YellowBox 5.1 on Windows 10 x64: A Howto Guide for Masochists

Prerequisites:

• YellowBox 5.1 installation media,
• A working 32-bit InstallShield 3.0 executable,
• Patience.

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Installing YellowBox

Step 1: DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP
Download the 32-bit Is3Engine executable from the Toastytech website (http://toastytech.com/files/setup.html)

Step 2:
Insert your installation media, then copy the contents of the CD to a directory on your disk drive.

Step 3: DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP
Copy setup32.exe from the Is3Engine archive into Dev or Deploy, depending on what part of YellowBox you plan on installing.

Step 4:
Run the 32-bit installer (setup32.exe).

The installer will fail to set up the Pasteboard and WindowServer entries in the 'Startup' group, because those groups no longer exist in Windows.  This is ok, and nothing to worry about.  It just means we have some work ahead of us.

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Hacking the system and winning the game

Mash Windows + R, then type shell:startup.  Explorer should open, showing you a path that looks similar to "You > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Windows > Start Menu > Programs > Start-up".

Open up a second Explorer window (Win + E), then navigate to where you installed YellowBox (e.g. C:\Bapple).

Align both windows side-by-side or in whatever way pleases you.  From now on, 'Start-Up' will refer to the Explorer window showing the "Start-up" folder, and 'YellowBox' will refer to the Explorer window showing your YellowBox install.

Step 1: [YellowBox]
Navigate to Library, then System.

Step 2: [YellowBox]
Right-click on WindowServer.exe and select 'Copy'.

Step 3: [Start-Up]
Right-click anywhere on the right-hand pane and select 'Paste shortcut'.

Step 4: [YellowBox]
Navigate to Library, then Frameworks, then AppKit.framework, then Resources.

Step 5: [YellowBox]
Right-click on pbs.exe and select 'Copy'

Step 6: [Start-up]
Right-click anywhere on the right-hand pane and select 'Paste shortcut'.

Now simply double-click on each of the new shortcuts in turn, which saves you from having to do a reboot.

Congratulations, you now have a working YellowBox 5.1 installation on Windows 10.


Hopefully this guide will work for Windoze 11 too.

This trick also works with OPENSTEP Enterprise 4.2.

It also answers a question I never knew I had:  Can you have both YellowBox and OPENSTEP Enterprise on the same machine?

The answer is:  Why, yes.  Yes you can.  You can't really run both at the same time, though... at least not without juggling around the Mach and netname services.  Still, it was an interesting experiment, and I think I'll stick with YellowBox :)

Very cool, thanks for sharing!