How to install Windows 95 OSR2 on a ThinkPad T23

[Edward Mendelson]

This took me about four tries to figure out, and I hope it may be useful to anyone else. Many of the instructions should apply to other models from the T23 era. The result is a system with no "unknown" or "other" devices:

Install Windows 95 on a ThinkPad T23

This assumes that you are installing Windows 95 OSR 2.x and that your T23 has the Intel PRO/100 VE ethernet adapter.

You will need a working Windows system where you can extract the driver files and then move them to the T23.

All the files listed here may be downloaded from:

https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... s/mobiles/

1. Boot to DOS on the disk where you will install Windows 95, make a folder named something like WIN95 and copy into it the folder from your Windows 95 OSR 2 installation CD that contains Setup.exe and folders named Admin, Datalink, Demos, Drivers, Funstuff, Help, Other, Sampler, and Win95. (Not all of these may be present; copy the ones you have). The folder C:\WIN95\WIN95 should contain Setup.exe and many .CAB files.

2. For the supplementary installation files run w95sfdv.exe on an existing Windows system. (Alteratively, use the 7-Zip File Manager to extract the files to a folder named DRIVERS.)

3. Copy the C:\DRIVERS folder from your existing system to the system where you are installing Windows 95. Perform all the following steps on the system where you plan to install Windows 95.

4. Copy all the files in C:\DRIVERS\W9X\SUPP\OSR2INF to C:\WIN95\WIN95

5. Copy all the files in C:\DRIVERS\W9X\SUPP\CARDBUS to C:\WIN95\WIN95

6. Run C:\WIN95\WIN95\SETUP.EXE

7. When prompted for hardware components to install, select CD-ROM drive, but do not select Network adapter or Sound card.

8. If you have 1GB of RAM in your system, press F8 when the system restarts and choose Command Prompt only. Edit C:\Windows\System\System.ini. In the [386Enh] section, add MaxPhysPage=30000 (larger numbers should also work; search the web); and in the [vcache] section, add MaxFileCache=393216 (I found this number online, but higher numbers should also work).

9. When Windows 95 opens to the desktop, right-click My Computer, choose Properties, open the Device Manager, and click on View devices by connection. Click Plug and Play BIOS, then PCI Bus, and remove every entry with “USB” or “Universal Serial Bus” in its name. Close the Device Manager. Do not restart.

10. For the USB supplement to Windows 95, run C:\WIN95\OTHER\USB\Usbsupp.exe. Scandisk may take a long time to check your disk; this is normal. When Windows 95 restarts, it will prompt you for the location of uhcd.sys; enter C:\Windows\System as the location and installation should proceed.

11. For the chipset drivers, run suppw32.exe

12. Navigate to C:\Drivers\Win\Supp\ich3fix and merge ICH3FIX.reg

13. Navigate to C:\Drivers\Win\Supp\ide-apm and merge ideapm.reg

14. Run C:\Drivers\Win\Supp\intelinf\infinst_enu.exe. Restart the system.

15. Go to the Control Panel, Open the PC Card (PCMCIA) applet and answer No to both prompts. Restart the system.

16. For the display driver, run vftpad8m.exe

17. Run C:\Drivers\W9X\Display\Setup.exe. Restart the system.

18. Right-click on the desktop; choose Properties, Settings, Advanced Properties, Monitor, and click Change. Navigate to C:\Drivers\W9X\Supp\ibmlcd and choose IBM ThinkPad 1024x768 LCD Panel (unless you have the larger screen, in which case choose the correct size).

19. For the audio driver, run afa21e9x.exe

20. Run C:\Drivers\W9X\Audio\Crysetup.exe

21. In the Device Manager, find PCI Multimedia Audio Device (or some similar name); reinstall the driver from C:\Drivers\W9X\Audio. Windows will install additional drivers; if prompted for a file location, enter the same location.

22. For the modem driver, run tpmd19gx.exe

23. Run C:\Drivers\Mdmluc\Setup.exe to install the drivers.

24. In the Device Manager, find PCI Communications Controller (or some similar name); reinstall the driver from C:\Drivers\Mdmluc. If prompted for additional drivers, enter the same location.

25. For the Ethernet adapter driver, run tpnwall.exe

26. In the Device Manager, find PCI Ethernet Controller (or some similar name); reinstall the driver from C:\Drivers\Win\Ethernet\Win9x. Restart the system.

27. Run C:\Drivers\Win\Ethernet\Setup\Setup.exe. Restart the system.

28. If the Control Panel does not have an Intel(R) PROSet applet, copy Prosetp.cpl from C:\Drivers\Win\Ethernet\Win9x\Win95 to C:\Windows\System.

29. In the Control Panel, choose Network, remove any protocols that you do not use. Optionally add File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks.

30. For the Trackpoint driver, run trackptw.exe

31. In the Control Panel, choose Mouse, then General, then Change, then Have Disk. Navigate to C:\Drivers\Win\Tpoint and install the driver.

32. For the UltraBay hot/warm-swap driver, run uttpiwsp.exe

33. In the Control Panel, choose Add New Hardware, select Next, then No. In the Device Selection Menu, select Other Devices, then Have disk. Navigate to C:\Drivers\W9X\Bayswap and select ibmbay3.inf; click OK twice; select ThinkPad Ultrabay 2000 Hot/Warm Swap Driver, and click Next. When the driver is installed, restart the system.

