This is a REALLY old clone of windows 3.1 i did in 1998 for my old Pentium 1... Its runs like laxative trainers... It can run windows 3x programs but no dos programs...
Im uploading it now if anyone wants to try it...

Simply extract the zip into its own folder...
eg c:\freewin

and type freewin at the dos prompt!

Hard Fact! Metal Rules! MEGADETH!!!

Screenshot

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/...

Hard Fact! Metal Rules! MEGADETH!!!

Here is the download
http://www.savefile.com/files/1183666

sorry for posting too much but i couldnt find an edit button!

Hard Fact! Metal Rules! MEGADETH!!!

sounds interesting
but cant seem to download it
got a link that works?

Managed to download file freewin.zip... Will try and post again!1

Managed to get Freewin running! Well, no problem under MS-DOS 6.20. Under MS-DOS 7.10 on one of my computer it loads normally, on another it refuses to! On MS-DOS 7.00 it refuses again, though it shouldn't, actually (MS-DOS 7.00 seems basically to be an enhanced MS-DOS 6.22). What I get out of this is that Freewin CAN load under whatever flavour of DOS, but it seems that something sometimes goes wrong (with the settings, I presume). The ERROR message in all cases is the same: "KERNEL: Can't enter Protected Mode". Well, meanmrmustad: any idea on how to get this over?

You all DO know this is a stripped down distribution of Windows 3.11, modified with some of the DLL's from Calmira to change the appearance? Hope you didn't download it.

http://www.microsuck.com/forums/sho...

humm what is it?
just a tweaked win16?
did you test it on dr or free dos?

mobrien12
bad link
sounds like an idea though

Strange, link works fine for me.

It's Windows 3.11 modified with Calmira dlls. IT only runs in real mode on freedos because that's the only way windows 3.1x runs on freedos.

Someone else at the MES tested it on Freedos using DOSEMU. I was immediately suspicious and ran strings on all the files. They contain copyright notices from Microsoft for the early 1990's.

The copyright notices in some files had been altered, but you don't have much flexibility in doing that to binaries because you must preserve the byte count. Thus the Nine character "Microsoft" became the nine character "A.V. Soft" and the seven character "Windows" became the seven character "Freewin".

If you can't click the link, go to http://forum.microsuck.com and find the thread in the "Moron Zone" (this is where the MES throws threads like that).

Oh, regarding the bad link: sometimes the name doesn't DNS resolve depending on what network you are on (it's in canada): I've run into that when travelling. You can try the main MES page directly with its IP number http://65.39.182.20/ and click the forum link at the top if that doesn't work.

cant seem to locate the post but
I know what you are talking about
it sounds like a good starting point
sort of a jumping point to save time

dlls can be reprogramed and replaced
and in this case there are very few to deal
with

in order for them to work they would need
to be all most identical
export the functions the same way
and likly even be the same size
are you certain they were not recreated
or did you just read a post about it?

have a good link to the file?

OK here is the original detective work post. It is my post.

*SNIP*

This IS an actual, stripped down copy of Windows 3.11, modified/improved by Calmira . In some cases, the guy was smart enough to try to replace the copyright notices, but if you look closely, he had to make some odd replacements to keep the byte count the same. For example

"Microsoft"
"A.v. soft"

"Windows"
"Freewin"

Code:

for i in $(ls *); do strings $i|less ; done

Quote:
Originally Posted by sample of interesting things

FileVersion
1.00
InternalName
COMMDLG
LegalCopyright
Copyright
2000 Joshua Brannon
OriginalFilename
COMMDLG.DLL
ProductName
COMMDLG Replacement
ProductVersion
1.00

StringFileInfo
040904E4
CompanyName
Microsoft Corporation
FileDescription
Windows COMM Driver
FileVersion
3.10
InternalName
COMM
LegalCopyright
Copyright
Microsoft Corp. 1991-1992
OriginalFilename
COMM.DRV
ProductName
Microsoft
Windows(TM) Operating System
ProductVersion
3.10
VarFileInfo
Translation

CompanyName
Microsoft Corporation
FileDescription
DDE Management library
FileVersion
4.10.1998
InternalName
DDEML
LegalCopyright
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1991-1998
OriginalFilename
DDEML.DLL
ProductName
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Operating System

You are using a Windows 3.0 display driver with Windows 3.1 ... You need to contact your
video board manufacturer for updated video drivers. IconMaker and other programs may n
ot work properly with your current driver. The FastDraw flag in ICONMKR.INI is being se
t to 0 ... When you update your driver, you should be able to change the flag to 1, and
get improved performance.

Copyright (C) 1983-1990 Microsoft Corp. All Rights Reserved.

