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Windows 2.03/3.1 Annoyances

S

Super-Slasher

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Messages
222
Location
Ontario, Canada... the frosty north.
Thanks to much help from Old PC Man, as well as advice from Terry Yeager, my '86 IBM PCAT is working better than ever before. With a working 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive as well as my extended memory card, I was finally able to install Windows 3.1 on the system (at 6MHz, it took about 45 minutes, though), bringing me closer to my goal of getting it on the Internet. With any luck I should have it on the net by tomorrow evening.

My question concerning Windows 3.1 is that it will only display in black and white. My EGA video card and monitor is color capable and will display in full color in Windows 2.03, yet in 3.1 it says it would need the drivers for that video card to display in color instead of black and white ("286 mode"). Do these drivers exist on diskette, and if not, is there anything else I could do to substitute or even fool 3.1 into displaying color without switching video cards?

My question about Windows 2.03 is if there is any compatible IRC or even net browsing software that can be found. The only thing that comes close is Internet Explorer 1.0 which will want to run in Win2.03/DOS, but the copy I got is lacking certain files to get it fully functionable. Everything else I have can only run under Win3.1, but IRC was out even before Windows 3.1 I bileve if I'm not mistaken (I probably am, though) so surely there must be a way to connect to IRC either in DOS or Windows 2.03? I know of some DOS IRC clients, but I'm not too familliar with them.

Any advice or insight would be great. Thanks in advance.
 
I'm not sure which video card you have, but there should be drivers out there somewhere. A Google search on the name of the card or chipset should get you some links.

Since you've got a 3.5" floppy running on the AT now, you can get the appropriate drivers from the net on your workaday PC and transfer them over.

If you can't find drivers specific to your card, look for ones compatible with your type of card. For instance, the Tseng ET4000 (I think) was a fairly popular video chipset in the VGA days. You could use generic Tseng drivers on any of the dozens of cards that used that chipset much like you can use nVidia reference drivers on any cards using their chips today.

Good luck!

Erik
 
SuperSlasher:

Win 3.1 does not have built-in drivers for cga or ega. What you need to do is remove it from the drive (DELTREE Windows). After you have removed it then install your Win 2.03. After it is installed, then you start the Win 3.1 installation process, selecting "upgrade from a previous version". Somewhere in the upgrade process it will prompt you to "Save your old drivers". This is what you want to do. Then Win 3.1 will use your 2.03 ega drivers.

--T
 
I just tried the upgrade procedure and Windows 3.1 says it can't upgrade from 2.X (it doesn't give a reason). Another thing I tried was to use the Windows 2.03 Displays Disk because it has the EGA drivers on it, but when I try to load them either during the installation of Windows 3.1 or once inside of Windows through the System Settings, it says it can't find an "oemsetup.ini" file, or something like that.

Why would it need that for the driver? I though I could have just pointed Windows to the driver, but it seems not.

What is that INI file? Could I possibly write one up to direct Windows 3.1 to the driver(s) I want to use, fooling it?
 
SuperSlasher:

The upgrade will work if you can dig up a copy of Windows 3.0. I have done that many times. I didn't know it wouldn't work to upgrade from Win 2.x.

--T
 
It won't work with Windows 3.0, either. It'll still only display in EGA as black and white ("286 mode"). Oh well... thanks anyways.

Looks like I'll have to stick with Windows 2.03. If I could only find a good mIRC client and browser that would work in DOS and get that infernal modem working.
 
Super-Slasher:

At one time, Microsoft had a Windows 3.1 EGA Driver on their web site. I know this because I downloaded the driver several years ago. You may want to check to see if the driver is still available.

DOS 6.22 has a DOS EGA Driver that setup should have automatically entered in your CONFIG.SYS file when you installed 6.22. It automatically installed the driver in mine when I installed DOS 6.0 and experimented with different driver.sys configurations for a temporary 1.44 floppy installation on my AT 5170.

I,m a little surprised Windows 3.1 did not pickup your system configuration and at least ask for an EGA driver during the setup.

I know nothing about Windows 2.03, but, if it's anything like 3.1, it probably has an EGA Driver since you had color with 2.03.

To check for an EGA Driver, EXPAND all files from the Windows 2.03 diskette to a temporary directory on your hard drive. Once you've done this, look through all the INF files in the temporary directory with the DOS Edit feature (or another edit program) and locate an INF file that contains a reference to an EGA. That would be the INF file to use when updating your video setting.

In the meantime, I'll try to locate the EGA Driver I downloaded. If I can find it, I'll send it to you via e-mail.

Old PC Man
 
As for the DOS instillation, remember the only way I could put DOS in in the first place was by shuttiling the files from my other 286 system (which had a normal VGA display) to my AT with a ton of 360KB disks, so technically DOS was never actually 'installed' on my AT. As such, I've never seen any sort of EGA driver displayed in the config.sys file.

