Subj : MS-DOS & Win 3.11 in VirtualBox
To   : All
From : Aurelius
Date : Wed Jun 05 2019 18:50:53

I recently decided to try setting up MSDOS 6.22 and then install Windows for
Workgroups 3.11 on top of it. Getting some drivers set up was a bit tricky; in
particular getting a driver for higher resolution (SVGA) took a bit of
Googling. CDROM wasn't too hard to get set up, most generic CDROM drivers work
fine.

Network support is what I'm fiddling with now. With the proper driver, Windows
*does* pick up the network card, and I can even see network activity on login.
I need to find a TCP/IP stack and software to use it, so I can play around with
 the internet on there.

I've installed a few different IDEs, because I was thinking about trying to
write some Win 3.11 software. However, I forgot how awful programming for
Windows is, and apparently back in the 3.11 days it was even worse & somehow
more obtuse and confusing. I may give it another crack, but I guess I'm spoiled
 with all the libraries and frameworks available now.

For anyone who hasn't found it yet, WinWorld is an amazing resource for DOS and
 Windows 3.x/9x software and utilities. They do have a daily download limit,
but it's difficult to actually use it all up. The number of software packages
they have is incredible. Once you get CDROM up and running, you can do an
ad-hoc VISO with VirtualBox to quickly transfer files back and forth. This is a
 great feature and makes file management super easy.

I had a brain fart when I first set up the VM: I set it to have 1.5GB of RAM.
DOS seemed to mostly ignore it, but the Windows installer absolutely freaked
out and refused to start, as it thought I had -1004345k of RAM or something
like that. Huge integer overflow, I guess.

Anyway, my experiement was quite successful and I'd be happy to pass on any
other tips if people have questions. I'd also like to hear if anyone has played
 with TCP/IP on Win 3.11 and if they had any success. I know it can be done
with DOS 6.22 so I see no reason why it shouldn't work in Windows (famous last
words).

Cheers

 
cb»» caAmr
Badass Engineer 
 
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