FileDescription
Windows Keyboard Driver
FileVersion
3.10
InternalName
KEYBOARD
LegalCopyright
Copyright
Microsoft Corp. 1991-1992
OriginalFilename
KBD.DRV
ProductName
Microsoft
Windows(TM) Operating System
ProductVersion
3.10

Portions Copyright (c) 1983,92 Borland

CompanyName
A.v. Soft Corporation
FileDescription
Freewin file expansion library
FileVersion
3.11
InternalName
LZEXPAND
LegalCopyright
Copyright
A.v. Soft Corp. 1989-1993
OriginalFilename
LZEXPAND.DLL
ProductName
A.v. Soft
Freewin(TM) Operating System
ProductVersion
3.11

CompanyName
a.v. soft Corporation
FileDescription
System APIs for Multimedia
FileVersion
InternalName
mmsystem.dll
LegalCopyright
Copyright
a.v. soft Corp. 1991
OriginalFilename
mmsystem.dll
ProductName
a.v. soft Freewin
ProductVersion
VarFileInfo
Translation

InternalName
MOUSE
LegalCopyright
Copyright
Microsoft Corp. 1991-1992
OriginalFilename
MOUSE.DRV
ProductName
Microsoft
Windows(TM) Operating System
ProductVersion
3.10
VarFileInfo
Translation

CompanyName
AreCo d.o.o.
FileDescription
3D Controls Driver using CTL3D or CTL3DV2 libraries.
FileVersion
1.27
InternalName
Z3DC
LegalCopyright
Copyright
Pekic Zoltan,1994-95
OriginalFilename
Z3DC.DRV
VarFileInfo
Translation

CompanyName
Microsoft Corporation
FileDescription
Multimedia sound driver
FileVersion
InternalName
mmsound.drv
LegalCopyright
Copyright
Microsoft Corp. 1991
OriginalFilename
mmsound.drv
ProductName
Microsoft Windows
ProductVersion
VarFileInfo
Translation

CompanyName
Microsoft Corporation
FileDescription
VGA 386 enhanced mode display component
FileVersion
3.10
InternalName
GRABBER
LegalCopyright
Copyright
Microsoft Corp. 1991-1992
OriginalFilename
VGA.3GR
ProductName
Microsoft
Windows(TM) Operating System
ProductVersion
3.10

Freewin for Workgroups 3.11 could not start. Make sure that you are running
MS-DOS version 3.30 or higher, and that the "files=" line in CONFIG.SYS
is set to 20 or higher.

FileVersion
3.10
InternalName
TOOLHELP
LegalCopyright
Copyright
Microsoft Corp. 1981-1996
OriginalFilename
TOOLHELP.DLL
ProductName
Microsoft
Windows(TM) Operating System
ProductVersion
3.10

InternalName
FIXFONTS
LegalCopyright
Copyright
Microsoft Corp. 1991-1992
OriginalFilename
VGAFIX.FON
ProductName
Microsoft
Windows(TM) Operating System
ProductVersion
3.10
VarFileInfo

:Microsoft Windows 3.1 Coprocessor/Emulator Library 7.00.00

*SNIP*

Do the strings yourself. You will find the same information.

That's just a sample. Cutting and pasting gets boring.

You will notice a couple dll's that are not belonging to MS. For example Joshua Brannon's COMMDLG.DLL replacement is available at the Calmira site and changes the dialog boxes. The rest clearly belong to Microsoft. You can write a replacement dll, but it won't have Microsoft's copyright notices, and it doesn't have to be the same size, because you recompile it.

If you use a hex editor to manipulate the strings in a compiled program or dll, you have to keep the byte count identical.

cool thanks for the input

some version checking programs and virous scaners likly would have errors if the dlls were changed much

though I havent seen the setup
I would think calmira a bit heavy
it calls some system functions that
you likly could do without

why would any one who went that far stop
is there some invisible M$ barrier?
imposible or just to difficult?

the windows 3.1 program was supposed to be made with C++ right?

wat say?

hummm.....
when was the last time
M$ sued or jailed any one for giving
away copys of windows 3.1?

WRT Calmira, it seems he didn't take the whole thing, only some dll files to change the look of Windows so it wasn't glaringly obvious.

Joshua's file, for example, doesn't need a calmira install from what I remember: it can be put on a Win 3.1x installation. However, it it is found on the Calmira project webpage.

Not sure what you mean about an invisible MS barrier, except the fact that they wrote the OS. Yeah, you can plug new pieces in, but rewriting the whole thing is darned hard (look at the Wine or reactos projects).

But anyone can alter strings in binary files if they have a hex editor (DOS Norton Utils came with a good one). You could change the strings in your current windows 3.1x install to read "Walters" instead of "Windows" if you wanted to.

Last time I did it was with a binary game data file in DOS to "cheat" on the (one player) game to give me a million credits. It won't trip any antivirus scanners because it's not executable code. The only restriction is you must only change bytes in the string data, not delete, not add (think overstrike instead of insert).

As for MS suing over Win 3.1x... I dunno. I don't want any FreeDOS users to get hurt by downloading Warez and thinking it's original software.