Or to put it the other way round. Why not? More people use MS-DOS & Windows 3.x than you think, and that includes some large companies as well. Unless you play games or are heavy into music downloads. It is a stable working platform. Computing.Net does not get as many posts on the DOS & Win31 forum as it does on 9x onwards, but more than you would expect I would say!

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It's the reliability...OK, perhaps it isnt as table as nt, but it has it's own peculiar form of reliability.. it's a lot less invasive..as i was writing this in nt, i was denied access to posting by some invasiveware that took over my computer (not connected with computing.net, i hasten to add)..never in 31... its a lot less rude...don;'t you ever get tired of messages like 'you do not have permission to open 'c' drive, or 'you have not accepted any cookies today..this computer will now shut down' :) , or 'your rare irreplacable codecs are out of date, they have been 'upgraded' by generic MS ones..' Win 31 rarely blames the user for system errors due to sofware bugs... practically no viruses exist anywhere for win31... w31's UI can be tweaked to look exactly like OS/2 warp, win95/98, or XP... It's extremely easy to tweak, once you get to know it (a few smallish system files and a very small registry...) every setting is adjustable.. thers so much more i haven't even scratched the surface with positive reasons for win31......... ok?

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I got a 486/66DX some time ago. It was an old HP Vectra that some company had thrown out. And no wonder, they were running Win95 with 8MB of RAM in it. It ran horridly, and everyone who ever used it hated it. When I got a hold of it, I could only think of one solution. WFW 3.11. It runs beautifully. I upgraded it with a soundblaster AWE64/Gold, bumped it up to 16MB of RAM, and slapped on Caldera. It's a wonderful system that plays all of my old games that the new hardware has left in the dust. Now, I'm networking it into my home network, and giving it access to my Cable Modem. I love it! I haven't even spent $20 on it, and it has given me more hours of fun than most modern machines. Being prone to naming my favorite machines, I named this one Elwood, after the owner of the Abandon Keep, where I found about 80% of the software on it now. Long live 3.1!

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Sorry, not Caldera, it was Calmira.

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I just got a P120 to use as a testbed, 95 took 30-40 minutes to install and takes a while to boot up, 3.11 took abour 5 minutes to set up and boots in about a minute, 3.0 took about 3 seconds to install and boots almost as fast as bare dos does. Different horses for different courses is the expression that springs to mind Woof

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I agree that for many it comes as a way for older PCs to run an acceptable operating system, one which can be on a modern network and even run a gui. I run it on a 386DX-40 (Cyrix math-co, too!) with 20 Meg of RAM and a 120 Meg hard disk. It's basically the only operating system I can run on that system and get a gui view of the internet. Plus, I actually have a license to run it, and I'm not about to give Microsoft any more money than I have to (no XP, thanks.) I run Linux on most of my machines, but I used DOS/Win 3.1 before that, so I'm kinda partial to it. I just wish that Mozilla or the latest version of Opera would run on it.

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Wow... I haven't seen one of these topics in a LONG time! It's almost a litte nice to see, with how slow this forum has been getting lately... Ha, anyway, I used to use 3.11 quite a bit. On a 486 133Mhz w/ 32MB RAM, it ran pretty well. My main system at the time was a K6-2 500Mhz, so it wasn't too huge of a difference. But now that my main system is an Athlon XP 2500+, I almost never use my older 3.11 systems... I've gotten too used to the faster one, and don't really like to use the old systems as much anymore... I still like Windows 3.1x quite a bit, though. DOS 6.22/Win 3.11 was the first thing I learned on, and I've just always kind of liked it for some reason... Partly a nostalgia thing, I guess, and partly because I just like it. (Which is why I'm glad to be using Virtual PC now, allowing me to run Win 3.11 on my main system, with nice colors/screen resolution, access to cable internet, and more...)

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486 runs 95 horridly slow!!!!!!!!! k semler i dissagree i have a 486sx and it runs windows 95a better then 3.1 & dos ever did! installs are way faster and not only is it 95a but i have ms Plus! on it too (limited, free download) also i run AVG 6.0 winzip 8.0 i have a lexmark z11 printer and tons of other things and it only has 20mb of ram and 33mhz proccessor! i can install so much on it because i have a 1.2gb hard drive. older computers are just as capible of doing things the newer ones can, like i have a 1ghz pentium and it can't run some games that the 486 can. don't nock old computers!!!!!!! and 3.1 is just fine it just needs a little tlc, so why don't we just give it some, if the win32s ran things better and inedition to calmira it would rock!!!!!! lets fix up 3.1 ok?

