Thursday, April 9, 2009

Taking you to the past – Windows 3.1

This is where I started. DOS & Windows 3.1 on a 486 33 MHz machine.

Windows 3.1 is very much different to the current windows versions. Not only to windows XP or vista, there are huge differences even between Windows 95 and windows 3.1.

Unlike other versions of windows, it runs on top of MS-DOS. You need to type `win` in command prompt to execute windows. Or you can add that command to autoexec.bat file to auto execute windows when computer starts.

I still have windows 3.1 installed in a virtual machine (just for fun :-) ). I think most of you haven’t seen this OS, so I decided to add some screen shots. You can see there is no close button (X) in windows (even though maximize and minimize buttons are there).

If you like to see how it looks like, you can download it and install it on a virtual machine.
http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/14258630/windows+3.1?tab=summary









6 comments:

  1. hey, thanks for the upload, i had no idea how this would have been looking like..by the way, I also need to have a virtual machine..contact you soon..need to know some facts

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  2. This doesn't work. I tried this machine on virtualbox. But it says, "Fatal: No boot medium found!". :(

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  3. @ශාකුන්තල It is not bootable. You have to install DOS before install Win 3.1. Hope you have a DOS boot image with you.

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  4. Yeah, thanks. I'm looking for a floppy image file now. :)

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  5. @ශාකුන්තල You can extract a floppy image from a bootable CD with ISO Buster.

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  6. Find floppy image from here

    http://www.mediafire.com/file/khyyrh04zj0/Boot Record.img

    Use Minimal boot option. Ignore other options which are not available.

    MSCDEX.EXE and driver loaded to CD-ROM support

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