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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 21st Sep 2015, 4:30 pm   #1
yesnaby
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Default Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Hello,

I still have an old PC from 1995 that used to run Windows 3.11. Would it be possible to run Windows 2 on it just out of interest? Don't know where I would get the Windows 2 installation disks from though! Unfortunately I think I have got rid of all my small capacity hard disks.

Michael
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 4:38 pm   #2
paulsherwin
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

I don't see why it shouldn't work if you can find the video drivers. I don't know where you'll find a copy though - W2 didn't stay around for very long and most people stuck with DOS until W3.

It came on 3.5” floppies.
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 5:30 pm   #3
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

I've got it on 3½" floppies - 720k ones.

I never used it as, like Gem, I could do little more with it than load existing DOS programs.

I've never seem Windows 1; now that WOULD be interesting.
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 6:19 pm   #4
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

I have an IBM PC/AT on which I have installed Windows 3.0, Windows 2 and Windows 1. The latter was installed from an earlier format of 5¼" floppies with less than the standard 360K capacity per disc, albeit reformatted 360K discs.

As above, they don't do anything useful - they're just for demonstration purposes.
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 6:30 pm   #5
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Somewhere I have Windows 1.x for the HP150 ('Touchscreen PC'), on 3.5" disks of course. I also have an HP150 and an HP150-II to run it on.
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 6:53 pm   #6
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Hello,

I found this site that seems to have Windows 1.01 and 2.03. Is using these legal?

http://www.pcjs.org/disks/pc/windows/1.01/

Michael
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 9:37 pm   #7
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Images of these discs are available over here .

Saved me when I discovered that both my Windows 3.11, Autosketch and Word 2.0 discs had gone mouldy.

I think the general consensus these days is that this software is effectively abandonware as it is so far obsolete, and is essentially useless for anything other than historical interest and a bit of fun for the likes of us. Not sure exactly what the letter of the law is, but that site has been around for a few years now without getting stomped on by MS. Quick Google search revealed quite a few similar places too, Winworld is just my default go to for the moment I discover that disc has been corrupted...

Biggest headache I had was trying to track down enough working floppies. Having generally been an Amiga guy the vast bulk of my stock are 720K ones. Need to stockpile some 1.44Mb ones now I seem to be getting more into the older DOS/Windows stuff again.
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 10:15 pm   #8
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Hello,

Thanks everyone. A stupid question, how do I install these earlier Windows? Is DOS needed first and will they install from 1.44 MB floppies? Sorry for extensive ignorance of all this.

Michael
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 10:33 pm   #9
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

You need a copy of DOS. After installing that I think you run SETUP from the first Windows floppy but it's decades since I did it. I vaguely remember that DOS was on the first Windows floppy too, or maybe it was on a separate disk.

The original floppies were 720k but I imagine larger ones would work in the same way. There is a file on each disk whose name identifies the floppy number in the sequence.
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Old 21st Sep 2015, 10:42 pm   #10
Dave Moll
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Not such a stupid question, methinks. I have never tried installing one of these earlier Windows versions from the DOS box of say Windows XP. I rather suspect there may be problems, but I suppose there is one way to find out, so I might give it a go on a redundant computer I have, though this may not happen immediately.

As to installing from 1.4MB floppies, it depends on the format in which the installation software is supplied. That which I have is in the form of disc images from which floppies are created using a supplied DOS utility. I was able to create the Windows 1 images on 360K discs even though the format was for (I think) 320K, so it may be possible to load 360K or 720K images onto 1.4MB discs.

The problem I had, and the reason I never installed Windows 3.1 on my AT, was that its installation discs were only available in 1.4M format - which is not supported by the AT. And, whereas you can pour a pint into a quart pot, you can't do it the other way round!

Edit: Paul posted while I was composing the above.
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Old 22nd Sep 2015, 1:37 am   #11
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

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Originally Posted by yesnaby View Post
Thanks everyone. A stupid question, how do I install these earlier Windows? Is DOS needed first and will they install from 1.44 MB floppies?
Possibly not relevant, but till recently, I always used the DOS route to installing Windows of any version. Last MB I had would run 95/98 &2000.

I've still got a 66MHZ system kicking around, and a copy of DOS 6, so i've always hankered after getting some of my old S/W running again.
Any way - I always used FDISK to partition my HD first, MAKING THE PARTITION ACTIVE, then format in DOS of the correct version( command is FORMAT C: /S ). The /s switch is important, as it makes the HDD bootable.
I've no idea of installing from 1.44 floppies. But in DOS, the command, once the HDD has booted and the "c:\ " prompt is up is to type in A:\ (assuming A is drive letter of floppy). On the 95/98 versions the command was "SETUP" once DOS had found the floppy drive.
might be muddying waters, or of some help. Hope it's former.
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Old 22nd Sep 2015, 2:00 am   #12
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Windows up to 3.x installed from DOS. 95/98 could install directly, but you often needed a boot floppy because a lot of machines wouldn't boot off the CD.

Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 (I never played with 3.1 or 3.5) needed boot floppies to install, I'm quite sure that Windows 2000 would install from CD.

I played with 1.0 on my 286 for a very short time, but only seriously ran 2.03 on that machine - I think I may have installed 3.0, but 3.1 wouldn't run on a 286.

