Earlier Windows on 1990s PC?

[arjoll]

Originally Posted by yesnaby

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!

You'll be limited to whatever MSDOS can handle - an absolute maximum of 2 GB in one partition. Other than that, it'll depend on what you're installing on - for example, on most 486 and earlier machines you'll probably hit a 504 MB limit on drive size.

[yesnaby]

Hello,

From looking through various cupboards I've unearthed some bits I could possibly use to build a system, there are 3 possibilities. I only have a 40 GB hard disk though (none smaller).

1. Asus TUSL2-C motherboard, Intel P3 Tualatin 1.4 GHz processor, 2x 256 MB RAM. (This one is assembled at the moment and running Windows 2000.)

2. Asus P3B-F motherboard, Intel P3 800 MHz processor, 2x 64 MB RAM.

3. Supermicro P5MMA motherboard, Intel P200 MMX processor, 1x 64 MB RAM.

Just wondering which would be best to build? Would No. 1 be OK for Windows 1 or Windows 2?

Michael

[paulsherwin]

All should be OK.

The installer won't see the whole disk. What it sees will depend on the BIOS and a number of other factors, but as has been said 504MB and 2GB are common limits. It might be worth partitioning the drive with a 500MB primary partition on something more modern before starting the installation, as this will allow you to do something useful with the spare space afterwards.

[yesnaby]

Hello,

Is there any way to 'dual boot' Windows 3.11 and Windows 2 (Post #4 suggests it may be possible)? It would be good to have both on one disk, otherwise two separate disks would be required?

I remember doing this with Windows 2000 and Windows 3.11, and also remember getting into trouble with it (MBR boot failure etc)!

Michael

[paulsherwin]

As these are both essentially DOS programs it should be possible to 'dual boot' be redefining the PATH variable and then typing 'win' at the command prompt (or do something with batch files). You shouldn't need a fully fledged boot manager in the MBR.

[Telleadict]

Hello

this thread has reminded me of this site which is mainly a gallery of screenshots of all sorts of obsolete graphical OS. there's a downloads section too with disk images etc.

Hope ther might be some time wasting here.

Will

[AC/HL]

Windows 3 came packaged with a mouse, as they weren't common back then. I have the set of discs, 8 x 3.5" and 5 x 5.25".
I also have a set of Windows/286 (2.11), 5 x 5.25".

If think I offered then some time ago, with no interest, but they're no use to me so FOC for the postage.
Edit: The 3.5s don't seem to have survived, so the others probably haven't also.

Windows 3.11 is "Windows for Workgroups", it has basic networking capabilities.

[Dave Moll]

As mentioned earlier in the thread, I have a PC/AT with three versions of Windows on it. To achieve this, I simply renamed the Windows folder, either during or after installation, so that I start up the desired version by issuing a CD (change directory) command for the appropriate folder/directory prior to the WIN command.

[yesnaby]

Hello,

Failed at first hurdle!

I made a 500 MB partition on my 40 GB hard disk. Now I get an error message when trying to install MS-DOS ... 'MS-DOS 6.22 cannot be installed on this computer ... an error was detected while reading or writing to the hard disk'.

Do I need to do anything to the 500 MB partition? I didn't format it or assign it a drive letter.

Michael

[paulsherwin]

The DOS installer doesn't like the partition table. It's probably better to set it up under Linux where you have full control over what's going on. You may need to experiment.

[arjoll]

Originally Posted by yesnaby

From looking through various cupboards I've unearthed some bits I could possibly use to build a system, there are 3 possibilities. I only have a 40 GB hard disk though (none smaller).

From your three choices, my gut would be to go for the P3B-F. It's overkill, and but you may find that the P5MMA won't boot with a 40 GB drive plugged in. I have a Slot 1 board here with a PII 450 which refuses to boot with anything larger than 32 GB, even when I jumper it to 32 GB.

Number 1 would be ok, but with a working Win2k system you may as well leave it unmolested.

The memory is pointless - I had Windows 2 running on my 286 with 1 MB memory before I tracked down a 2 MB upgrade. I doubt you'd be able to make use of more than a couple of megabytes.

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

The installer won't see the whole disk. What it sees will depend on the BIOS and a number of other factors, but as has been said 504MB and 2GB are common limits.

All of these machines shouldn't have issues with drives larger than 504 MB - I hadn't seen that since the 486 days - but as mentioned above the P200MMX may have issues with a 40 GB drive. I had also experienced issues with drives larger than 8 GB in Pentium Pro machines.

All of these machines are after the Windows 3.x era. At work at the time our first P133 was early 1995, the next batch all came with Windows 95 - and I got in a little trouble with E&Y National IM for making them not only log in to our Novell network, but also install the Win32s-based client for our Ultrix-based practice management system!

