Windows 3.11 Experiences

[nathanm1991]

Hi to all taking the Time to read this Thread. My first Ever Computer was a 486 Machine of Some Sort (Too young to Pay Attention) and it had Windows 3.11

What was People's Experiences with 3.11 Pleasant or Garbage?

I Loved it but I know that isn't Everyone else's memory of the os

[nathanm1991]

There was a Casino game I Think it may have even been a Microsoft Application, I was fascinated by the Fruit Machine and Roulette Wheel I used to sit there for Hours!

Digby's adventure I Can Distinctly Remember playing but it Sucked as I didn't have a Soundcard only a PC Speaker. and it wasn't Subtitled :-( so never got Far!

[nathanm1991]

and of Course Ski Free and Chips Challenge were others I Enjoyed!

[Anubis]

I loved resolution and wished my A500+ and later A1200 could do the same resolution. (it was only 800x600)

I used it at work until 96 when we moved to WinNT. Few years later I had to find the way to run some legacy DOS program and WIn 3.11 and that is when I found (and got first license for) Virtual PC. (it was not purchased by MS back then)

[Hewitson]

WfW 3.11 was alright. A far cry from WB 3.1.

[nathanm1991]

Originally Posted by Anubis

I loved resolution and wished my A500+ and later A1200 could do the same resolution. (it was only 800x600)

I used it at work until 96 when we moved to WinNT. Few years later I had to find the way to run some legacy DOS program and WIn 3.11 and that is when I found (and got first license for) Virtual PC. (it was not purchased by MS back then)

Originally Posted by Hewitson

WfW 3.11 was alright. A far cry from WB 3.1.

I know what you mean with Resolution :-)

when you say a Far Cry from WB3.1 what do you Mean what swings you more to one than the other? of course other than the Fact it's Commodore

[davide78]

My first computer was an Amstrad PC1640 with GEM Desktop as GUI. Windows 3.1 on my second computer was a huge improvement, and the only Windows release that I really liked and used extensively. Around 94-95 I moved to OS/2 Warp as main os and microsoft stuff were dedicated to gaming.

I had no direct experience of Amiga back then, though.

[gimbal]

I mean it was part of my youth, it was Win 3.x and Workbench what I knew and not much else. I tried to do as much as possible in DOS but it was always fun to tinker around with GUI based applications. I mostly used it in school.

[PortuguesePilot]

I had a 486 with Windows 3.1 and later 3.11. Didn't use Windows much those days (booted straight to DOS) since most games that I played back then were DOS games. The first Windows that I used as default was Windows 95 in that same (then upgraded) 486.

[Dan]

I had a 386 PC with very low memory on it. if i can recall it right,it was 1 mb.
It was enough for dos games and far enough for my programming practices.

At that time, more and more games came out for the windows, and so i got me a windows 3.11.

I had few dos games which could not start under dos, because of too low memory, and knowing that windows uses the HD for the virtual memory, i have tried to start them under win311.

And few of them did ! So i could play them to the end.

Sofar i remember only good experiences with win311, and it got comfortable to not use the keyboard for everything.
The HD (100mb) and the CD-drive was a great improvement, compared to a amiga 500, back then.

[knightbeat]

I used Windows 3.11 at school, but didn't think much of it in comparison to the Amiga's interface.

I did play with Windows 3.0 a lot on PC Task, thanks to a friend who was throwing out the DD disks, but could never find a DD copy of Win3.11 (it would probably have been too slow anyway, even with a 060 accelerator).

[roondar]

My experiences with Windows 3.11 were not that good. Used it at school, at friends houses and later at my internship and it never really worked all that well. But if you liked it, fine by me - to each their own

What I do find interesting was the 'resolution comment'. See, I don't remember many people actually using it in these higher resolution modes. Don't remember exactly why, but IIRC people around me pretty much stuck to 640x480 until Windows 95. Could be just the people I knew and systems I personally got to use though. I vaguely remember something about monitors simply not doing a particularly good job in higher resolutions.

