I have tried to install 3.11 onto a laptop with no cd drive. but used a win 98 se boot disk. This has setup a d drive with files on it. after installing 3.11 by floppy the system shuts down . on reboot it says invalid system disk and shuts down. can i load from my pc onto the laptop anything as no software seems to be installed. does this make sense

.. maybe a little.

Win311 is not an OS - you need to install a version of DOS in order to run it.

Cd drive is not required - sure, you may be able to run DOS from a bootdisk (why though?) - as well, the 'stock' version of DOS7x (Win9x) has issues with Win311.

Why don't they make computers that will do what we think we want them to do?

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... and before 'someone' rushes in to let you know, there is an installation package for DOS7.1 available here which should work with the old Windows.

Why don't they make computers that will do what we think we want them to do?

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downloaded pk zip dos 7.1 when i put floppy in laptop error message

non system disk error replace and strike any key when ready.

do i put win 98 startup disk in first ?
then what do i type in after i get a A:\

You've never really had much to do with DOS - would that be accurate?

Might be beneficial to read whatever instructions available at the download site.

Ok - you want to install a DOS Operating System onto a hard drive that has none. Forget about the 98 disk.

Presumably you d/l'd dos71_1.zip? Unzip that file into a folder somewhere and then read the instructions - you can run 'makeboot.bat' to create the diskette. Boot your machine with your newly created diskette & run setup.

Why don't they make computers that will do what we think we want them to do?

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i now have the os of 3.11 on my laptop. I was sure i has a version of winzip on it years ago. i have tried to unzip using pkzip but do not know the commands in dos
something like a:\ unzip part-it.zip it keeps unzipping it to a : how do i unzip it to c:\part-it .

most of the software i have wont work on 3.11 like some exe files saved under win 95

What are you saying or asking?

Win31 is not an OS, as mentioned previously - that's why you (hopefully) installed DOS, which is.

Using DOS pkunzip is pretty straightforward, and you can invoke a help screen by entering it without parameters:

pkunzip

while you can specify a target when unzipping, easiest is to switch to where you want the file unzipped and run it from that location.

Winzip is not a command line application - you can use WinZip 6.3 in Win31 - still available here

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This thread is becoming a good example of the need to buy and install one of the microsoft versions of DOS.

Don't misread this, I use and like DOS 7.1 but those not used to using DOS keyboard commands and syntax almost always have problems. Most don't even understand that Win 3.xx isn't even an operating system.

Anyway, here goes:

At the A:\> prompt type pkunzip a:\part-it.zip c:\part-it

That'll unzip the file for you.

Like jboy said you can also just copy the *.zip file to your C:\part-it directory and type the command you were using earlier.

That syntax would be to type copy a:\*.zip c:\part-it to get it copied to your c:\part-it directory.

If you have more trouble with this, post back with the problems...it will all work sooner or later.

Skip

thank you a thousand times
the version of winzip i was trying was 7
and se2.2 neither worked. winzip 6.3 worked
and hove found a few programs that now work.

once again i thank you
p.s. i am coming across sites to download 3.1 software (the program part it was first for win 95 and does not work on 3.1)is there any file splitter programs for 3.1 that you recomend.

your help has been appreciated

Winzip, pkzip and most any archiving program can 'span' a program over several floppies if need be. There are also programs whose only function is to split files into floppy-sized chunks

WinZip7 is for Win95 onward - this is why you should read the System Requirements (aka the instructions) before downloading or installing things.

Why don't they make computers that will do what we think we want them to do?

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