[JamesEvens]

Slide 2: Win32 Applications. This was an updated copy to allow 32-bit programs to run. 3.x was 16-bit. My experience with Win32s was that it slowed my system down. 4MB memory, 100MB Hard drive, 386SX bus with math co-processor installed.

Slide 5: Screen savers now they are pretty much used to lock a computer which has been idle for a specified length of time.

Slide 6: Wasted more time with Reversi, which I miss a bit, and Freecell (Have played on won games 1 to 3503 of 100,000). Pinball and Spider Solitaire are also current time zappers.
Slide 8: Remember RegClean? Came distributed as a .ZIP file RegClean.cpl would put a registry cleaner in your control panel.

Slide 9: Forgot how old this was. Only really useful on local or shared drives. Issue is that file takes longer to load due to having to resolve linked file location and contents.

Slide 10: Code reuse? Why reinvent a solution when that solution is already created. This is why program libraries came about: no need to copy and paste code into your program; instead, include a header file and link the library where the function is located into your program.

Slide 11: Didn't Slide 2 show a Video Recorder as well?

Slide 12: Don't forget Windows Write. This was a great program. If your wanted to "edit" simple executables you could open a program and save it in the native format and run the program with the changes. Alas, this ability was removed from WordPad.

[waldojim]

JamesEvens, on 22 April 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

Slide 2: Win32 Applications. This was an updated copy to allow 32-bit programs to run. 3.x was 16-bit. My experience with Win32s was that it slowed my system down. 4MB memory, 100MB Hard drive, 386SX bus with math co-processor installed.

You saw the slow down because of the 386sx. 16bit traffic worked out OK because of the bus width of the chip. The SX series though was a severely cut down version of the 386 that didn't allow for a proper 32bit bus.

[JamesEvens]

waldojim, on 22 April 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

JamesEvens, on 22 April 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

Slide 2: Win32 Applications. This was an updated copy to allow 32-bit programs to run. 3.x was 16-bit. My experience with Win32s was that it slowed my system down. 4MB memory, 100MB Hard drive, 386SX bus with math co-processor installed.

You saw the slow down because of the 386sx. 16bit traffic worked out OK because of the bus width of the chip. The SX series though was a severely cut down version of the 386 that didn't allow for a proper 32bit bus.

Yes, I was aware that this was actually a 80286 machine (16-bit bus) with a little better processor (32-bit).
This is also probably why Microsoft Visual C++ v 1.0 (still have disks) ran really slow (with only 4MB of actual memory needed to make extensive use of virtual memory. It asked for a 386 processor. I did find that by increasing the amount of virtual memory (who needed to make use of the whole 100MB anyway, that was a huge hard drive at the time) both 32s and the C++ ran better.

This post has been edited by JamesEvens: 23 April 2012 - 06:20 PM

[BobBrayyqhi]

boogerman41747, on 14 April 2012 - 02:13 AM, said:

I still have working copies of Windows 3.1 and 3.11 on diskette in excellent condition.I do run across the occasional old DOS machine,so I have some fun.BTW,Yes, I have old working 8",5 1/4 and a few Winchester Hard drives (Remember those 10 MB monsters?) in good working order. I also have archives of every version of Windows since 1.0.WHY? Well,being disabled gives me lots of time to fool around again with those old junkers.I gotta have something to do beside sit on Twitter

let me make you a deal on a toshiba 305CDS it hangs on boot ie win95 nice little laptop, or a WYSE Winterm

[HankRearden]

MichaelRousseau, on 09 April 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

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.

I used Blitz! Basic on the Commodore 64. Those were the days! Remember Pascal?

[vertical2010]

Boletusedulis, on 09 April 2012 - 08:58 AM, said:

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.

Agree 100%. Apparently the MS geeks assumed people were too stupid to learn basic directory structure. Windows 7 added even more confusion with its "libraries." The File Manager program was also much more capable than any subsequent Windows Explorer program.

[Joec411]

damitch, on 09 April 2012 - 01:59 PM, said:

20 years and Task Manager still has trouble closing non responding programs often requiring a hard reboot.

Next time, open Task Manager, go to the "Processes" tab (next to Applications) and end the program that way. Simply killing the .exe for the program is a helluva lot faster than waiting for the program to close itself.

[ragmaniac]

damitch, on 09 April 2012 - 01:59 PM, said:

20 years and Task Manager still has trouble closing non responding programs often requiring a hard reboot.

With the newer Windows OSs, it is much easier to bring down a non-responding programs simply by killing the "process tree" of the offending program in "Task manager."

This post has been edited by ragmaniac: 01 June 2012 - 11:44 AM

[DavidTooley]

avantos, on 09 April 2012 - 03:57 AM, said:

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.

Actually... I am afraid you are wrong. The registry in 3.1 wasn't used much by many programs... but it was there. (thing it was regedit /v) to pull it up...

I have been in the computer business toooo long....

[jammy3]

Funny how articles like this always turn into 'whose is bigger' competition.

[JustinShafer]

Boletusedulis, on 09 April 2012 - 08:58 AM, said:

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.

You can lock down a Windows 2000 PC with GPO's but if you forgot to take away access to File Manager, then you could run any program inside of that. File, Run Command.

Yep buried in Windows 2000, fileman.exe still remains.

This post has been edited by JustinShafer: 17 June 2012 - 10:06 PM

[JustinShafer]

The Macro Recorder in Windows 3.1 was really nice.

[YingtongLi]

avantos, on 09 April 2012 - 03:57 AM, said:

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.

Program Manager -> File -> Run -> regedit

Some sort of primitive registry thing

[UpwardBoundPrecalcTutor]

avantos, on 09 April 2012 - 03:57 AM, said:

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.

Registry was actually introduced in Windows 3.1, however, virtually NOTHING made use of it.
Everything used *.ini files because they had been used since windows was introduced and even
in some DOS programs. Windows 95 was the first windows where programs designed for later
versions of windows should make use of the registry. For backwards compatability, Win 95 could
run programs that were configured using the old *.ini files.

[78zinman]

Believe it or not, I have a program that we developed in Windows 3.11, using Visual Basic 3 running on a 1997 Sony RX270DS computer to print some very complex bar code labels. With the bit-leaking of the serial port starting in Windows 95, we couldn't update the operating system. As a result, this program and computer are still working every day as of 2013-01-01!!!