[nathanm1991]

Originally Posted by roondar

My experiences with Windows 3.11 were not that good. Used it at school, at friends houses and later at my internship and it never really worked all that well. But if you liked it, fine by me - to each their own

What I do find interesting was the 'resolution comment'. See, I don't remember many people actually using it in these higher resolution modes. Don't remember exactly why, but IIRC people around me pretty much stuck to 640x480 until Windows 95. Could be just the people I knew and systems I personally got to use though. I vaguely remember something about monitors simply not doing a particularly good job in higher resolutions.

I tend to Stick to 640x480

[Nobby_UK]

Only ever ran it under emulation ---
was OK.

Mac System 7 on Emulated and real Macintosh better

[Paul_s]

We used 3.11 at college which booted via Novell after logging into the system - was pretty cool. Never had any problems with it back then but I still preferred Workbench 1.3

[Mikerochip]

I bought a Samsung 486SX25 Laptop with mono screen, 6MB ram, and 80MB HDD!

It came with Windows 3.11, and McAfee anti-virus, which I quickly removed.
It was the first time I'd seen commerical AV software, and I wasn't a fan.

I bought it to program Borland Turbo Pascal that I was using in College, and later on I bought Windows 95, on floppy disk!

It said 8MB ram was the minimum but I installed it anyway... and lo and behold, it worked!!

Windows 95 came on 22 floppy disks! And took almost 90 mins to install, from what I remember.

I think it took up something like 50-60mb of my 80mb drive, which only had 10 or so mb free after it was installed. So, I used TASM and TP which were quite small thankfully.

I always thought the 3.11 interface had a lot of neat ideas, but some of them were slightly backwards.

I played a lot of Solitare and Minesweeper, as well as some dos games on it. And eventually got a 12" Amstrad PC monitor. It was glorious to see the 3.11 backgrounds in colour finally!!

It annoyed me though, that some games needed specific versions of specific programs to run though, and often messed up the whole install.

I'm looking at you, Quicktime for windows!
Uninstalling older versions, or installing newer versions on top of itself, often left 3.11 unusable. I know it's not microsofts fault, but still. It was an annoyance.

Especially since I had DOS 6.2 to install, then Win 3.11, then DOS 6.22 (to get the upgraded windows handful of program. Can't remember what they are just now)

I remember backing up my WIN.INI file quite often.
This turned out to be a lifesaver far too many times to count.

Having to figure out stuff like LoadHigh, and which device driver was required for which piece of hardware myself was a bit of a shock to the system, too, even though windows did away with the 640k limit, mostly.

Fun fact, I eventually ended up using Windows 3.11, the real install, not the Win 3.11 for workgroups.

It was released after 3.11WFWG, and some of the files had later build times/dates, but it still disappointed me that the home/non network 3.11 still used the 3.1 splash screen.

I had only used an Atari ST, and GEM before 3.11, so it was a huge step up!
I'd only seen pictures of AmigaOS 1.3 before that, and wasn't a fan of the almost neon blue!

And eventually, after windows 3.11 and Win95, I found out that other people continued DOS support, and that Caldera and Novell had a DOS7! And GEM ran not just on TOS on the Atari, but on DOS as well!

I was amazed that GEM and the above DOS7 still looked almost as well as Windows 3.11 but requiring much less resources. (They didn't achieve the same things, sure, but for general day to day PC work, it was fine)

[nathanm1991]

Originally Posted by Mikerochip

I bought a Samsung 486SX25 Laptop with mono screen, 6MB ram, and 80MB HDD!

It came with Windows 3.11, and McAfee anti-virus, which I quickly removed.
It was the first time I'd seen commerical AV software, and I wasn't a fan.

I bought it to program Borland Turbo Pascal that I was using in College, and later on I bought Windows 95, on floppy disk!

It said 8MB ram was the minimum but I installed it anyway... and lo and behold, it worked!!

Windows 95 came on 22 floppy disks! And took almost 90 mins to install, from what I remember.

I think it took up something like 50-60mb of my 80mb drive, which only had 10 or so mb free after it was installed. So, I used TASM and TP which were quite small thankfully.

