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guest-tools

guest-tools/README.md

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guest-tools

Files and folders in this directory are exposed read-only inside the VM at \\HOST\TOOLS (alongside the synthetic _MAPZ.BAT and README.TXT). Drop drivers and utilities here that you want available from within Windows 95.

mouse-driver/ — seamless mouse (VBADOS)

VBMOUSE.EXE (DOS TSR) + VBMOUSE.DRV (Windows 3.x/9x driver) from VBADOS by Javier S. Pedro, GPLv2. Talks to v86's VMware mouse backdoor (port 0x5658) so the Windows 95 cursor tracks the host cursor pixel-for-pixel without pointer lock.

Install inside the guest:

  1. Copy \\HOST\TOOLS\mouse-driver\VBMOUSE.EXE to C:\ and add a C:\VBMOUSE.EXE line to C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT.
  2. Windows Setup (or Control Panel → Mouse → General → Change → Have Disk) → browse to \\HOST\TOOLS\mouse-driver → pick VBMouse int33 absolute mouse driver.
  3. Reboot. The app detects the driver and stops grabbing pointer lock; ESC still toggles lock for games that want raw relative input.

agent/ — W95TOOLS guest agent

W95TOOLS.EXE is a hidden-window agent that talks to the emulator over the VMware backdoor (port 0x5658). Currently it:

  • bridges Windows 95's CF_TEXT clipboard to the host (legacy backdoor commands 6–9; host side is src/renderer/clipboard.ts, which polls Electron's clipboard),
  • auto-maps \\HOST\HOST to Z: at login via WNetAddConnection, so the shared folder shows up as a drive without a trip through Start → Run,
  • keeps the Windows clock set to the host's local time (backdoor GETTIME, command 23). Windows only reads the RTC at boot, so without this a resumed emulator session carries on with the clock from whenever the state was saved. The agent checks every 5 seconds and steps the clock whenever it's off by 2 seconds or more — covering resume, slow-emulation drift, and the UTC-only RTC at boot.

Host-initiated shutdown and a tray icon will live here too when those land.

Install inside the guest:

  1. Copy \\HOST\TOOLS\agent\W95TOOLS.EXE to C:\WINDOWS\.
  2. Drop a shortcut to it in C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp so it runs on login.

Copy text on either side and it appears on the other within ~250 ms. Text only; conversion is Windows-1252 ↔ UTF-8 with CRLF ↔ LF, capped at 64 KB. Built from w95tools.c with Open Watcom v2 — make -C guest-tools/agent (needs Docker).

To update an already-installed agent: end the running W95tools task (Ctrl+Alt+Del → End Task) or reboot Windows, copy the new \\HOST\TOOLS\agent\W95TOOLS.EXE over C:\WINDOWS\W95TOOLS.EXE, and start it again (the StartUp shortcut also picks it up at next login).

Baking into the disk image

Fresh boots run whatever is baked into images/windows95.img — the agent is installed there twice: at C:\WINDOWS\W95TOOLS.EXE and as a copy in C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp. You can bake a new build directly from the host with mtools (brew install mtools), no QEMU boot needed. The FAT32 partition starts at sector 63 (byte offset 32256):

sh
make -C guest-tools/agent
IMG="images/windows95.img@@32256"
mcopy -o -i "$IMG" guest-tools/agent/W95TOOLS.EXE '::/WINDOWS/W95TOOLS.EXE'
mcopy -o -i "$IMG" guest-tools/agent/W95TOOLS.EXE \
  '::/WINDOWS/STARTM~1/PROGRAMS/STARTUP/W95TOOLS.EXE'

Do this while the app is not running. Note that an existing saved state (state-v4.bin+) keeps its own dirty-block overlay over the image and the old agent stays loaded in the resumed session's RAM — so resumed sessions only pick up a new agent after a guest reboot or an End Task + relaunch.