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If you copy the shell32.dll out of a Windows 95 installation, and place it in your Win32s installation in the directoay c:\windows\system, and c:\windows\system\win32s, you will be able to run more programs. Also, according to my site statistics, Windows 3.1 actually enjoys a higher usage level than Windows ME does. So a better question would be why run Windows ME. Windows 3.1 can be made as solid as a rock, and has a very wide Win16 softwae base that is just as capable as its Win32 counterpart. Windows ME is unstable no matter how you slice it, I have crashed a clean Windows ME installation 20 miniutes after installation. Windows ME was also responisble for corrupting my FAT, so I had to fork out over $200 for a stable OS known as Windows XP. I have had very litte problems with Windows XP, and also very little with Windows 3.11 FW. I dread the people wo are running Windows ME, and having to put up with the contiuious crashes, and low resources. Also, have you ever tried to install Windows 95 OSR2 with Office 97 SR2, with IE 4.0 SP2 for the active desktop, and then update it to IE 5.5 SP2 with all of the available updates on a 486 DX 25Mhz with only a 500 MB 5400RPM HDD? I have. That configuration took 10 miniutes to boot up to a usable state, and there was only 20 MB of HDD space left. With Windows 3.11 FW on the same machine, with all my Windows 3.1 software (close to 150MS worth of various software), only takes 5 seconds to boot up on that machine. That is a hell of an increase in boot time just to have a "modern" OS like 95 on that machine. Granted, the Program Manager interface is very out dated, and not very good looking, but if you go to <a herf="http://www.calmira.de">http://www.calmira.de, you can get a 100% free Explorer replacement for Windows 3.1x. If you set it as your shell, you will no longer have to use File Manager, or Program Manager. Calmira will run on a PC as early as a 386 20 Mhz with only 2MB RAM in VGA resolution. Calmira has breathed new life into Windows 3.1x. If you think that Windows 3.1x is old and outdated, why don't you try and install Windows XP on your 486 DX 25 with only 8 MB RAM? What's wrong? Too slow for you? Then run an OS that was designed for that platform, and quit your whining. BTW, here are my main machine specs: AMD Athlon XP2200+ 768 MB PC 133 Micron SD RAM 40.00GB 7200RPM Maxtor HDD 6.34 GB 5400RPM Western Digital HDD 3.5" Hiatachi FDD Fujitsu 52x CD ROM Lite-On LTR 12 X 10 X 32 CDRW Sound Blaster 16 PCI 56Kbps v.92 US Robotics PCI modem 3Com 10/100 PCI NIC Gigabyte GA-7XZE Motherboard NVIDIA Gforce4 440MX Three NMB 80mm Diameter fans KD5 XFlat 17" Moniter 32 bit color @ 1280 X 1024 @75Hz Logitech iTouch Pro 108 Key USB Keyboard Microsoft USB Intellipoint 4.1 Optical Mouse USB 1.1 USB 2.0 300W Power Supply Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Service Pack 1a) This machine does everything I want it to, and is more than capable for most people's needs. It will compile WINE in under 5 miniutes, and GTA3 plays wonderfully. Even though I have only placed Windows 3.11 For Workgroups on my old 486, it is still very usable for most people's needs. About the only thing it is not capable of is burning a CD. Also, why does it matter to you what I run on my system? If I choose to run MS-DOS 3.30 with Windows 1.01 as my GUI, it is my choice. If I decide to run VMS on it, it is also my choice. If I decide to use my computer as a boat anchor, it is also my choice. If I decide to use it for target practice with my 12ga. shotgun, that is also my choice. An operating system is just that, it is not a religion, or a way of life. We do not need to "convert" people's choice in what OS they use, as an OS has no weight on if a person is going to be rich or poor, in heaven or hell.

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k_semler, I'm surprised you had that much trouble with Me. I run it on 2 machines with no crashes, lockups, BSOD's, or low system resources. I don't care for the emulated dos "feature" but other than that, it works just fine. It's not that I'm a Me fan, but some of the features of Me (better hardware support, for one) make life on the road a little easier for me. As I mentioned in #5 and Mick in #7, DOS is still widely used. It's not uncommon to find a 20 or 40 Gig drive with a single 2 Gig partition running 6.22 and a business app. As far as the emulated DOS issue with Me and XP, I'm just running a dual boot system with these OS's. And, as you mentioned, DOS boot time is just a few seconds...quite a bit longer laptop battery life to download and install updated apps and firmware/software.

