Restoring MS Office from backup

If you moved the dead PC's *entire* hard drive over to a backup disk, AND you are just rediscovering Win3.1, then it is likely fair to say that you haven't got much stuff built up yet on your new Win3.1 install? In this case, you might consider doing what I did. Like you, I kept an image of my old Win3.1 hard drive around years after the original computer was long since dead and gone. Like you, it had a fully operational and fully legal copy of Office on it. This year, I got the whole thing working again on an old computer that I acquired (to a certain extent, you need an old computer, as there are NO Win3.1 drivers for modern hardware!). I got it working on this older computer by creating a FAT16 partition on the hard drive and copying my *complete* backup of the original PC's hard drive to that partition. Then I cobbled together a bootable DOS 6.2 floppy from old floppies I had lying around. The modern Windows on the computer sees the new partition as a D:\ drive. The DOS floppy however, when booted, sees it as the C:\ drive, since DOS/Win doesn't understand FAT32 or NTFS. So, all is in readiness. You have a fresh C:\ drive reloaded with your old DOS/Win image. To use this arrangement, I just pop in the DOS boot diskette, boot up DOS, switch to the C:\ drive (just type "C:" at the DOS prompt), and type "win", just like the "good ol days". The real trick in all of this was finding enough drivers for basic stuff like the video card and the sound card to get it all to work nicely. That was the real challenge. That said, I did spend a fair amount of time tromping through win.ini, control.ini and system.ini updating everything to reflect the new drivers. Some inspired guessing, some good luck, and some functioning memories from my days on DOS/Win later, and it is all up and running. And it was well worth it! My Office for Windows programs are lightening fast even on this older computer (a 450 MHz Pentium II) compared to their modern WinXP equivalents. And they are amazingly functional! It is almost a pleasure to work in such a zippy enivoronment! It wasn't nearly this fast on the original computer it ran on (a 66 MHz 486DX2). So, in short, simply copy your backup over to a new partition, boot into it with a DOS diskette, and you are off and running. Good luck!

Actually, my rediscovery of windows 3.11 started with a blank drive, loaded dos 6.22, win 3.1, upgraded to 3.11 and Win32S. Yes I found drivers for audio and video 800x600 256 colors and USB flash drive. My first concept was to just play DOS games as I have other modern systems with all the new stuff win2k Office XP, etc. But as you pointed out, it is nice to have a Win 3.11 system that works so **fast**. Definitely zippy!! Then, I thought of MS office. Hence this post. My realistic options are: a) wait until I find installation disks for Office. b) transfer the installed MS Office from backup to my "new" win 3.11 and edit the INI files and/or registry if I can figure out how. Then there are the library files that setup adds to the windows dir. No idea which ones are required, or I could copy them over.

If you have the disks (and they still can be read) then finding and reinstalling them would be the best solution. Restoring the Win3.1 registry isn't something you want to do unless you've had some experience (and an occasional failure or 2)...

Thanks all for your comments. I would like to close this thread. I was able to get the disks, and so my option (a) above is the best. Editing INI files and the registry was not something I was looking forward to. In fact, I was trying to talk myself out of the whole idea, reminding myself of the advances in Office over the years since my 3.1 installation. In later versions of Office, for example, you can use visual basic for applications (VBA) instead of awkward macros. Makes a big difference in Access and Excel.

Ah yes, but for fate there go I. Faithfully copied 20 years of financial records as backup on a Zipdisc for my 3.1. Sadly it has informed me that it wanted to retire and now I must find a way to utilize copied records. After reading many with the same problem I wonder if obtaining an old machine and reformating it with my original discs is the way to go. Hate to be tied to the past but PFROI was a neat program and has all my stuff. So why do we worry about how long a floppy or CD or DVD will live when the ability to access old O/S makes it usless.

True, involuntary retirement of hardware/software will always be a problem. You can load win3.1 on a modern box (old not necessary), load PFROI and export your data to a format like an Excel or delimited text file which can then be read by modern systems. Then for true media longevity, (no kidding!)"store your CD at 17 degrees F in a ziplock bag in a freezer" according to the National Academy Of Sciences.:)