Windows 3.1: Twenty Years Later

#1 PCWorld

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Posted 08 April 2012 - 05:01 PM

Post your comments for Windows 3.1: Twenty Years Later here

#2 oldschoolh4ck3r

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 01:28 AM

to me, Windows 3.1 was just a fancy shell to multitask my DOS apps

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#3 avantos

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 03:57 AM

As far as I remember the Registry was NOT born with Win31 as stated on Slide 7 of 15, but was one of the innovations of Win95. In Win31 hw/sw configuration settings were saved in separate *.ini files scattered all over the place.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

#4 Sarah Jacobsson Purewal

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 04:31 AM

Windows 3.1!!! The first operating system I remember. Yes, guys, I am that young.

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#5 Internet2k4

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 04:51 AM

Still using conversions of the old .crd "cardfile" to store recipes, liquor and computer tips started with W3.1 - though using a different app to load and maintain them.

#6 tonyatn

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 05:01 AM

BY the looks of it Windows will be coming out with a new version every one-and-a-half years, buy, buy, buy.

#7 Cathlin

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 07:22 AM

Cardfile was great! I wish it worked with Windows 7. Nothing can quite replace it. All the new address book programs have too much additional crap added to them.

Internet2k4, on 09 April 2012 - 04:51 AM, said:

Still using conversions of the old .crd "cardfile" to store recipes, liquor and computer tips started with W3.1 - though using a different app to load and maintain them.

#8 Backdoc

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 07:49 AM

I started with MS-DOS and PC-DOS in 1980/81 after a stint with Apple II+ with visicalc doing construction estimates. So after Windows 1 to 3.11 it was a breeze finally using windows 95, but baby, have we come a long way from the DOS menu systems I used to write! I just find it has become more "bloat-ware" as we change through the windows OPs.

#9 anonymousr46j

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 08:12 AM

Great job Benji! Keep it up.

#10 Peplum91

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 08:19 AM

Where is the slideshow ?

#11 Peplum91

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 08:20 AM

Where is the slideshow, I didn't find it ?

#12 CarlTessier

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 08:41 AM

"and you could end up with 50-plus program groups filling your screen."

Close enough, but from my experience, having over 31 program groups made Program Manager crash.

#13 CraigOliver

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 08:43 AM

lol, this rules!

Where was I? I was 12, in front of the family IBM P/S1. That's OG.

#14 artzy65

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 08:44 AM

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, on 09 April 2012 - 04:31 AM, said:

Windows 3.1!!! The first operating system I remember. Yes, guys, I am that young.

When I was 20 the Leafs were actually winning Stanley Cups LOL

#15 Boletusedulis

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 08:58 AM

If only they had kept the name "File Manager" instead of "Windows Explorer," a whole lot of pain teaching people how to manage their systems could have been avoided.

And everything MS has done to "simplify" file management since then has only created more confusion. "My Documents," "My Computer," "Documents and Settings," etc, etc only served to confuse the directory structure.

If they stuck with File Manager and forced people to learn the basic directory structure of their PCs, a world of idiocy could have been avoided.

#16 78zinman

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 09:00 AM

You folks talk as if this is ancient history. I regularly use Dos 6.22/Win 3.11 along with Visual Basic 3 to print very specialized bar code labels. The trouble to migrate just wasn't worth the effort.

#17 MichaelRousseau

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 09:03 AM

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, on 09 April 2012 - 04:31 AM, said:

Windows 3.1!!! The first operating system I remember. Yes, guys, I am that young.

I feel old now. 1980 writing basic on a PET computer. LOL I thought I was in tech heaven back then.

#18 TheOldTopkick

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 09:24 AM

It seems as if it were only yesterday 3.0 was the hottest thing going, but I didn't really get started until 3.1. I wonder where the time went and I guess and all that money went. I spent more than a thousand on a used DOS machine with a 40 meg hard drive. It has been fun though.

#19 laserwizard

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 09:26 AM

tonyatn, on 09 April 2012 - 05:01 AM, said:

BY the looks of it Windows will be coming out with a new version every one-and-a-half years, buy, buy, buy.

Isn't what Apple does? But the really abandon their old platforms and programs - at least Windows has maintained support for XP and newer for a reasonable period of time. With Apple, if you haven't bought something in the last couple of years, good luck!