I also skipped editing autoexec.bat to rename the CDROM drive.ĭespite it being drive D:\ I did have to follow the described process of copying I replaced any references to R:\ with D:\. The CDROM drive did not default to drive R:\ - instead it was drive D:\ like I would have expected.Socket3’s instructions worked as described except for a few minor things I had to adapt:
#Tasm 5.0 install
In the VM the overall install time is quite fast compared to 1995 when it would often take most of an hour.
#Tasm 5.0 drivers
Using a floppy disk image to bootstrap CDROM drivers to be able to run the Win95 installer CD is certainly nostalgic. Don’t forget to disable VT-x/AMD-V and Nested Paging in the CPU settings. I created a VM with a Pentium processor, 64mb of RAM and a 2GB disk. I chose to use some virtual machine settings that aren’t true to the period to make life a little more bearable. These are all over the internet but I’ll save you a Google and share the one I used ( if you’re a cop stop reading this):
#Tasm 5.0 serial
You will also need a valid Win95 “Certificate of Authenticity” serial number. If you’re following along you’ll want to download the following: To install Win95 in VirtualBox I followed Socket3’s blog post on the subject. The brushed steel effect is how you know we’re going to be working close to Using Programmer’s File Editor does provide important features missing from notepad.exe like line numbers and being able to open files > 64KB. Compared to a modern IDE it is somewhat feature bare but it sure is… “authentic”. Ultimately I ended up choosing an ancient freeware program called the Programmer’s File Editor (PFE). This was probably because I was using newer versions meant for Win98+ but it was tedious digging up old installers to try. I tried a few random “Programmer’s Text Editors” that I could remember (Notepad++, UltraEdit, etc) but couldn’t get any of them to install on a fresh Windows 95 OSR 2.1 system. If all else fails it’s fun to say “Borland” out loud (I recommend you try it).Īre you ready to pinch individual MOV instructions? I sure am! Text Editor TASM has fairly extensive MASM compatibility so this turned out to be an OK decision. It was easy to install and supported 32bit Win32 development. I ended up choosing Borland Turbo Assembler 5.0. To spice things up a little bit I decided it would be fun to try using Borland Turbo Assembler (almost always referred to as TASM). I don’t know if its true but I get the impression the prevailing choice for writing ASM malware in the 90s was Microsoft Macro Assembler (almost always referred to as MASM).
#Tasm 5.0 Patch
Later on I’ll want to test code on a few versions to make sure differences in patch level don’t break things. To make things simple I chose to use the same one as Socket3: Windows 95 OSR 2.1. There are a number of versions of Windows 95 available. Rather than duplicate that effort I will defer to that post for the basic setup instructions and only point out areas of difference. Luckily for me most of the hard work involved in setting up Windows 95 with VirtualBox was covered by Socket3’s blog post on the subject. In theory most of this setup could be adapted to macOS or modern Windows but you’ll have to try that on your own. There are some eccentric new ways to run Windows95 as an Electron app but VirtualBox is the devil I know. I’m writing this post from Linux and will be using VirtualBox for virtualization. Get hype, we’re installing Windows 95! Software Choices Virtualization Pretty wild! With the right mindset established let’s take this new Windows 95 thing for a spin. A top of the line home PC was something like a 486 with a 1 GB harddrive and a whopping 8mb of RAM. Netscape only recently released SSL and faces challenge from a brand new web browser called Internet Explorer. Quebec narrowly remains a province of Canada. If this is your first visit to VeXation you might want to start by reading the “Welcome” post introducing the project.īefore going too far I think its valuable to get into a 1995 mindset: Coolio’s Gangster’s Paradise is the #1 single. Here’s how I set up a Windows 95 VM and my development tools. Virus writing starts with a development environment.