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Windows 3.1 Inside of Windows 95


Nerdulater

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A quick backstory: When Windows 95 came out it was ran on top of MS-DOS as Wikipedia quoted: "Windows 95 and 98 are both dependent on MS-DOS to boot the 32 bit kernel and run legacy 16 bit MS-DOS device drivers" as for Windows 3.1 it was 16 bit only. You would think Windows 3.1 could run on Win9x but you would be wrong. The MS-DOS version is incompatible, However Microsoft had actually intended to run Windows 3.1 on top of Windows 95 for backwards compatibility, Most likely for backwards compatibility purposes. I honestly think if this made it to final and i existed back then I would use it! It has huge potential in my opinion but...

 

1469037928_Windows95C-2023-01-22-19-22-33.png.94648224bab401fbf207db9bf3b73629.png 

It didn't work well. Firstly it requires you to have windows 3.1 preinstalled with no way to do it with the app. Some people say it was a VM but honestly that is wrong as, from the above screenshot it has full access to the hard drive which also in some cases could pose a danger. Also unlike VM's drivers don't work at least for me. i tried installing a svga driver onto the 'VM' and it gave me a blank screen, some drivers have to be at dos level like the sb16 driver for windows 3.1 on the 95 system which VM's don't need. and so honestly I rate the beta windows 95 'VM' 2/10. 

1709846066_Windows95C-2023-01-22-19-09-47.thumb.png.36c70193c4f4aa06d9ccfde5fbb0473a.png

as for DOSBox it works so much better with sound, graphics and even networking (because it's megabulid6) working. It's also isolated from the host meaning it can't do any damage. It can even let you put files onto it. so if you want windows 3.1 inside of windows 95 your much better off using DOSBox.

 

 

Edited by Nerdulater
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13 hours ago, Nerdulater said:

Some people say it was a VM

You must be talking about this guy.

Err....

Actually this guy > www.geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/retro/extrawin.htm

Interesting, huh

Win3x is my favorite Windows. With that said, out of the operating systems I use, it gets used the least.

NOTICE: I had no idea there was history with that guy. I just clicked my own link, to meet a surprise.

Edited by awkduck
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I have the files to give "Switch to Win3" a shot, but haven't gotten around to it.

I haven't examined the Win3x drivers from the leaked build. But, I think they certainly would aid it beyond the stock files. They are probably the most important files.

I've guessed that there is a little more to it then just being in a V.M.. If the host keyboard input is disabled during use, then you can't simply Alt+Enter to see it turn to a Window. The up side, is that the guest would get your Alt+Tab, instead of the host. So, if a V.M., it is an altered one.

It would be nice if someone running it sported the about Window. Or testified if you could open a Dos Prompt. I'm sure it can't.

There are enough legacy files, in Win9x, to build an okay standard mode Win3x. But you'll get no Dos Prompt. You'd need to build a better "SYSTEM.INI".

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12 minutes ago, awkduck said:

I have the files to give "Switch to Win3" a shot, but haven't gotten around to it.

Which is from the Chicago beta, I used build 328 you also have to modify win31.exe with a hex editor to bypass the system check, and put dualcomm.drv and dualmous.drv into the windows 3.1 system folder and modify the system.ini file respectively.

16 minutes ago, awkduck said:

I've guessed that there is a little more to it then just being in a V.M.. If the host keyboard input is disabled during use, then you can't simply Alt+Enter to see it turn to a Window. The up side, is that the guest would get your Alt+Tab, instead of the host. So, if a V.M., it is an altered one.

It didn't change from full screen to windowed when i used alt+enter. I even modified the shortcut pif file to make it windowed and it still didn't work maybe a earlier bulid of chicago allowed this to happen but thats all i can guess.

18 minutes ago, awkduck said:

It would be nice if someone running it sported the about Window. Or testified if you could open a Dos Prompt. I'm sure it can't.

Would of been very fun. Windows 3.1 in Windows 3.1 in Windows... but sadly it dosen't work. But i did find a screen shot of windows 3.1 or nt 3.51 running windows 3.1 using the beta program.

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