Windows 3.11 -- HELP!!!

[The Doomist]

Okay, so, I installed Windows 3.11 on DOSBox. Everything works. But how in God's name do you add/install games? I tried adding skifree (as a test) into the WINDOWS folder where all the programs are stored, but doesn't do anything. I look to you guys since Doom is just as old as Windows 3.11. I really miss being 6 ;_;

[Aliotroph?]

It occurs to me that I've never had to do an installation of 3.1 or 3.11. Doing the drivers must have been a real joy.

Anyway, the answer is you read the instructions for your games. Most Windows programs came with installers even in the early 90s. If it doesn't have an installer it should either just run anywhere you dump it or it should have instructions.

[Bucket]

It didn't come pre-installed? Weird.

[EarthQuake]

Skifree came with the Windows Entertainment Pack, so it wasn't included by default. Skifree was also rereleased as a 32-bit executable. You're trying to run the original 16-bit version, right?

[Jello]

I'm going to through this out here, but it's been years since I used a computer with an OS that old. Had a Tandy back in 92/93 and it had either Windows 3.1. What I usually ended up doing was exiting from windows to the DOS prompt, and installing the game from there by going to either the hard disc drive or the cd drive. So either a: or d: and then putting in the install command, either install.exe or setup.exe usually. Really the disc should have some sort of installation .exe somewhere on it.

Could be very different however as you're using DOSbox to emulate 3.1, which I have no experience with. Just with a computer using it as it's primary OS, almost 20 years ago which I haven't touched since 95.

There was also the joy of having to boot directly to DOS before the OS loaded because I didn't have enough memory to run Doom with sound if the OS loaded first.

[Aliotroph?]

DOS was the primary OS. Windows 3.1 was more like a badass DOS extender than a real OS. However, he's trying to install a Windows game and not a DOS game. Assuming he has a version that will work with 3.1 then he should just be able to run the package and go from there.

[CODOR]

It might not apply to DOSBox, but this should be helpful for anyone trying to run Windows 3.1(1) in a VM.

[neubejiita]

You need the Win32s package, this allows you to run the 32bit applications in a 16bit Windows 3.11 environment.

http://web.mit.edu/cascon/microsoft/win32sins.htm

Install this and you should be sweet.

[Quasar]

neubejiita said:

You need the Win32s package, this allows you to run the 32bit applications in a 16bit Windows 3.11 environment.

http://web.mit.edu/cascon/microsoft/win32sins.htm

Install this and you should be sweet.

Win32 SINS? I see Stallman's been running amok on other peoples' files on the MIT servers :P

[Gez]

The Doomist said:

Okay, so, I installed Windows 3.11 on DOSBox.

DOSBox is really for playing DOS games. It is not intended to be used to run old Windows apps in a Win 3.1 environment. There are other emulators for that, geared less towards DOS games and more towards desktop applications.

[The Doomist]

Well, you Can use windows 3.1 as an extension for dosbox. But I'l try some of these tips. Thanks guys :D

[Csonicgo]

You have to create program groups in windows program manager. Use the help manual to find out how. Everything you ask has been documented.

[printz]

Gez said:

DOSBox is really for playing DOS games. It is not intended to be used to run old Windows apps in a Win 3.1 environment. There are other emulators for that, geared less towards DOS games and more towards desktop applications.

Yeah, but do you get a free-windows (freeware knockoff, not warez)? Or do you need to simply buy (where?) Windows 3.1(1) and run it in virtualization like any other?

[Aliotroph?]

You have to get your own copy of Windows. I'm trying to remember if it can deal with Windows 95. It does work very well with all the older versions.

[The Doomist]

I found the solution! I have to put the application into a directory in Windows 3.1, then go to file manager and select from there!

Thanks to everyone who helped. :D

[chungy]

... you can make a shortcut in Program Manager

[Aliotroph?]

The Doomist said:

I found the solution! I have to put the application into a directory in Windows 3.1, then go to file manager and select from there!

Thanks to everyone who helped. :D

This isn't what you were doing previously?

[Maes]

You can run most 16-bit Windows apps from Windows 9x/ME and Windows XP/Vista/7 32-bit directly anyway. There's no need to go through so many hoops unless you're using a 64-bit or non-Windows OS.

[chungy]

...which is an extremely common scenario.

Almost nobody uses Windows 9x/Me these days, Windows XP is hardly used either, and almost all prebuilts come with 64-bit Windows installed.

[Maes]

chungy said:

Windows XP is hardly used either, and almost all prebuilts come with 64-bit Windows installed.

You must have a very different definition of "hardly used" compared to the rest of the world :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

If we accept that 23.40% is the line for "hardly used" then anything other than Windows 7 is practically non-existent.

Pre-builts are another matter altogether, and the policies/choices regarding them were never exactly grounds for glowing recommendations.

[Gez]

The other day, out of nostalgia, I wanted to run good old DoomCAD on a Win Vista 32 machine.

It didn't work because it needed some DLLs.

So, I looked for these DLLs and put them in the same directory. It didn't complain anymore, it merely aborted on startup, with one of Windows' standard "this application had a problem and needed to be dragged behind the shed and shot closed" message.

Then I said "meh" and dropped it.



Anyway, that was my circumstantial two-cents' worth of salt in grain form about the whole "can run old Windows apps on modern Windows because MS is awesome at backward compatibility" thing.

[printz]

chungy said:

Windows XP is hardly used either, and almost all prebuilts come with 64-bit Windows installed.

I still use Windows XP 32 on two computers, it's stable and works. Its only problem is that it's old-fashioned in some aspects.

[Maes]

Gez said:

Anyway, that was my circumstantial two-cents' worth of salt in grain form about the whole "can run old Windows apps on modern Windows because MS is awesome at backward compatibility" thing.

Happened to me a lot, too.

In particular with DoomCAD, I think the culprit was some obscure image processing library ("DeViL"? )in the form of a DLL. I doubt that it ever worked cleanly even in its "native" 16-bit environment.

Remember, Windows 3.x and older had practically zero userspace protection, apps could get away with nasty hacks that would not be tolerated even under Windows 9x, and GPFs were very common. Backwards compatibility only works well for "clean" programmed stuff, not for what was marginally stable to begin with.

[Archy]

Great, you've gotten Windows 3.11 but no DOS system (hmm... emulator) is complete without a web-browser!