upgrading win 3.11 to xp.. would it work?

Archangel

Archangel

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Im just curious what you people think... i just found some old diskettes of win 3.11 again.. and sson ill et my old 1400+Palomino pc back.. so i have a victim to try it on.
its just a random though... but i think i'll try it nevertheless. (will be in 2 - 3 weeks tough.. so,.. what do you think? :D

well.. i tried to install 3.11 on my current pc... but it didnt really like the CPU or so i guess.. because it didnt boot :(
 
Oh well... I guess that new 64bit cpu doesn't like 16bit versions of Windows or you simply didn't know that 3.1 or 3.11 won't run on an NTFS partition. Now gee where did I leave my dos boot floppy? Oh yes at http://www.bootdisk.com

MSDos 6.22 was highest dos version to install 3.11 on. Fdisk is used to create the 2-2.5gb max sized dos partition there. Once the partition is created and you format it after booting with a dos floppy you are ready to put Setup disk #1 in and start the installer. Please type "setup.exe" at the dos prompt and press the return/enter key please. :D
 
hehe.. about the NTSF partition... i used a 2nd hdd ofcourse :D
i used a 274Mb Bigfoot HD for it,.. wich is formatted in FAT :P
but yea... i guess it has ussiea with the chipset, the video cards, the dual core CPU you name it :P
thats why i think it would run on the 1400+ Palomino tough... thats a pc from 2000
 
Archangel said:
hehe.. about the NTSF partition... i used a 2nd hdd ofcourse :D
i used a 274Mb Bigfoot HD for it,.. wich is formatted in FAT :P
but yea... i guess it has ussiea with the chipset, the video cards, the dual core CPU you name it :P
thats why i think it would run on the 1400+ Palomino tough... thats a pc from 2000
Click to expand...
You will have to format in FAT16, you will be lucky to find any drivers even for the Palomino system:D
 
I want to try Windows 3.1 as well, but I tried it on my Pentium D 930 and it obviously didnt work. It's like trying to install Windows XP on a future 40 core cell processor with 20GB of DDR4 RAM, it just doesn't know how to handle it.
 
I was on ebay, and even the 300Mhz system run either 95 or 98. You should be using a <150Mhz system to run 3.1 on, lol.
 
I know... the pacard ball victim runn's 95 atm.. my K6-3D runs 2000 tough :)
nevertheless... i think it should work
 
according to the MCP/MCSA/MCSE certification tests, you can upgrade systems that run DOS to XP. Part of the administrating windows XP test is how to update DOS systems to windows XP. Like running set up through a DOS command (since XP doesn't really support DOS).

Why in God's name would anyone ever want to do this? I have no idea.


As for putting DOS or win3.11 on newer hardware.....Good luck getting the new devices to work with non existant drivers.
 
I don't think you can format a PDA with Fat16. :P Gee everyone still trying to figure out how to get 3.1 to work. I had dos 6.22, 3.1, 95, 98, XP, and Linux running at one point on the last case with 1gb of ram. Need instructions? :D

Now remember this was all on a second hard drive in that case. Gee let's first find either an old dos setup or 95 startup floppy or even make one. Since Fat16 doesn't support over 2.5gb you won't need but could use a large drive easy enough. Have your boot floppy ready? :confused: Here are some basics.

1) Boot the system from the 3 1/2" floppy with fdisk(MS 16bit version) on it.

2) type fidisk at the dos prompt and create you first Fat16 partition. (yaa yaaa... quiet we-re not through yet! :o ) With the gui running you now create the good ole dos primary.

3) When that simple task is completed you have to format the new partition before planning to install 3.1 onto it. You now type "Format C: /s" with the switch included for one less step. Otherwise you have use the "SYS C:" commend after.

4) With the newly partitioned and formatted drive ready you can now install 3.1 by two different ways. The first sees the six floppies copy directly into a folder you have to create at the C:> dos prompt and later start the installer by simply typing setup or setup.exe at the dos prompt once you have changed into the folder's directory there. oops! :eek: You haven't been told how to create a folder in dos yet. Awww What a shame. :P That's why we nead a step #5 here.

