Windows Now

Windows 3.1 was released LONG before the advent of the Internet. It is nearly impossible to find the original press release anywhere online. Until now. This document was obtained from Waggoner Edstrom, Microsoft's PR firm, while doing reearch for my articles on The True Cost of Windows. It is the only...

The is what the user is presented with after Windows restarts (and types "win" at the DOS prompt, of course). Oodles of 16-bit goodness.

Windows 3.1 set the virtual memory to twice the allocated memory by default. You wouldn't believe how fast it runs in a VM with 128MB RAM.

Time to copy files...

It looks like you've just finished installing Windows. Would you like to watch a movie?

Finished!

Back in the day, you had to move options between two lists, and hope that you you installed all the important stuff. Hard drives were small, and every KB counted.

Selecting your setup options.

Forget the TreeView, setting up a custom Windows 3.1 configuration required a lot of back-and-forth navigation.

This is the screen you're greeted with after the DOS part of the installation is complete.