+1 in regards to WinImage to create the floppy image.I'd get yourself a copy of DOS 6.22 to install Windows 95 with, or a Windows 95 STARTUP Disk. One problem you may be facing is that the himem.sys file you are using is Windows 98's version which is newer than Windows 95 is normally used with. You cant just mix and match Windows 95 and Windows 98 DOS components like you are and that may be why your running into problems.

A long time ago I was able to install Windows 95 clean to a systems hard DRIVE via use of FreeDOS installed FIRST to hard drive. Then Windows 95 setup.exe run from FreeDOS environment. This was a long long time ago ( 2001 ) and while it may still work, I am not sure if the current FreeDOS will work with Windows 95 or not. FreeDOS however is not Microsoft DOS, its an open source LINUX kernel type of DOS that works with most MSDOS applications etc.

http://www.freedos.org/

Installing Windows 95/98 trick to setup.exe execution ( SETUP /NM /IS ) as seen in link below.

http://www.freedos.org/technotes/technote/228.html

Quote

Every so often, someone will ask about using FreeDOS to install Windows95 or WINDOWS98. So we should have a technote on that. Bernd provides this advice:

SETUP /NM /IS
(NoMachine checking , IgnoreScandisk)

Later on the Windows install program might or might not tolerate the FreeDOS kernel, shell and programs. If installing win98, try a clean (f5, no drivers) FreeDOS bootup. No XMS driver will have been loaded then but win98 has the good old 'xmsmmgr.exe' commandline XMS driver which can install itself at runtime.

I'd get yourself a copy of DOS 6.22 to install Windows 95 with, or a Windows 95 Startup Disk. One problem you may be facing is that the himem.sys file you are using is Windows 98's version which is newer than Windows 95 is normally used with. You cant just mix and match Windows 95 and Windows 98 DOS components like you are and that may be why your running into problems.