5) skip to step #6 please. #5 was too fragmented.

6) To save time and worry about copying onto the drive later simply boot from the #1 setup floppy and type setup or setup.exe at the A:> dos prompt and press enter. You will be prompted for each remaining disk when the previosus disk is finisked uncompressing files to the drive. Once all disks have unpacked their gear you are now ready to boot from the hard drive.

7) Having trouble? Ohhhh you expected it to boot right into Windows didn't you? :mad: :P Not today! Today you learn how to manually change to the new Windows directory and type "WIN" at the dos prompt. Gee we just arrives at the C:> prompt and have to make our way to the "C:\Windows" directory by typing "C:>cd Windows" or "C:>cd C:\Windows" and press the enter key. It's time to type "win" at the dos prompt there. C:\Windows>win" and press the enter key to see what? :confused: Windows 3.1 load. Now you can applaud. :D
 
You can run DOS in FAT32 Enviroments. Win98 ran dos inthe background.

Also to add a few things

We have dropped using DOS pretty much all together in our boot utiltiies. DOS does offer one thing, its fast compare to other boot disks/utilities. What DOS does not offer is decent driver support. There is no SATA drive support in DOS, there is a lof of lack of support for USB in DOS, etc

Which is why we moved some of our imaging boot utilties to a PE (preinstall enviroment). It takes longer to boot but I can load whatever network client and a lot of different apps and pull images off the network and even create images from the PE.
 
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ME was still based on the Fat32 dos shell there. 2000 and XP ride on the NTFS type partition derived from NT Server. The one thing different with XP is the ability to run on a Fat32 partition where NT and 2K won't. XP Pro still uses the MSDos.sys, IO.sys, and Config.sys files seen at the root directory while the Home rides strictly on the boot.ini, ntldr, NTDetect.com, and pagefile.sys alike with the Pro version.

One main difference that seems to have tripped up some installation efforts by some was assuming 3.1 would load immediately when booting from the hard drive. 95 introduced the auto boot loader now common in all versions of Windows. When going to run 95 those many years I was "steamed" :mad: when I had to watch Windows load instead of changing right to the destination folder to start one program or game there. But a little sabotage saw 95 sit idle until simply typing "win" at the dos prompt and then see 95 load.

Drivers, drivers, drivers, WIN 3.1 didn't know that many to start with. You simply ran the gui without too much worry about downloading the latest update. The early versions of Windows were simply basic applications running on a dos drive. Sorry no usb web cam or latest gaming card there. Modems and ISP configurations were far more touchy there. And you know what was good? 16mb of ram was typical :eek: No need for memtest there. :P
 
If you have a spare drive lying around like a 40gb you put a 2gb partition on the front end and install there while running XP on the rest of the drive. 3.1 won't see the 512mb limitation hassle that 98 was notorious for. Plus you better get familiar with the list of dos commands if you plan on running it. You will take one look at 3.1 and say "even Linux looks better!". :P
 
If you want to run Windows 3.11, you'd be better off virtualising it than installing it directly. Virtual PC 2004 runs it fine. You can even get drivers for the virtualised Ethernet card and download IE and browse the web from it...if you really want to.
 
3.11 was the predecessor to NT so you wouldn't have as problem with seeing it run on a virtual network. 3.1 on the other hand was 95's predecessor. Those are two different versions of Windows there. 3.1 was geared more for the stand alone desktop at the time. The dos apps of the time will run through DosBox in a virtual dos window. It's fun to watch some of those old 8bit and 16bit apps run on an XP system. :D
 
It's the other way round, 3.11 was the "predecessor" to 95 and 3.1 was full blown NT, followed by 3.51.

It doesn't matter though since MS released a TCP/IP stack for 3.11 and Windows for Workgroups. It works fine on any contemporary network.
 
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