I always thought the 3.11 interface had a lot of neat ideas, but some of them were slightly backwards.

I played a lot of Solitare and Minesweeper, as well as some dos games on it. And eventually got a 12" Amstrad PC monitor. It was glorious to see the 3.11 backgrounds in colour finally!!

It annoyed me though, that some games needed specific versions of specific programs to run though, and often messed up the whole install.

I'm looking at you, Quicktime for windows!
Uninstalling older versions, or installing newer versions on top of itself, often left 3.11 unusable. I know it's not microsofts fault, but still. It was an annoyance.

Especially since I had DOS 6.2 to install, then Win 3.11, then DOS 6.22 (to get the upgraded windows handful of program. Can't remember what they are just now)

I remember backing up my WIN.INI file quite often.
This turned out to be a lifesaver far too many times to count.

Having to figure out stuff like LoadHigh, and which device driver was required for which piece of hardware myself was a bit of a shock to the system, too, even though windows did away with the 640k limit, mostly.

Fun fact, I eventually ended up using Windows 3.11, the real install, not the Win 3.11 for workgroups.

It was released after 3.11WFWG, and some of the files had later build times/dates, but it still disappointed me that the home/non network 3.11 still used the 3.1 splash screen.

I had only used an Atari ST, and GEM before 3.11, so it was a huge step up!
I'd only seen pictures of AmigaOS 1.3 before that, and wasn't a fan of the almost neon blue!

And eventually, after windows 3.11 and Win95, I found out that other people continued DOS support, and that Caldera and Novell had a DOS7! And GEM ran not just on TOS on the Atari, but on DOS as well!

I was amazed that GEM and the above DOS7 still looked almost as well as Windows 3.11 but requiring much less resources. (They didn't achieve the same things, sure, but for general day to day PC work, it was fine)

I Promise you I have read the Rest of your Post. What stood out to me the Most with this was the Minimum Memory Requirements (Especially back then) are Purely Guideline! if you have a General knowledge of Optimising your System to use as less resources as Possible and you know to shut down unnecessary Background Apps then you are Golden! this is why people Love Linux ( I unfortunately do not , not yet. Peppermint Linux maybe I could say I Tolerate) I Really do not like Apples offerings of OS either as Much as I Appreciate hardware and Computing history

Windows and Workbench are Awesome

Never owned a Atari ST so can't Comment on the OS


I loved Risc os as we had Acorns in my Primary School before RM Windows 95 PC's

[nathanm1991]

My Grandad first introduced me to PC Hardware and Windows 3.11. He now has early Signs of Dementia, he cant always Remember peoples names although he knows he's Related still. he Can't use Modern hardware to Save his Life bless him but I Showed him my new Place the other day and Fired up Dos on the p3 and he Literally looked like he was at Home still! it is Funny how the Brain can Deteriorate in Certain ways but Certain stuff will always be there!

As soon as C: popped up he was well away! typed in Win to see if I had 3.11 and there it was! not seen a Smile from him in Years but when I Showed him that I think he was Proud that I was Carrying on a Interest he Had :-) for the next 20 minutes he then Schooled me on Chips Challenge!

[gimbal]

Dementia is a strange thing. My partner is from Spain where it is quite normal that your parents live with you at their old age; grandpa was 99 in the end and didn't remember or respond to much at all; on more lucid days he would recognise his relatives, but there have been days where he did not even recognise his own daughter.

He didn't really remember my partner (his granddaughter) most of the times, but he often asked for me when she was there on a visit but I wasn't: the tall foreign guy, where is he?

Go figure!

[Mikerochip]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

We used 3.11 at college which booted via Novell after logging into the system - was pretty cool.

I should have said, but yeah, same. (Win 3.11 and Netware 3.11 too, I think)



By the time I left college, they'd upgraded to Windows 95 with Novell Netware 4.11


I even built my own Novell server at home, and learned the hard way about not rebooting Novell servers, because you never know what's been loaded after bootup