto a floppy, create an image of that floppy and run qemu with -fda image.
  • Then setup the networking under windows, reboot and you should be able to access the internet.