Cloned Installation of Windows 95 Is Not Supported

• Microsoft Windows 95

SUMMARY

Microsoft provides several methods for properly installing Windows 95 on a computer. A cloned installation, which is when an installed version of Windows 95 is copied from one computer to another, is not a supported method of installing Windows 95.

MORE INFORMATION

During Windows 95 Setup, information is collected about the specific hardware installed in your computer. This information may include Basic Input-Output (BIOS) information, hardware versions, system settings, media access control (MAC) addresses of installed network interface cards (NIC), and unique serial numbers assigned to specific devices.

According to the Plug and Play Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) specification section 6.1.2, a vendor can encode its hardware with a unique serial number. This number enables the BIOS and Windows 95 to distinguish between multiple cards with the same vendor ID plugged into the same computer.

In a cloned installation, Windows 95 may be able to detect new hardware and install the appropriate drivers, but due to the unknown nature of the computer on which Windows 95 is cloned, Microsoft can only support this configuration on a best effort basis.

Microsoft does support copying Windows 95 from one hard disk to another hard disk in the same computer. For information about how to do so, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q166172
   TITLE     : Duplicating Windows 95 Installation to a New Hard Disk