It’d make sense, you’d be amazed at people deleting the stacker volume file…

Windows 95 really was amazing considering its roots. But as a thing on a thing on a thing.. it can’t compare to NT.

And Windows 3.0 and 3.1 to some degree. As they install the bulk of themselves

But sure, just as that ‘demo’ version of 3.0 I found can happily run Zork, they could run as there is no real DLL dependancy needed. Another cool thing about QuickC for Windows.

I’ve modified the copied the FAILSAFE.DRV directory and set SYSTEM.INI to boot Ski Free. A copy can be downloaded from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Z23kbbiG5JZk9zWWphZ3puVWM/view?usp=sharing

I’m pretty sure it used the same mini run-time that was used for the Windows 95 installation (MINI.CAB), so it’s likely of little use for most people. Very little will run on it (no shell.dll, etc), but could probably boot your Zork port!

According to the Windows 95 Resource Kit:

The swap file implementation in Windows 95 simplifies the configuration task for the user and combines the best of temporary and permanent swap files, due to improved virtual memory algorithms and access methods. The swap file in Windows 95 is dynamic; it can shrink or grow, based on the operations that are performed on the system. The swap file can also occupy a fragmented region of the hard disk with no substantial performance penalty.
The swap file can also reside on a compressed volume.

Source: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b04c8uhrvzYJ:helpdoc-online.com/Windows_95_Resource_Kit__Help_en/Kernel.php+compressed+volume+%22swap%22+file+windows+95&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
From my quick research, Windows 3.1 definitely got upset if set your swap file to be on the compressed volume, so I guess this is an “improvement” of sorts…

Curiously, DOS 6.22 can’t see the partition, and it’s version of FDISK recognises it as a non-DOS partition. I don’t recall this back in the day, but I’m guessing DriveSpace changes the partition type code to something previous DOS versions didn’t recognise.

It also would explain why I couldn’t mount the VMDK on OS X.

A dodgy DOS 7 disk I found did recognise the partition properly, and I can confirm that swap file was no where to be found; so it would seem that Windows 95 did create the swap file on the compressed volume!

I use a Dell P2815Q. It’s a 4K display. Highly recommend it if you can get over the 30hz refresh rate @ 4k…

Sorry, been flat out this weekend so haven’t had a chance to muck around with the VM again.

@Christian is absolutely correct about the FAILSAFE.DRV folder which is created. It has (as far as I can tell) the same minimal Win 3.1 instance that the Windows 95 setup program uses, plus a 16-bit version of DriveSpace and Scan Disk (curious as to why MS chose to use the Character Mode scan disk in Windows for unsafe shutdowns when they had this…).

Years and years ago I did some playing around with the minimal DOSX from the Windows 95 setup and found it fairly interesting. With the right libraries you can certainly make a fairly minimal Windows 3.1 deployment, and run basically any application you like. It starts up very quickly too. I really must have another play with it sometime…

Excuse me for kind of “hijacking” the comment area, but your screenshots suggest you’re using a high-density display – if so, would you mind telling me which one it is (size, resolution)?

When compressing the C: drive, a “Failsafe.drv” directory is created on the uncompressed part which presumably contains this minimal Windows 3.1 installation and DriveSpace itself.