Error when booting up a Windows 95 virtual machine in Windows Virtual PC

Solution 1:

You've probably allocated hardware that's beyond what Windows 95 knows what to do with.

• Try lowering the allotted RAM to <256MB.
• Try shrinking the VHD to less than 1GB in size.

Also, Windows 95 has problems with processors faster than 2.1GHz: Windows protection error in NDIS with a CPU that is faster than 2.1 GHz.

Check out this msfn.org forum post for more info and possibly helpful patches: Windows 95 2.1GHz CPU Limit BROKEN!

Windows 95 has two specific errors when dealing with processors with speeds higher than 350 MHz. With a little patience however, both of these errors are fixable.

The real answer is, VPC isn't really compatible with Windows 95, because Windows 95 is too old for the virtual hardware in the VM. :)