MS takes Windows 3.11 out of embed to put to bed First question: which electronics manufacturers embed Windows 3.11 for Workgroups in their products? Second question, and much more pressing: why? We ask merely because Microsoft has told world+dog it’s withdrawing the ancient operating system from the embedded market. In November 2008. So this gives manufacturers plenty of …
...I remember the happy day I _upgraded_ to this operating system! We'd only briefly been on 3.1 after a long spell on 3.0 (you may recall the extra 0.01 added tentative 32-bit-ness and an insistance on running in 386 protected mode). It wasn't that long ago! Was it?! Am I that old already?!
another old 3.11 user here - I even still have the 324mb hdd it was installed on kicking around somewhere.
I remember the packard bell my parents bought that came with 3.11 on it, it also had packard bells "navigator" desktop replacement application that tried to provide an alternative interface to microsofts... wonder what happened to that concept.
"But there will be few mourners: everyone who actually remembers using this operating system is long gone."
I'd really like to know where I've gone to? Can anybody tell me? If you know, please reply, as I'd like to find myself!!!
(Yes, I know, I'm a sarcastic Ba****d - I just can't help it!)
Paris - because she doesn't know where I am either!
The computer system that is used to diagnose the Patriot Missile systems made use of Windows 3.1 as of 2003 when I finished my contract with the US Army. I guess it sort of goes along with the Stealth Bomber upgrades.... Maybe they were trying out the "security through obscurity" approach.
I'm 22, and I remember using 3.11 when I was 8 on my Tandon NB286/SX laptop. I've still got it somewhere. Whilst 3.11 isn't anywhere as full featured as XP/Vista or even Win95 it had a certain charm, it was so quick and simple.
Paris because she isn't afraid to mourn the loss of 3.11
In one of our embedded solutions. Why? Because the ramifications of changing a otherwise perfectly working product is far to great.
Lets be clear, this is not the desktop version of WFWG3.11, this is the embedded version, different kettle of fish, stripped down it's very light, pretty robust and very small footprint.
DX33, huh! Before the days of clock doubling? I recall having a big conversation with a man from Intel as to whether "the one to recommend to our 'high-end' customers" was the DX50 or the DX2-66... still not sure the answer I got was the right one!
Paris - cos she knows all about embedding!
:-)
We've still got a customer that uses it daily.
A couple of years ago he had a hardware fault on his mobo, so he's now running a 15 year old OS on 5 year old hardware!
Had to try to remember the commands for installing a CD drive - old machine didn't have one, new (second hand) does... oh the memories of mscdex.exe, autoexec.bat, config.sys, etc etc.
Does the job, bloody well!
From the days when microsoft actually produced decent software, needing a mere 3 floppy disks for the OS.
I vote for a nostagia icon!!
My claim to fame at that time was creating a standardised platform for an office of 20/30 users using 3.11. It was installed on a Netware server mapped drive and the PCs had no local copy. They booted to Dos, connected to the network, and then ran Win.bat which pointed them to this shared installation. The server RAID array was quicker than their local HDDs, so it loaded really quick and their desktop was always the same, locked down. Office was on there too.
The performance and stability was no different to running locally, with the advantage that it was centrally managed.
Who said you couldn't do cool things in those days (on a shoestring too)?
I remember my next-door-neighbour coming in and telling me about this wonderful Windows for Workgroups which allowed you to share files with each other. He was amazed.
Of course, as I was using Sun workstations at work with X-windows on them, and had been for several years, I couldn't quite see what all the excitement was about.
(And frankly, I still don't understand how Windows can work so badly. Why can't I run a program on my PC, and launch the display onto another PC without having to use special software?)
3.11 ran my DOS programs properly. I tried 95 for a bit, and went back to 3.11 because I did not have time for my machine to reboot four times a day. When NT got foisted on me, some of my DOS programs became a bit wobbly. A friend had some expensive MS technical support to spare, and here is they advice the had him pass on to me: "God hates you."
I should thank MS for that, and for some similar advice I received when I tried to install a new MS compiler (the disk thrashed for two days before I let the machine give up). MS's helpful advice convinced by to try a Linux CD from the cover of a magazine.
Suddenly all the software I was familiar with from university became available. No more swearing at word because I could not get it to do the things I had done with Tex. It came with free compiler that worked better than anything I had used before. The same compiler worked as a cross compiler. There was a choice of software for schematic capture, PCB layout, and circuit simulation.
Better versions of all the stuff I could no longer use because MS kept "upgrading" their operating system.
I never had to deal with anything that explicitly required windows 3.11. Dosemu under linux and freedos have been sufficient so far, and it has been a long time since I had to resort to either.
XP has past me by, and I made no effort to investigate it. Now that it too is on the way out, I have no legacy XP programs to deal with. It is unlikely that I will buy a Vista capable machine - my newest kit is fanless and I expect it to last beyond Windows 7 service pack 2 (assuming Windows 7 is only two years late).
Have we reached the point yet when people get fired for choosing to be locked into expensive software with a short life span?
Remember 3.11? I remember designing hardware for it to run on! Damn, I'm so old...
Whereas workstations had adopted GUIs and multi-tasking quickly, PCs were still mostly text-based single-taskers when Windows 3 came along. At the time Windows (and previously DR GSX) were a bit of an oddity rather than mainstream. I remember people who saw Windows 3 for the first time saying "wow, this will change everything" - and it did.
Respect for the old girl, she led the mass adoption of graphical user interfaces on PCs. What am I bid for my original set of install floppies?
Dusted off MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 recently. I needed Corel Draw 3 which I found wasn't on my system any more. Now although CD3 will run on Windows 2000 (my main system) it will only *install* under 16-bit incarnations otherwise it hangs up wondering why installing a true type font doesn't create a .FOT file.
Installation went OK and now I'm keeping DOS and Windows 3.1 on my FAT-16 format C: drive and made several copies of the boot floppy.
So another old system lives on inside my PC box, joining the (emulated) Amstrad CPC464 dual-floppy system.
Icon of another old dual-floppy system
And just starting to develop my love for technology (errr not in that way) Ah win 3.1
Used it on a tosh laptop first (my home PC ran DOS and did not have enough RAM or processor horsepower to run Windows.
Thought it was the best thing since err bread till a few years later when I tinkered with it on a laptop I was given and realised what a pain it must have been to administer but it tought me a lot.
Next incarnation was on a network at secondary school with all the desktops running via remote boot ROMs using a BNC ring and RM LAN Manager.
People had to log on one at a time or the server would just fall over, it would also have a lie down if you opened more than application, I did that a few times and brought the network to a grinding halt!
Ah those were the days!
Not sure why it or Windows for Workgroups was ever embeded in anything though.
"everyone who actually remembers using this operating system is long gone"
I'm aged 26 and remember it well... and Windows 3.0... DOS 4... and I've still got all the disks and manuals... ah the days when a PC had a "Turbo" button on the front to give you those extra 3 Mhz when playing Duke Nukem or Castle Wolfenstein.
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