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WTD: Windows 3.x development tools

RichCini

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Aug 7, 2005
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546
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Long Island, NY
All:

In one of my side projects, I’m setting up a small 486 system with Windows 3.11 and the development tools to resurrect some old projects I had from way back then. Actually, it’s a really nice setup at this point: WFWG 3.11, QEMM 7.5, Internet Explorer 3, PC Tools, and the MSTCP stack. I have it connected to my home network (which has Windows 2000 Server running it).

I have copies of the development tools from Windows 3.1 (because that's what I worked with "way back when") but you can't mix the debug versions of the system files between versions of Windows and expect to have the symbols refer to the right routines. So, I'm hunting for a copy of the DDK for WFWG 3.11. The SDK is probably the same between the versions, so I'm less concerned with that one.

If anyone has a pointer to it somewhere, I'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Rich
 
Any chance you can send me some copies of your ancient dev tools? I just set up a box with WfW 3.11, QEMM 7.05, USB card and drivers, SB16, and an Etherlink III for networking, with Procomm 3 and Arachne for internet... I'd toy with writing some simple stuff. :D
 
Nice to see somebody tinkering with Win 3.x. I have Visual C++ and VB for Windows 3.x that I need to tinker with someday, and currently looking to finish my manual collection for Borland C++ 3.x Applications Framework (one heck of a stack of manuals for that).
 
Nice to see somebody tinkering with Win 3.x. I have Visual C++ and VB for Windows 3.x that I need to tinker with someday, and currently looking to finish my manual collection for Borland C++ 3.x Applications Framework (one heck of a stack of manuals for that).

Actually I was bored and started reading "Windows Internals" for probably the 10th time, and that spured the interest again. I did dabble in Win31 software a long time ago but I have a renewed interest in it from the historical perspective.

FWIW, you can use Microsoft VirtualPC for lots of this work *except* that the virtual com ports will work for debugging but only if you link the virtual port to a physical one...the "named pipe" setup they describe was broken in as a result of a regression bug in VirtualPC 2007SP1 -- it worked in the 2004 version. This linkage is needed for kernel debugging -- like for virtual device drivers. I was hoping to have two VirtualPCs connect to eachother -- one as the debugee and one running Procomm -- but the busted named pipe kibashed that.

I have a VirtualPC environment setup that mostly matches the 486 box I setup last week. The only thing that doesn't work well in the VirtualPC VM is QEMM.
 
I was hoping to have two VirtualPCs connect to eachother -- one as the debugee and one running Procomm

couldn't you just use something like com0com or Virtual Serial Ports Emulator on the host machine to connect them? VPC will treat them as real serial ports. I got two Xenix VM to talk to each other using this method...
 
couldn't you just use something like com0com or Virtual Serial Ports Emulator on the host machine to connect them? VPC will treat them as real serial ports. I got two Xenix VM to talk to each other using this method...

If it works, I'm game to try it. It seems that MS broke the "comm port through named pipe" emulation between versions. I downloaded com0com so I'll play with that. Is one better than the other?
 
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Just out of curiousity what version of Virtual PC are you running and what OS are you running it on? I stuck with a slightly older version before MS started dinking with the code which works better unless you're on XP or higher.

I'm not sure what all hardware is supported but VMWare Server (personal reasons I'd recommend 1.0.x not 2.x) is free also and offers a lot of devices that it's highly overpriced ESX version don't (USB). They also recently made ESXi free (dedicated linux version) which is more commercialized and I'm guessing it won't support USB either but VMWare Server is possibly useful for ya.

Many years ago in my initial tests of installing every OS I could under different hardware and emulators I found Connectix's Virtual PC to have better support for more operating systems. I didn't take much time to figure out why, I had Windows 95 and BSD crap out on VMWare at the time and called it off though it's certainly improved since then.
 
Just out of curiousity what version of Virtual PC are you running and what OS are you running it on? I stuck with a slightly older version before MS started dinking with the code which works better unless you're on XP or higher.

I'm not sure what all hardware is supported but VMWare Server (personal reasons I'd recommend 1.0.x not 2.x) is free also and offers a lot of devices that it's highly overpriced ESX version don't (USB). They also recently made ESXi free (dedicated linux version) which is more commercialized and I'm guessing it won't support USB either but VMWare Server is possibly useful for ya.

Many years ago in my initial tests of installing every OS I could under different hardware and emulators I found Connectix's Virtual PC to have better support for more operating systems. I didn't take much time to figure out why, I had Windows 95 and BSD crap out on VMWare at the time and called it off though it's certainly improved since then.


I actually have multiple installations, both on XP and Vista. I mainly use my Vista machine because it's on the same desk as my Mac. So far, I've installed DOS and Windows 2000. I have Parallels Desktop on my Mac and I have DOS, Windows 2000 and OS/2 virtual machines.

Overall, I'm pleased with how these VM products work. They're not perfect, but any negatives are minor. For example, on both VM hosts, I've had a devil of a time getting QEMM to work to my satisfaction -- it takes some magical incantations and human sacrifice to get it to work properly. But once it works, it's nice having 625k of DOS memory to play with.
 
To tie up some loose ends on this thread, I tried both of the programs mentioned in the thread it they both work fine with Virtual PC. The only caveat is that you have to rename the default port from "CNCPA" and "CNCPB" to COMx or Virtual PC won't recognize it. HyperTerminal recognizes both just fine.
 
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