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Windows 3.0 vs 3.1

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dracalion

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Mar 2, 2023
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Windows 3.0 will run on an 8088, but 3.1 requires a minimum of a 286.
For the inboard/386 for PC and XT machines, they made a 3.0 version for it. But the 3.1 release was only for the AT version of the board.

what diffrences are there between 3.0 and 3.1? Visually, I have a hard time telling them apart
 
There were hundreds of small fixes in 3.1. I can't find the old MS list of them. Major differences include:
support for more memory
TrueType
Win32s for the handful of programs that used it
 
Win32s was an add-on for Windows 3.1 and Windows For Workgroups so it wasn't in the retail release.

Major differences were 3.1 has TrueType fonts, multimedia support, and they redid file manager.
 
dracalion said:
what diffrences are there between 3.0 and 3.1?
Click to expand...
From my experience, stability. At the time of 3.0, the company that I worked for had people who wanted to move from DOS to Windows. Some users trialed 3.0, and it was deemed too unstable (for business use). Later, trials of 3.1 showed better stability.
 
I think stability in Windows 3.0 is more about people dealing with a new multi tasking OS (let's face it nobody wrote Windows apps before 3.0 came out) then Windows 3.1 being more stable.
 
Unknown_K said:
I think stability in Windows 3.0 is more about people dealing with a new multi tasking OS (let's face it nobody wrote Windows apps before 3.0 came out) then Windows 3.1 being more stable.
Click to expand...
There were a number of applications for Windows 2. Four commercial word processors was a bit more than zero and Ami Pro and MS Word continued to fight it out with WordPerfect for Windows until MS Office finally won.

The problem with the recompiled Windows 2 programs was that no one caught all the tricky real mode techniques that cause a GPF in protected mode. Windows 3 looked a lot better about 6 months after release when GPF reducing upgrades to applications were available.
 
Unknown_K said:
Major differences were 3.1 has TrueType fonts, multimedia support, and they redid file manager.
Click to expand...

If you have the "Multimedia Extensions" package for Windows 3.0 and a third-party scalable font manager (Adobe Type Manager was very common; the version of Windows 3.0 that was supplied with OS/2 2.0 included it out of the box) the differences between Windows 3.0 and 3.1 aren't that obvious to a casual observer, and most productivity programs at least would run on either.

I don't think I ever actually used Windows 3.0 that *wasn't* the copy included with OS/2, I was a pretty stubborn DOS holdout, so I'm not sure I can knowingly say if Windows 3.1 (which I did run natively for a while) was actually more stable than 3.0. Neither was particularly great, but I was probably "pushing" 3.1 harder than 3.0 because I was using it to access the Internet and, well, the older amongst us probably remember pretty well just how wonderfully reliable TCP/IP networking was on that platform. I will say that WfW 3.11 was probably better than vanilla 3.1; it's my vague understanding that it had some kernel improvements beyond just adding Win32s compared to earlier versions.
 
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If there was a list of Windows 2.x apps compared to what came for Windows 3.x it would be 100 to 1 at least in favor of 3.x.

ATM was common for Windows 3.0 and I recall having the original disks for it but don't remember if it came with it or was included in some other app. I do have a boxed Windows 3.0 I should look and see what is inside. Most of my Windows 3.1 disks are the packs included with new machines in a shrinkwrap bag with manual (there was a time where people were dumping them in the trash along with W9x releases).

There was a release of WFW upgrade to Windows 3.1 (have the boxed release).

From what I recall pre internet people did peer to peer networking in Windows 3.x using Microsofts NetBEUI protocol (which was ditched around Win2k I think).
 
I remember having to trade my 5.25 Windows 3.0 floppy disk in for a free copy of Windows 3.1 at the old Comp USA store. Had to stand in line. Didn't get a full blown IE provider until 1994 with Mindspring. Can't remember what modem I had then, but I think it was a U.S. Robotics external. May still be up in the loft. The phone company cut me a deal on a data line for only $9. All this on a 486SX/16.
 
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