Originally Posted by yesnaby

I made a 500 MB partition on my 40 GB hard disk. Now I get an error message when trying to install MS-DOS ... 'MS-DOS 6.22 cannot be installed on this computer ... an error was detected while reading or writing to the hard disk'.

How did you make the partition? It's been a while so I can't remember how easy it is to get out of any installer, but I'd be inclined to boot off MSDOS disk 1 and then drop out of the installer, then have a go with FDISK to create the partition. Delete any non-DOS partitions first, then create a new primary partition, reboot and then use FORMAT C: /S to make a bootable hard drive. If that works, then boot up again and let it run through its setup.

If FDISK can't see the drive, then you may have problems with the BIOS - remember MSDOS is probably using BIOS calls to write to it, so you may have the 8 GB or 32 GB drive size issues kicking in.

I've got a stack of random smallish drives floating around still in the 1 GB - 40 GB range, surely there's someone nearby who has a similar random collection and can give you a 1-2 GB one?

[arjoll]

Originally Posted by AC/HL

Windows 3.11 is "Windows for Workgroups", it has basic networking capabilities.

There was a Windows 3.11 as well, but you didn't see it much. It was a bugfix for Windows 3.1.

[yesnaby]

Hello,

Thanks everyone for the detailed comments. Success - I made the 500 MB partition again and this time marked it as 'active'. Then DOS 6.22 installed OK. And Windows 3.11 installed, surprised that my floppy disks still work after 21 years!
Windows 3 does not seem that useful, however, can't imagine that I actually used it all those years ago.
It would be good to make a separate system using the P3B-F motherboard, but I'll need to get another PC case for it.
Further work still to do ....

Michael

[Okto1984]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

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.

Yes, that's familiar to me too. We got an olivetti 486 in about 1992/3, and it had windows 3.11 and a big pile of 3.5" floppy discs if we ever needed to reinstall it. It had no CD drive when bought. We did however later add a CD drive, which had to be connected to a sound card we added at the same time. Presumably there was no socket on the motherboard for it? I don't actually recall using the CD drive much however, everything I liked seemed to be on floppy discs most the time. We had an encyclopaedia on CD, a clip art CD (everyone had one of those it seemed) and a couple of point and click games that were kind of experimental. They had lots of low resolution photo-like graphics, but generally ran really slowly and had poor animations. Although more advanced than the disc software at the time, the multimedia CD stuff was a worse experience really, being much slower, and the graphics were overly ambitious and looked kind of worse from trying to look more realistic. Games on floppy disc tended to have more forgiving cartoon style graphics. Back then I think they were still figuring out what to do with CDs. All the classic early 90s PC games I can think of were on floppy discs, like Dune II, Sim city 2000, Genesia, etc. Can't name anything on CD from that era that has really stayed memorable. By the late 90s I was buying most software on CD however, it just wasn't so useful in the early days.

[yesnaby]

Hello,

I've been looking for a small hard disk, 1 GB or less, and they are like hen's teeth! (Extortionate prices too.)

Michael

[AC/HL]

You probably need to find a redundant, but complete, 386 or 486 computer. To be honest, if you want to experiment with DOS, or early Windows, that's the best way all round.
Modern computers are just too clever and too fast.

[Okto1984]

Originally Posted by yesnaby

I've been looking for a small hard disk, 1 GB or less, and they are like hen's teeth! (Extortionate prices too.)

An alternative is an IDE to compact flash adaptor.

[Oldcodger]

Originally Posted by yesnaby

I've been looking for a small hard disk, 1 GB or less, and they are like hen's teeth!

If you can find one ,a computer fair might be a good place to look. I find that basic DOS commands still work OK on even my current PC (AMD 7550 dual core 2.5G), but I notice that on my new MB, things like FDISK don't work. Suggestion for being lazy on older DOS systems - get a copy of XTREE (or if working on HDD with longer file names -ZTREE).

[Zelandeth]

Floppy discs are a resource that I seem to keep running short on these days, though less critical these days as I have image files of most things so can reformat and recreate as needed.

Win 3.1 was on 7 discs from memory, Win 3.11 For Workgroups was on 8. I do also remember having a copy of Win 95 on floppies too - 26 of them if I remember rightly!

I really need to inventory my hard disk box at some point...awkward thing is that quite a few really old IDE ones won't play nicely with modern motherboards, so it's a bit of a faff to use them.

[yesnaby]

Hello,

There is a 1.2 GB hard disk on eBay but I decided to persevere with my 500 MB partition on a 40 GB one.
Had some fun trying to install Windows 2, this would not install from 1.44 MB floppy disks so I had to convert some to 720 KB ones first.
I found a DOS command to do it
format A: /T:80 /N:9
but you have to cover up a hole on the floppy disk first or it won't work!
I was going to have three folders win1, win2 and win3 for Windows 1, 2 and 3 if the plan works. Will one copy of DOS suffice for three copies of Windows?

Michael