34. If your T23 supports SpeedStep, run spstepnt.exe

35. If you ran spstepnt.exe, then run C:\Drivers\W95\Spdstp\Setup.exe. Restart the system.

36. If you plan to use a dock, run iwx427ww.exe

37. If you ran iwx427ww.exe, then run C:\Drivers\Win\ide\Setup.exe.

38. For the hibernation utility, run hibw4win.exe

39. Run C:\Drivers\Win\Hibutil\Setup.exe

40. For the power management driver, run 1xu105u1.exe

41. Run C:\Drivers\Win\Bmmpm\Setup.exe

42. I don’t remember whether Internet Explorer 4 or later is required for the Configuration Utility; I believe it is. To be safe, find and install Internet Explorer 5.5 and then proceed to the next step.

43. For the ThinkPad configuration utility, run 7ju501aw.exe

44. Run C:\Drivers\W9X\Utility\Setup.exe

Finally, search the web for w95usbflash.exe or w95usbflash.zip, which provide drivers for USB sticks and similar storage under Windows 95. It’s not entirely reliable, but it works well enough. I have not tried this more recent effort - https://msfn.org/board/topic/177518-xus ... s-95-osr2/ - because I already installed the Microsoft USB supplement and I don't want to mess with it.

[jelabarre59]

Nice try, but no. Win95 & Win98 simply refuse to proceed through an install. With these instructions I got to the point where it went through the first pass of the setup, then after rebooting it wouldn't boot into the setup, OS, or anything. This is with multiple hard drives (even one that I had successfully installed Windows 200 on,to the same exact machine).

I've pulled out one 512M memory stick (leaving just 512M, and I don't have any other PC 133 SODIMM memory), formatted (format /s) the HDD (running fdisk within DOS 6.22 & format), tried with different DVD drives in the ultrabay, tried booting from a freshly-made MSWin98 boot diskette (hard enough to find usable floppies too). For diskette I've used an ultrabay drive as well as USB. About the only thing I haven't done is do a handstand while wearing an Elvis wig. It just won't take a MSWin 9x OS. FreeDOS 1.3 installed fine, and it had previously been running a Linux install fine as well. For that matter, I thought I had once installed MSWin 98SE on this machine (had swapped the HDD out to do a test setup for x2x, and misplaced the disk with W98 already installed).

OpenStack/OpenShift deploys are looking simple compared to this. I've pulled out all the hacks I used to use in the late 1990's for W9x, and they're all failing me now.

[Edward Mendelson]

Well, it certainly worked here. I can't imagine why it isn't working on your T23.

I've also got Windows 98 SE and Windows ME installed on the same machine, each with nothing "unknown" in Device Manager. I'll eventually post similar how-tos.

But if you're willing to accept unknown devices, then try again, skipping steps 4 and 5 (and making sure the files aren't present). Then you may be able to get rid of the unknown devices by installing drivers from the C:\DRIVERS\W9X\SUPP folders and merging the REG files after each driver installation.

[rkawakami]

About the only thing I haven't done is do a handstand while wearing an Elvis wig.

Try removing the MiniPCI card from the bottom of the laptop. It's behind the small square panel near the back corner.

edit: Tracked down a couple of threads here that mention the issue

viewtopic.php?t=30159
viewtopic.php?t=50592
viewtopic.php?t=57627
viewtopic.php?t=81237

[jelabarre59]

Yes, that made it work, and got through a whole install.

That said, I had forgotten just how STUPID MSWin 9x was for detecting & installing device drivers. About the only things that were worse was where the early MSWin 95 would tell you that you needed to reboot even if you just LOOKED at the network properties, even if you didn't change anything. Or that MSWin 3.1x had to exit and restart if you changed the screen resolution. Yeah, even XP and beyond handled it better than that (although Linux is still better at device detection and drivers than MSWin).

Eventually need to image the setup once it's working. Having seen all those YT videos where people build their "retro/classic" systems and then just show the games. I haven't seen much of anything about the actual "productivity" applications we had used, so thinking of doing some of those. Also I have all my old "edutainment" CDs from a multimedia software company I worked at in the mid-late 1990's.

[jelabarre59]

The other problem is trying to extract the driver files from w98sfdv.exe. It's a Sydex self-extracting file that *ONLY* extracts to diskette (so far as I can tell). The T23 doesn't want to work with any of my ultrabay floppies, it won't even see a USB floppy (presumably until I extract and install the very drivers that need to extract to a floppy!). MSWin10 refuses to run the application, and I have found nothing for Linux that can extract the Sydex-format diskettes.

[Edward Mendelson]

The other problem is trying to extract the driver files from w98sfdv.exe. It's a Sydex self-extracting file that *ONLY* extracts to diskette (so far as I can tell).

If we're talking about w98sfdw.exe, 7-Zip extracts the files with two or three clicks. (I added this to the original post.)

[cadillacmike68]

You could always get the ThinkPad FDD with the dedicated cable to attach it to the parallel port.

I'm interested in putting W98SE on a T23.

[jelabarre59]

The other problem is trying to extract the driver files from w98sfdv.exe. It's a Sydex self-extracting file that *ONLY* extracts to diskette (so far as I can tell).

If we're talking about w98sfdw.exe, 7-Zip extracts the files with two or three clicks. (I added this to the original post.)

Interesting, as I did try 7za as one of the extraction tools (it tends to support a lot of formats).

I found that while the regular dosbox (or dosbox-staging) couldn't write to a floppy disk image file, DosBox-X could. So eventually it did extract.