You almost certainly won't get old DOS-based Windows running on ntvdm (the command prompt in NT-based Windows versions), it will want to go too low level. There are reports of some versions running in DOSBox but I've never tried. I can't think of a reason they wouldn't install in Virtual PC or Hyper-V - I might have a play some time! If you have Windows 7 and Virtual PC, you can use the old Virtual PC 2004 DOS integration components.
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Old 22nd Sep 2015, 1:30 pm   #13
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Some versions of W2K needed 4 floppies as well as the CD. Lots of PCs couldn't boot from a CD back then.
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Old 22nd Sep 2015, 6:44 pm   #14
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

I have memories of setting up Win3.x and needing *lots* of floppies because most of the PCs of the era didn't have CDs. If you were lucky and had a PC with a CD you needed to install the DOS mscdex.exe driver program to get the CD drive recognised.

MS-DOS6.22 was my favourite base on which to install the old Win3.x
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Old 22nd Sep 2015, 8:36 pm   #15
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

As I recall, you just need command.com to install from floppy (but it's been a long time...)
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Old 23rd Sep 2015, 12:36 am   #16
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
I have memories of setting up Win3.x and needing *lots* of floppies because most of the PCs of the era didn't have CDs. If you were lucky and had a PC with a CD you needed to install the DOS mscdex.exe driver program to get the CD drive recognised.

MS-DOS6.22 was my favourite base on which to install the old Win3.x
I seem to remember that I had 6.22 on my first PC ,which I seem to remember was a 286 . It did have WIN3.11 but i didn't use it as the PC wasn't happy running it. I set up a menu system run from Autoexec on boot (using CHOICE from NORTON V4.5) to load up the various programs.
.There are a few online downloads sites with various versions of MS-DOS .
As for getting a CD drive recognised ,on above 95, the 98 boot disc had the option to boot with/without CD backup. .
On last MB I had 98/2k and xp pro on the same HDD, with W7 on another HD.
With FDISK, I'd set up a 1GB partition for 98,a 10GB for w2k and leave the rest open, with the first partition active. Format c: /s to take 98 ,boot from the 98 boot disc with CD backup and install 98 .
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Old 23rd Sep 2015, 1:15 am   #17
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

I remember that I installed Windows 3.1 on a computer that did not have a 3.5 inch drive by transferring the contents of the install disks from another PC using a serial cable and Laplink. I put them into folders named "disk1" "disk2" etc. Booted up into DOS, changed to disk1 directory and ran setup.exe from there. When it prompted for a disk change I seem to remember it gave the option to specify an alternative location to the floppy so I could just point it to the next disk directory. All a bit clunky but it worked.

I also used this method to install Windows 3.0 on an Amstrad PC1640 (8086). Although it worked it was slow to load and the graphics were awful, I think it was something to do with the non standard EGA graphics and it defaulted to CGA and 2 colours so was really unusable.

I think Windows 3.1 was 7 x 1.44MB floppies and you needed DOS installed first. MS-DOS 6.22 I think was on 3 floppies.
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Old 23rd Sep 2015, 2:57 am   #18
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
Some versions of W2K needed 4 floppies as well as the CD. Lots of PCs couldn't boot from a CD back then.
I'd forgotten that! It's been a long time since I used a Win2k machine, and most of the ones were new at the time, I did a lot of the HP Vectra VL420. I've got it sitting on an old PII 450 out in the workshop, but it hasn't been booted in years.

Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
I have memories of setting up Win3.x and needing *lots* of floppies because most of the PCs of the era didn't have CDs.
I've got a copy here on floppies somewhere, and a download of WFW3.11 I grabbed from TechNet a while ago. It's 10 MB of files, and a later poster said 7 disks so that seems about right. I don't believe it was ever distributed on CD.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldcodger View Post
I seem to remember that I had 6.22 on my first PC ,which I seem to remember was a 286 . It did have WIN3.11 but i didn't use it as the PC wasn't happy running it. I set up a menu system run from Autoexec on boot (using CHOICE from NORTON V4.5) to load up the various programs.
I'm pretty sure you needed a 386 to run Windows 3.1 - you certainly couldn't run it on an 8088. I stuck with Windows 3.0 on my 286, but got Windows 3.1 (and MSDOS 5.0) with my 386.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clydeuk View Post
I put them into folders named "disk1" "disk2" etc. Booted up into DOS, changed to disk1 directory and ran setup.exe from there.
No need for that, it will install from a single directory

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clydeuk View Post
MS-DOS 6.22 I think was on 3 floppies.
Three 1.44 MB floppies, with an optional fourth (I saw it on copies that came with the Digital 486 DX33's we had at E&Y), or four 1.2 MB floppies - I have images for both from TechNet (or was it MSDN?) before they restricted access to old versions.
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Old 23rd Sep 2015, 8:47 am   #19
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

I had a RM Nimbus at work in 1989 that had a 3 1/4" floppy drive and 20MB hard drive. It came with Windows 1.0 pre-installed and I think, two (720k?) 3 1/4" back-up installation disks. It included utilities such as Windows Write. We were supposed to use the word processor of the Word Perfect Exectutive software that we supplied with, but as it wouldn't work properly with the printers supplied and had other undesired features, we all used Write instead. I remember that if we had several programs active, as more memory was used, Write progressively turned from WYSIWYG to plain DOS-type text, to a black screen, necessitating reverting to DOS and closing some programs to get the Windows screen back again. As it had not been realised that the PCs came with Windows, no mice were supplied. We therefore learned how to use Windows by keyboard commands, selecting options using the Tab and Enter keys, something I still do today on occasion as it can be faster than the mouse. Happy days!
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Old 23rd Sep 2015, 9:09 am   #20
yesnaby
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Default Re: Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

Hello,

I found my original Windows 3.11 floppy disks. There are 8, and also another 3 with DOS 6.22.
Tempted to try to install Windows 3.11 to start with.
But will these early Windows work with larger hard disks? I will have to check what is the smallest one I have. Annoyingly I remember throwing out an 8 GB one last year!

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