One thing I have noticed though with all the playing around on my IBM is that it requires a specialized EGA driver - an IBM EGA driver, not just a run-of-the-mill EGA driver. With some of the programs I've installed (inlcuding Windows 3.1) and has the option for an EGA driver, unless it is an IBM EGA driver (which is in the option list in Windows 2.03 instillation) that display will look awful - colored lines running from top to bottom, messed up text, a real eye sore. That's why I tried using the driver from the Windows 2.03 Displays Disk, but to no avail.
 
Super-Slasher:

In my prevoius response I made references to an INI file. INI is incorrect. It should be INF file not INI file. Must have had another one of my senior moments!

As for your DOS EGA driver, I believe you just need to add the following entry to your CONFIG.SYS file.

DEVICE=C:\DOS\EGA.SYS

This assumes the EGA.SYS file is in you DOS Directory.

I could not find the EGA Driver I downloaded some years back but I did find a web site where the driver can be down loaded.

http://www.oldstuff.myagora.net/powerload/win3x.htm

The site also has other Windows 3.1 files which might be of some value to you.

Old PC Man
 
Regarding old (and new) Windows versions, here is another screenshot page which features screenshots from various operating systems:

http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html

In particular I like the misc. Windows screenshot tricks, where the author has brought Windows 1.01 binaries, modified them slightly and runs it in Windows XP. Rather cool to see almost 20 years of backwards compatibility, although it requires some modding.
 
ALL versions of Netscape, Mosaic and IE, no matter how old, require at minimum at 386 CPU (with at least 4 megs of RAM). With a 286, you will be limited to using a DOS browser such as Net-Tamer, Bobcat or Minuet. Also DOS, Win 1x, 2x and 286 will only be able to run in real mode so you will be limited to using only 640K of RAM, any memory you have above this will not be used.

(Windows 3.1 will of course, use the memory, but there are no Windows browsers that will run under Win 3.1 with a 286 CPU.

I did have a discussion with a man last year on a newsgroup who claimed years ago (mid 1990's) he had a 2x version of Netscape, specially hacked by his ISP that ran on a 286 with 2 megs of RAM. It had been modified to only work with his ISP at the time, dialing up to only them with a static IP address on his end as well as other limitations. He said the chance of him finding those old disks somewhere was very remote. The "stock" version of Netscape 2x that you might download from the net will not work with a 286, I've tried it.)
 
Looks like it....

[q]
NCSA Mosaic for Microsoft Windows

New Features in version 0.6b:

To run WinMosaic, you will need a system running Microsoft Windows 3.1 with a WINSOCK-compliant sockets library installed. If you do not have a Windows sockets library, take a look at our minimal implementation -- it is on NCSA's FTP server. We more or less require running Windows in Enhanced Mode, so you will need an absolute minimum of an 80386SX-based machine. Our recommended configuration is a 33-MHz or faster 386 or 486 with Local Bus SuperVGA video, with at least 8 meg of RAM.
[/q]
 
"the xt guy" wrote:

> ALL versions of Netscape, Mosaic and IE, no matter how
> old, require at minimum at 386 CPU (with at least 4
> megs of RAM). With a 286, you will be limited to using
> a DOS browser such as Net-Tamer, Bobcat or Minuet.
> Also DOS, Win 1x, 2x and 286 will only be able to run in
> real mode so you will be limited to using only 640K of
> RAM, any memory you have above this will not be used.

Why don't they try Arachne. I've got that working on my
XT (even though it's was quite slow). But a 286 should
give it a bit more kick, just add some memory to it!

Windows on those sorts of machines just takes up
precious space which those browsers need, it would
be better to have a DOS graphical browser like Arachne
rather than having Windows & Netscape (or something
like that).

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
You might want to download Calmira.Calmira is a freeware add on that makes Windows 3.1 look and act similar to Windows 95.It has an explorer file manager which is much better than Windows 3.1's file manager.
I still enjoy using Windows 3.1 to this day.
 
"Jon Jarmon" wrote:

> You might want to download Calmira.Calmira is a
> freeware add on that makes Windows 3.1 look and
> act similar to Windows 95.It has an explorer file
> manager which is much better than Windows 3.1's
> file manager.

> I still enjoy using Windows 3.1 to this day.

You might even me interested at looking into the
possibilities of downloading WIN32S (I think it's
called), which just gives 3.x some sort of 32 bit
support. I found it on a freeware site which had
Win3.1 software. If you have a 486 in particular,
then I can tell you that it works well with it. You
get a copy of the 'Freecell' game with it! :)

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
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