Internet Archive Upgrades To Windows 3.1 With Over 1,000 Programs

News
By Michael Justin Allen Sexton
published

The Internet Archive today expanded its site to include over 1,000 programs running on a Windows 3.1 emulator.

If you aren’t familiar with the Internet Archive, it is an organization that archives digital content and makes it publically available to anyone. It was founded in 1996, and to date has a collection of over 150 billion web pages, 240,000 movies, 500,000 audio clips, 1,800,000 texts and over 30,000 pieces of software.

The 1,000 new programs added to the collection include numerous utilities such as calculators and word processors, as well as a large number of games. The programs are available for download, and then you can run them on your own system if you still have a Windows 3.1 PC sitting around.

If not, you can just use the web-based emulator that can run one program at a time. You can have multiple emulators running at the same time on different webpages, but the programs cannot be used in conjunction with each other.

The programs are available now in the Internet Archive.

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Michael Justin Allen Sexton
Michael Justin Allen Sexton is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers hardware component news, specializing in CPUs and motherboards.
23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • captaincharisma
    soo did they upgrade to 3.1 or 3.11? lol
    Reply
  • IInuyasha74
    17488103 said:
    soo did they upgrade to 3.1 or 3.11? lol

    The two are essentially the same. Windows 3.11 was just a free upgrade to Windows 3.1 that fixed a few bugs in the OS. Otherwise they are the same, so I just used that image. The cover image to both are also nearly identical with the exception of the additional "1".
    Reply
  • jasonkaler
    17488103 said:
    soo did they upgrade to 3.1 or 3.11? lol

    The two are essentially the same. Windows 3.11 was just a free upgrade to Windows 3.1 that fixed a few bugs in the OS. Otherwise they are the same, so I just used that image. The cover image to both are also nearly identical with the exception of the additional "1".

    Actually, windows 3.11 for workgroups and windows 3.1 were pretty different.
    3.1 could run on 16 bit machines, wfw 3.11 required a 32 bit machine. It included 32 bit file access and a 32 bit network stack.
    Reply
  • IInuyasha74
    17488477 said:
    17488103 said:
    soo did they upgrade to 3.1 or 3.11? lol

    The two are essentially the same. Windows 3.11 was just a free upgrade to Windows 3.1 that fixed a few bugs in the OS. Otherwise they are the same, so I just used that image. The cover image to both are also nearly identical with the exception of the additional "1".

    Actually, windows 3.11 for workgroups and windows 3.1 were pretty different.
    3.1 could run on 16 bit machines, wfw 3.11 required a 32 bit machine. It included 32 bit file access and a 32 bit network stack.

    Or, you are completely wrong.
    https://archive.org/details/win3_stock
    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/126746
    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/history#T1=era3

    Windows 3.1 and 3.11 are 16-bit operating systems, with extremely limited ability to use 32-bit hardware or software. Archive.org, the same organization that just hosted these 1000 programs and hired a software developer to build the emulator it uses on its site states that both Windows 3.1 and 3.11 are 16-bit operating systems. Microsoft's own website also confirms that its Windows 3.1/3.11 are 16-bit operating systems, and that Windows NT was its first commercial OS that was 32-bit.

    Finally, both of the Microsoft links I included above indicate that the changes are relatively minor. There is a larger network update, and a few minor performance and stability tweaks. A modern Windows OS has been known to get more than that from a single update.
    Reply
  • Alexandru Pop
    Jasonkaler knows way more about this than you. If you read the second link that you posted, you can see that Win 3.11 requires at least an Intel 386, which is 32 bit, while Win 3.1 can run even on an Intel 286 (which is 16 bit). Also in the second link you posted you can see that:
    - Performance Enhancements (VFAT and VCACHE). WFW 3.11 includes VFAT, a
    32-bit file system that processes INT21h calls for file I/O on local
    disk volumes in protect mode. WFW 3.11 also includes a unified protect-
    mode cache, VCACHE, for both network files accessed by the network
    redirector and local files accessed through VFAT.
    - NWLink (and NWNBLink): 32-bit protect-mode protocol for the IPX/SPX
    transport. Routable. NWNBLink adds a NetBIOS layer.
    - Enhanced Communication Architecture. The architecture of the
    communications interface is more modular. Its components are COMM.DRV,
    *VCD, VCOMM.386, SERIAL.386, and LPT.386. With this new modular design,
    vendors can write device-specific drivers for serial or LPT ports to
    interface with VCOMM.386. It uses the 32-bit interface directly with
    VCOMM.386.
    When you're wrong, admit it, and then move on...
    Reply
  • jasonkaler
    17488610 said:
    17488477 said:
    17488103 said:
    soo did they upgrade to 3.1 or 3.11? lol

    The two are essentially the same. Windows 3.11 was just a free upgrade to Windows 3.1 that fixed a few bugs in the OS. Otherwise they are the same, so I just used that image. The cover image to both are also nearly identical with the exception of the additional "1".

    Actually, windows 3.11 for workgroups and windows 3.1 were pretty different.
    3.1 could run on 16 bit machines, wfw 3.11 required a 32 bit machine. It included 32 bit file access and a 32 bit network stack.

    Or, you are completely wrong.
    https://archive.org/details/win3_stock
    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/126746
    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/history#T1=era3

    Windows 3.1 and 3.11 are 16-bit operating systems, with extremely limited ability to use 32-bit hardware or software. Archive.org, the same organization that just hosted these 1000 programs and hired a software developer to build the emulator it uses on its site states that both Windows 3.1 and 3.11 are 16-bit operating systems. Microsoft's own website also confirms that its Windows 3.1/3.11 are 16-bit operating systems, and that Windows NT was its first commercial OS that was 32-bit.

    Finally, both of the Microsoft links I included above indicate that the changes are relatively minor. There is a larger network update, and a few minor performance and stability tweaks. A modern Windows OS has been known to get more than that from a single update.

    Perhaps you missed the "workgroups" part about "windows for workgroups 3.11", which is the edition in the photo, not the original win 3.11, which you appear to be talking about, for some unknown reason.


    Reply
  • problematiq
    Geez I remember getting windows 3.1 on floppy's and being super amazed as it was my first GUI based OS.
    Reply
  • OzDracula
    I installed Windows 3.11 on my AMD 386 DX40 years ago, then wiped my hard drive and went back to just using DOS 6.22 for my games.
    Reply
  • SteebSauce
    Are we going to nerd out on 3.1 vs 3.11 or just take the article for what it's worth?
    Reply
  • jeyman
    Are we going to nerd out on 3.1 vs 3.11 or just take the article for what it's worth?

    I vote nerd out!
    Reply