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Windows 3.x is a good GUI of DOS. I often use Windows 3.x on top of MS-DOS 7.10 on my 30GB hard disk, with FAT32 and LFN support, of course.

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True, the advantage to ME is that you do have more modern hardware support. That is about the only good thing I can think of about ME, other than the system restore. However, if you wish to have stability, I would reccomend that you install Windows 2000 Professional SP4. It has support for a lot of hardware, and it is also very stable. For the system restore, I would recommend that you install Roxio's GoBack3. The application is about $70.00, but the cost is well worth it if you wish to have a system restore function that is not crippled as it is in Windows XP, and Windows ME. I have actually restored my whole system with GoBack3, and it worked wonderfully. Once I kept on getting the blue screen UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME, and I just restored it to the time before I installed the conflicting driver, and it was in pristine condition once agein. If you do beta testing of applications, I would highly reccomend that you install this application, as it will save you alot of trouble in the future. This is about the only product that I have found that works exactly as advertized. For DOS compatibility, the best way to get that is to install VirtualPC, and use the PC DOS 2000 *.VHD image that comes with it. The advanage of VPC is that all hardware is emulated, and if you have a failed app, you can just restart the virtual machine without it affecting the operation of your main system. Also, since it is a virtual computer, you can do anything that you like with it. It is just as capable of an actual computer system. VPC also works wonders for supporting people, or test deployment situations. It is a little slow however. It runs on my machine with only as much speed as my P1 200Mhz Classic. As a matter of fact, most of the virtual hardware that is emulated on VPC, is actually the configuration of my P1 200. Pretty strange, but a reliable test situation. VPC works wonders for me.

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The more appropriate response is why is anybody still asking this question? -Michael

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ME has got to be the biggest peace of eerrrrr...uaaaa "O/S" that was ever loaded on a HDD. Thanks Bill G. for the memories!

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@ markp1313: I'll second that motion. I cannot figure out which is worse, MS BOB, or MS Windows ME. Let's put it up to the vote. I vote ME is the worst OS around, and BOB is the worst GUI.

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It's gonna be hard to find anyone to argue with that k_. I agree and I use Me. MS BOB...what was that all about anyway? What a hunk of $h!t. BTW k_, thanks for the VPC reminder in #18. I'll try to sell GoBack3 too...seems like the techs I deal with aren't all that techy and laptop crashes are more common with them than I had imagined possible. Naturally, it only happens when they need the laptop for work. Skip

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Win 3.1 is the most stable and reliable OS ever made, I love it and I still using it even when I have other systems, so, why is everybody still asking this question, if everyone knows how important is Win 3.1 for us? Takeru

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k_semler I agree 100% BTW very cool, very usefull site! Good Job.

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just to put in my 2 cents... I run 3 newer machines with win xp sp1..and i cant say i dont like it..in fact i think its great especially after all the dramas i had in the pst with win 98 and ME..but the point is recently i bought a old laptop off ebay ...just because i needed to take some things with me and be able to do some work on the road..(it didnt have to be the ducks guts though)so wen i got it i put win 95 on it ..ide never realy used 95 b4...but i reacon its great to go bak to the old systems again...ifact its rather fun having to install hardwear manually again instead of a wizard making you lazy..i had to go to the net and find sound drivers and display adapters and i actually enjoyed the challenge. i know the question is about 3.1 and im talking about 95 but the whole point is the same...and now that ive read the comments on here about 3.1 (and the fact that ive never used it )..im now thinking about going and get that and put on instead of 95...

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Because it isn't stupid; because it never insults my intelligence. Because my 3.1 hasnt crashed in over 5 years; my other systems have, numerous times. Because it runs old and wonderful programs like the old Eudora, Opera and Trumpet Winsock. Because I can erase Microsoft Internet Explorer from it. Because it doesn't have Outlook Express. Because I grew up with it, and it grew with me. Hi to everyone here. It's wonderful to drop in on a group who appreciates 3.1. I still run my 3.1 laptop, and I'm glad to see there's a cult group out here who share my passion for it. My friends think I'm crazy... Fatima

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I don't know why everyone tries to make a rational answer to this I use it, because I WANT to and so does everyone else who uses it!

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fatima3.1 I like it because Internet Explorer was never loaded in the first place! Its called Freedom of Choice. And joe That is why people still use Windows 3.1 Because it is them, Not Bill Gates who choose to do so. If you wish to use WinBloat xx or whatever until the next User Beta (Sorry Version) is released that also is your choice. Please leave us to ours!

