[HN Gopher] Windows 3.1 in a Windows 95 Virtual Machine (2022)
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       Windows 3.1 in a Windows 95 Virtual Machine (2022)
        
       Author : Lammy
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2025-10-05 00:20 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.geoffchappell.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.geoffchappell.com)
        
       | pram wrote:
       | Windows 95 had a bunch of stuff from 3.1 built in too. You could
       | use progman as the default shell, it had file manager, etc.
        
         | ranger_danger wrote:
         | Yep it was even an option during the initial setup.
        
         | dblohm7 wrote:
         | Windows 95's USER and GDI implementation was essentially an
         | enhanced version of Win 3.1's. user32.dll and gdi32.dll were
         | just thunking layers. The 16-bit components were guarded by a
         | mutex named "Win16Mutex" to ensure serialized access to them
         | from the 32-bit side.
        
         | kristopolous wrote:
         | The pressure to not fuck up windows 95 was immense. You have to
         | appreciate the landscape then.
         | 
         | You had os/2 not doing that well, Amiga not doing great, NeXT
         | hurting, riscos kinda floundering and the failures of Windows 1
         | and 2.
         | 
         | The risk of it not slapping was immensely high. A huge amount
         | of the company was bet on it.
         | 
         | They were risk adverse all over the place with the design, it's
         | clear to see when you do a deep dive.
         | 
         | And even then, people balked at things like the 8MB ram
         | "recommendation", which was seen as expensive at the time.
         | 
         | Even after the release and into 1996, large vendors were still
         | shipping some computers with windows 3.1 - it was an option.
         | 
         | It was really both a risky product and had to be done.
        
       | ranger_danger wrote:
       | I've never been so delighted to see Raymond proven wrong. And he
       | doesn't even deserve to be proven wrong.
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | More impressive is the fact you can upgrade from Windows 1.0 all
       | the way to the latest one. I am not a fan of Windows but I found
       | this to be impressive.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f5DnlUyaq8
        
       | jamesu wrote:
       | A while back I recall watching a video about this very feature.
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3TVvtuNqs
        
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       (page generated 2025-10-07 23:00 UTC)