Windows Quäler Windows 98

Hello, i'm new here, i don't speak German, so i hope English is fine here.
Yesterday i tryed to install Windows 98 on my IBM ThinkPad 300. It has a 386SL25 processor, 8Mb of RAM (2Mb internal and 3*2 MB external). Since Windows 98 won't install if you have a 386 based computer, i did the first par of the installation on my 486DX4 100MHz computer (Kenitec TS30A). With Install /nm, i was able to make the installation working with 8Mb of RAM. When the installation program needed to restart the computer, i removed the hard drive to put it on my 386. Installation files where on the Hard drive, it was easy. After about 2 hours (estimated 14 mins to install the drivers and to finish the installation), Windows 98 booted correctly.
I removed 2Mb of RAM of the computer, so it has 6Mb of RAM.

Also, with the Slow mode of this computed, the processor is downclocked to 6MHz.

However, for unknown reason, i weren't able to launch any system info program under Windows, maybe too low memory ? Sometimes i got a message like Hardware Error from the BIOS.
Hopefully, i'm able to launch system info programs after restarting in MS-DOS mode:

Video proof:

Why most of the system info programs says that i have a Zenith computer ???
Not every cold starts where successfull, my HDD had some bad sectors, and i often got some BSOD at startup, before being stuck on the bootscreen. I wanted to do a Startup video, but i weren't able to launch it anymore, and I don't have time to install it again for now.
After 6 minutes, the background and the cursor appears, but you need to wait about 2 more minutes before you can "do" something.
Also, Navratil has some trouble identifying a 386SL processor:

About the hard drive difference between SYSINFO and Navratil: i was using an EZ-DRIVE, to make my 12GB HDD working on my 486 and my 386 based laptops. While Navratil shows EZ-DRIVE configuration, SYSINFO uses the BIOS configuration.

It was built by Zenith ? Didin't know about that, thanks. it's the First edition of Windows 98, the second one includes Internet Explorer 5, which need 80486 opcodes. Also, if you install IE5 on Windows 95 on a 386 based computer, the desktop will not appear anymore, you'll have an error with Explorer.exe (like on Windows 98 SE on 386).
I need to find another hard drive, and do a low-level format before doing that, so bad sectors will be "masqued".
Your thinkwiki is interesting also

Maybe in Safe mode it will boot with 4Mb of RAM. Gonna try on PCem first.
EDIT: Yes it boot in Safe Mode with only 4MB of RAM on PCem.

I have a lot of luck that i got it with 3*2Mb of external RAM. Even if it's a poor quality computer made by Zenith, it's a pretty cool computer to use. When i bough it the backlight was done, but i repaired it (some tracks on the inverters's board were... cut due to bad capacitors). Also the orignial 84Mb HDD is done too, i tryed with killdisk, i can't do anything. I use a 270Mb HDD from my 486 laptop.
To do this I used my 12Gb HDD from my 486 laptop, but i don't want to install Windows 98 again and then delete all and reinstall Windows 95 and all apps...
Next time i have time and another HDD i'll try with 4Mb RAM in SafeMode, and make a boot video.

Ok I did a little mistake in the description.
"After about 2 hours (estimated 14 mins to install the drivers and to finish the installation), Windows 98 booted correctly."
I wanted to say that the last part of the installation (drivers) AND the boot tooks 2 hours.
"After 6 minutes, the background and the cursor appears, but you need to wait about 2 more minutes before you can "do" something."
So the boot time is about 8 minutes, not 2 hours, sorry.

Hello everyone, I finally got a new 2.5" IDE HDD, so I could do more videos.
I386SL25 @ 6MHz, 6Mb of RAM, Windows 98 First Edition:

So, When the computer start I change the "color" palette, and i quickly set the computer to Slow mode, before EZ-DRIVE loads.
As you can see, net start is loading, even if there is no network card in this computer. However, even by deleting useless lines in Autoexec.Bat, i couldn't get Windows starting with less than 6Mb.
However, before stoping everything because of lack of time, i decided to try the safe mode (Mode sans échec in French)... No useless drivers loaded.... Tada:

It works, i was amazed, like Windows 95 have trouble loading with 4Mb, but Windows 98... Another funny video:

Nevermind, i don't think there is a way to make it works with less than 4 Mb.
Tooks me 3 hours to install it...

Ok, it's been a while I haven't played with Windows 98. For the first edition I can't improve that. But what about the SE ?
Well, Windows 98 SE won't work on a 80386 because of IE5 and the webby desktop. So explorer.exe will crash, try to reload, crash again...
So, without any modification I don't think it's possible to make it running on a 386 based machine. So I wanted to investigate and found the suspicious files that prevent explorer.exe from working.
After few days of making some frankenstein installation of Windows 98 SE with some 98 First edition I found out that the file SHDOCVW.DLL is (one of) our culprit. There is the plan:
During the installation, Windows 98 SE will restart one it finished copying files. At this point we need to replace this file from the one that come with Windows 98 "FE". Then we'll continue the installation. However at the end there will be some error message due to the modified file, as the system might be creating the registery. Anyway, it worked on a emulator, let's try with a real machine:

BUT... another problem:
Anywhere on the web we can see that by using the undocumented /nm swtich we can install Windows 98 on a 386 machine... That's WRONG!
So again, we have a file do modify in order to make the installation running on a 386 machine (it won't affect the OS itself).
I tryed some Memphis builds on an emulator, and it looks like Memphis 1488 is the last one that can be installed under a 386 machine.
I took the file WINSETUP.BIN from the build 1488 CD, renamed it W98SETUP.BIN and replaced the original file by this one.
And yes, it works... The first part of the installation took about 4 hours at 33MHz... And guess what ? It failed...
I only got Windows 98 SE running in safe mode...
Anyway, removing some RAM, unactivating the Turbo... There you go:

Ok so, I want it to run without the safe mode... Well, have to do the installation all over again...
4 hours for the first part, 2 hours for the last part... But it finally worked.
Remouved some RAM, slowing down the CPU:
Am386 SX 33 CPU at 7MHz, 6MB of RAM...

I also recorded a video for this one. However it's quite long and will take some time to upload it. Because yes, it's slow, painfully slow. It takes minutes to do basic tasks (opening a folder...).
As the system has been slightly modified it's not a really legit record, but anyway, that was... "fun".

Oh, i'm sure you are wondering, what about Windows Millennium ? Well, I'm working on it, but the kernel looks very different from 95's and 98's one.