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wow! great responses to this forum! i have to say that we're forgeting that windows 95 isn't an operating system! its a GUI just like 3.1 was except its been intergrated with dos to make people think its an os and most people buy that but i'm here to tell ya windows 95 is not its own os xp and the NT seris are (actually 2000 and me codes were combined to make xp which stands for eXPeraince) i read about someone that used the dos thats hidden in 95 (basicly a boot disk and typed sys c:) with 3.1 and the boot up will be tons faster, its the GUI that makes people wait at the splash screen the splash screen is on aslongas things are loading so... it takes 95 that long to load so if you take a new hdd and a 95 boot disk and type sys C: then you install 3.1 and the add ons for it (calmira, mask98 and win 32s) then compared it to 95, the look and feel is excatly the smae but whats the difference the speed and stablity is on the 3.1 yet not on the 95. i know i'm rabling but most people get 95 for looks and this way 3.1 gets the looks but still stable. any way 95a i know can do anything 3.1 ever did and more tho it has bugs that gates should have perfected instead of trying to make it "better" i think there was a great thing going with 95a actually i'm told that 95a can actually run 3.1 in a dos box! so thats cool. now 3.1 isn't choice for some for some they don't have computers fast enough to run 95 and that is bad but i like 95 for its features so i chose 95 same with 3.1 its your own choice and i know that every one has been saying that. anyway i read about a guy that made his own version of the 95 display prop. for 3.1 well i am rabling but i just wanted to get this off my chest.

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To add a point. I work in a Computer Lab for students. Our main setup consists of about 60 machines, all running Win2k. However, we have one table of 5 WFW 3.11 machines. Their primary purpose, is to run the Nursing software, which still uses DOS. However, I find myself, at least once a week, using one of them to resurrect damaged disks. Point being, under any of the newer systems, a single damaged file can bring a whole disk down. But, if your exam paper, that you spent five hours typing, and just need to print it, isn't one of the damaged files, your damn right your going to want it back. This is just an example. If only I could count the times that old 486 has saved someone (including me) a whole lot of work. When I can't think of anything else, I can always turn to old faithful. Its not just nostalga. Its function, and these old timers still have plenty to spare. PS. Still running Office 4.3 Pro, buddy, with no inclination to switch (though I like OpenOffice.org from time to time).

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A better question would be: why does anyone still answer this question?!!! We use it because it works, it works well, and not only on older machines, but many here run it on new machines. This thing flies on new machines. And what about the brilliant XP? By comparison 3.1 is a fortress, XP is full of holes. But then, everyone has his own reasons to keep using the beloved dinosaur :)! Lightspeed.

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I still use 3.1 for so many things pretty much everything said above, of course I have up to date things and then some things that are way ahead of their time, i.e. (Longhorn)...but sometimes you just want to remember the way it used to be and where it all started, my 3.1 runs on 12mhz with 8mb ram and chugs along beautifuly, i'll never let it die.

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Windows XP = Windows-Xtra Problems sorry, just had to add that. Long Live 3.1

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Wow, now this thread got lots of posts... I have four machines now, RH9 LINUX on one, DOS/Win 3.11 on one, Windows 98 on one, and Windows XP on another. Why? Well, I picked up two used P1 100's for $20 each, I'm a computer science major, and I love playing with this stuff. Also, My Windows XP box will not play my old DOS games, and although Windows 98 will, it's just not the same as Windows 3.11. As some of the other peeps said... why not? ;-)

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I'm sorry, but I'll have to say a few things: * DOS+WfWG ISN'T a true multitasking OS. That's why one app crashing often hoses the whole system (granted, apps were more careful in those days). That's also why that happens on 9x/ME (which is actually DOS+WfWG+Win32s (and then some)+IE+DirectX). A correctly configured Linux distro can run great on an old 486. So would NT 3.1/3.51, if you really need Windows. * Drivers aren't nearly as available in WfWG. * Modern apps can't run (DON'T FLAME ME, I know about Win32s, but not many apps run under it!) * It's not designed for TCP/IP networking (I know that with a Winsock or the TCP/IP extension, it's possible, but...) * Calmira uses some illogical shortcut systems (I prefer directories of shortcuts, much like Win9x/ME/NT/2K/XP do it) - however, Calmira IS a great program (I used it on my 486 before I dismantled it))

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