All About Windows 95 Operating System Release 2 Installing OSR2 Sean Erwin
Can I upgrade my extisting installation of Windows 95 to OSR2 with the OSR2 disk?
No. If you attempt to upgrade from an earlier version of Windows 95, it will give an error message and not let you proceed. You can only install OSR2 on top of DOS, and the most you really need are a formatted hard disk, either bootable or with a boot floppy, and your properly configured DOS CDROM drivers.
Okay, but there's gotta be a way to fool it into upgrading from an earlier version of Windows 95!!!!
There are two ways.
Method 1 (easier, but follow the instructions carefully!)
Rename the file "WIN.COM" in the C:WINDOWS directory. Then run setup on the OSR2 CD from the DOS prompt. This will upgrade your current version of Win95 to OSR2. Tip: Remove all entries from C:windowsstart menuprogramsstartup before you upgrade. Of course, you will need your DOS CDROM drivers properly configured to read from your CDROM under DOS. Do not attempt this unless you are comfortable mucking around with system files. Finally, once you get OSR2 setup running, and you get to the screen where you specify which directory to install to, the default will not be C:WINDOWS. Manually change the install directory to C:WINDOWS (or wherever your existing version of Win95 is) to upgrade your existing installation.
Method 2:
This method is more difficult and should only be attempted by highly experienced users. The advantage is that while Method 1 is a "trick," this method actually changes OSR2 to an upgrade version. Method 2 is courtesy Chip May.
Prerequsite: You must have at least 100MB free. You will be copying the /Win95/ directory from the CDROM to your hard drive and installing from your hard drive.
Make a temp directory on a hard drive - call it Win95.
Copy the Win95 directory from the CD to the new directory on your hard drive. From here, we work with the files on your hard drive.
Extract from PRECOPY2.CAB the file called SETUPPP.INF. Note: MS has a CAB file extraction tool available as a PowerToy on their WEB site.
Open LAYOUT.INF in a text editor. Search for the string "SETUPPP.INF". You should find: setuppp.inf=2,,4550
Change the 2 to a 0 to read:
setuppp.inf=0,,4550
Save the changes..
This prevents setup from extracting SETUPPP.INF from the CAB file during installation. Setup will instead use the SETUPPP.INF file file we manually extracted in step 3 and will modify in step 5.
Open SETUPPP.INF in a text editor. Search for "ProductType". You should find: ProductType=9
Change 9 to 1 to read: ProductType=1
Save the changes...
This apparently tells setup that this is an upgrade.
There is no need to "put SETUPPP.INF back into PRECOPY2.CAB". The change we made to LAYOUT.INF in step 4 forces setup to use our modified version of SETUPPP.INF. Just leave SETUPPP.INF out in the directory with all the other setup files & cab files.
Run SETUP from Windows 95 off your hard drive. Installation will proceed as an upgrade.
Notes
on ProductType=X in SETUPPP.INF:
ProductType=1: Upgrades without asking for CD KEY (serial number) ProductType=2: Asks for 10-digit CD KEY ProductType=3: Wants a floppy install - doesn't work. ProductType=4: Fails - Error - previous ops system installed. ProductType=5: Works - asks for CD KEY, but won't take valid keys- can "ignore" ProductType=6: Works OK (?) (?) ProductType=7: Fails - Error - previous op system ProductType=8: Fails - Error - previous op system ProductType=9: OEM non upgrade version: Asks for OEM certificate number.
on conserving disk space:
To use a little less disk space, do as in Method 2 except:
Copy everything from the WIN95 directory *except* the WIN95*.CAB files, and the online service setup files: CS3KIT.EXE, SETUP25I.EXE, SETUP32.EXE, and WOWKIT.EXE -- the only CABs you need are MINI.CAB, PRECOPY1.CAB and PRECOPY2.CAB. With this technique Windows 95 Setup will ask for a file at some point during the file copy stage -- at that time you type in X:WIN95 (where X=CDROM drive letter) and installation will continue, taking the rest of the files from the CD. Unfortunately, this creates the problem of Windows 95 forever prompting to load drivers, etc. from the hard disk location rather than the CDROM location.
Warning If you currently have set Windows 95 (release version) up to dual boot with Windows 3.1. or DOS, and you force OSR2 to "upgrade" in the manner described above, you will lose the ability to dual boot. That is, you will no longer be able to choose to boot to DOS or Windows3.x. Microsoft has removed this ability from OSR2. For more information on this, see Microsoft's Knowledge Base Article on the subject.
After the installation is complete, you can convert the file system from FAT16 to FAT32 using Partition Magic 3.0, if desired.
Let's say I do all of this. Will I have to reinstall all my applications? Will my registry settings be retained? Will my Desktop be the way it was before I upgraded?
Your applications will be left intact, no reinstallations will be necessary. Your desktop will be as it was. As far as the registry goes, some changes will be made, but these changes will mainly reflect changes in the operating system, and also newer hardware drivers which may be installed upon upgrading. On the whole, your system should look and act much like it did before the upgrade. I am not aware of any differences in the final result of Method 1 vs Method 2 in terms of the registry, but I would not be surprised if there are differences. This is a matter for further research :)
I've tried Method 1 and it still won't upgrade!
For Method 1, you must rename all instances of WIN.COM present on any hard drive/partition in your system before this will work. This includes any WIN.COM from a Windows3.x installation. If this applies to you, and you currently dual boot by using F4 on Windows 95 startup, be warned that you will no longer be able to do this after you "upgrade" to OSR2.
Will my 16-bit Microsoft Office Applications such as Microsoft Word 6 or Microsoft Excel 5 install under OSR2?
Strangely enough, the answer is no. These apps look for "share.exe" when they are installed, and share.exe has evidently been omitted from OSR2. If you stick an version of share.exe in the autoexec.bat, you'll get a "wrong MSDOS version" error. Here is a workaround, courtesy Chris Quirke.
Get another .exe TSR that will load and do nothing
A good e.g. is InterLnk.exe (no version probs)
Copy it to C:SomePathShare.exe
Add a reference to this in AutoExec.bat
Install your 16-bit MS Office app.
Undo Undo Undo
I love my Powertoys. What PowerToys are included in OSR2? Are all PowerToys compatible with OSR2? What about KernelToys?
I'm not sure on this one. I know QuikRes is in OSR2, but I'm not sure about the rest. All PowerToys are compatible with OSR2, but I'm not sure about KernelToys. If you know, please let me know!
