VOGONS :: View topic - Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide

Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide
Forum Index :: DOSBox Guides ::
	Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2005-7-13 @ 09:42 pm
Dominus l33t Joined: 2002-10-03 Posts: 2061 Location: Vienna	This guide should help you get on the way with using Windows 3.1x in DOSBox. - DO NOT ASK FOR A COPY OF WINDOWS 3.x Even though Windows 3.x is really old now, it is not freeware. But cheap copies can sometimes be found on ebay or thrift shops. - I am not substituting the DOSBox README. If you haven't worked with DOSBox before and you just want to have a quick Windows 3.x fix, please read the README. - DON'T mount your actual c:\ drive root as c in DOSBox when you are doing this, or chances are you are going to mess with your regular Windows when you try to install Windows 3.x. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! (never do 'mount c C:\' - it's okay to 'mount c C:\doswin') - DOSBox supports Windows 3.x since DOSBox version 0.65, but the latest version is recommended for enjoying Windows 3.x on DOSBox. -----Graphics/Video drivers----- By default DOSBox emulates a S3 graphics card, for running Windows 3.x you will need to download the S3 drivers at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/s3drivers.zip With these drivers you can run Windows at 1024x768 with 64k colours (large or small fonts). DOSBox can also emulate three other graphics cards (among others) which can be used with Windows 3.x. To use those you need to change the machine setting in dosbox.conf. You can use the following "graphics cards": - Tseng 3000 (machine=svga_et3000), download the drivers from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/et4win31.zip - Tseng 4000 (machine=svga_et4000), download the drivers from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/ET40001.zip - Paradise graphics card, download the drivers from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/paradise.zip You can also choose the generic SVGA drivers that come with Windows 3.1x. I advise to use the generic VGA driver on Windows setup and change to the S3 (or other "cards") afterwards. -----other drivers----- - for Joystick support download and install http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/IBMJOY.zip - Soundblaster drivers can be found at http://www.soundblaster.com (or you can download the package that worked for me so far at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/SB16W3x.zip) Best use this driver, other drivers may not work correctly. - Win32s (Win32 Subset) 1.30c can be downloaded at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/Win32s.zip it is not necessary, but interesting Lets some few 32-bit programs run on Windows 3.1x. Comes with Freecell. - Video for Windows 3.1x at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/VFW11E.zip - WinG at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/WinG.zip - a site with downloads, tips and tricks to Windows 3.1x: http://www.win31.de/eindex.htm -----Installation----- Windows 3.1, 3.11 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 run ok in DOSBox when running from a mounted folder and that's what I'm advising. For actually installing Windows 3.1x, I did copy all of the files from the original 3.5" floppies into a folder called win31 and installed from that. Some generic instructions: On your computer make a folder called "C:/doswin". Copy all the files on your Windows 3.1x floppies to "C:\doswin\win31". Extract the drivers to "C:\doswin\drivers\" (for example the S3 drivers to "c:\doswin\drivers\s3" or "C:\doswin\drivers\tseng" for the Tseng drivers). Start DOSBox. At the prompt enter: mount c c:\doswin c: cd c:\win31 setup.exe And off you go. The settings that setup chooses should be ok and left at default. If you want to have control over which programs get installed with Windows choose the "Customized Setup" and not the "Express Setup". When Windows asks which printer to install, choose the generic/text printer. When Setup finishes and offers you to either reboot or return to dos, you can either choose return to dos AND then close DOSBox or you can just skip the return part close DOSBox right away. Before you start DOSBox again to test Windows 3.x I recommend editing dosbox.conf to make it easier to work with Windows 3.x. Edit the end of dosbox.conf like this: Code: [autoexec] # Lines in this section will be run at startup. mount c c:\doswin c: SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\WINDOWS; SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP Now to install the S3 graphics driver, start DOSBox again, type cd windows setup You get a screen similar to the initial setup of Windows 3.x. Scroll up to the Display driver and hit enter. Now scroll all the way down to "Other (requires disk....)" and hit enter again. Enter the path to the S3 drivers "c:\drivers\s3" and hit enter. You can now choose on of the S3 drivers. The highest working resolution is 1024x768 at 64k colors. For playing games a much lower resolution is enough. Some can't even handle more than 256 colors and will look odd. After installation of the driver you can start Windows by entering "win". To install the Soundblaster driver, exit Windows 3.x again. At the prompt type cd c:\drivers\sb16w3x install This pretty much runs on its own, just make sure - that the path to Windows is correct (c:\Windows) - that the interrupt setting is correct. The installer wants to use Interrupt 5 by default, but DOSBox uses 7 by default, so change that. - to let the installer overwrite files if it want to. When the installer asks whether you want to load Dos drivers select "No" since DOSBox won't use those drivers in any way. After the installer finishes you can run Windows right away, no need to "reboot". NOTE: Best use the driver I link to. Other drivers may give you headaches. To install the joystick driver you have to have started Windows. Open the main group in Program Manager and start Control Panel. In Control Panel start Drivers. Click on "Add...", select "Unlisted or Updated Driver", in the next dialog enter "c:\drivers\ibmjoy\" as the location of the driver. The next dialog lets you install "Driver for Joystick" and then asks you whether you want to setup the driver for "one or two 2-Dimensional" or a "single 3-Dimensional Joystick". I recommend using the first option. It seems that most games will recognize if the joystick has four buttons, even though the IBM joystick control panel shows only two working buttons. The latter option is only advisable if you use a joystick with a throttle. You need to restart Windows after this. My advice for using the joystick with Windows 3.1x games is to edit dosbox.conf again and in the [joystick] section set the option timed=false One game (Microsoft Fury³) gave me problems with timed enabled. If you have calibrating problems, change this again. Also take not that most games require you to calibrate the joystick again, after a Windows 3.x restart. -----Troubleshooting----- - to change graphics drivers, I'd advice exiting Windows 3.x and then change directory to the Windows directory (cd windows) and run setup.exe. But beware! Windows 3.x doesn't like it when you change drivers too often and then Setup crashes when you want to load other video drivers. In this case, got the Windows 3.x system directory (\windows\system) and get rid of the "oemX.inf" files (for example "oem0.inf" or "oem1.inf") you don't need. - In some applications the font looks strange. It seems to get better if you install any printer in Windows 3.x (no matter that you can't use it). Some of you might remember that Windows 3.x didn't let you use most fonts unless you did that back in the days - When you mount a floppy drive to a:\ it doesn't show in the Windows file manager and in the "run" dialog you can't select it either. But you can enter the path (for example "a:\setup.exe") and it works ok. When you don't have anything mounted to a:\ the a:\ drive shows up in Windows 3.1x. Strange but true. - When you choose the Tseng drivers when you install Windows, the mouse pointer might not be visible. To fix this go back to the DOSBox prompt, change dir to the Windows directory ("cd windows") , run setup again and then choose the VGA or SVGA drivers that come with Windows 3.1x. Start Windows again (your mouse pointer should be visible now) and then run setup from inside Windows to choose the Tseng drivers. - 32-bit file and disk access doesn't work in DOSBox - NO Internet yet - Windows programs that rely on share.exe or the later Windows 3.x driver vshare.386 will crash on starting with an error message that share.exe has not been loaded. This affects mostly office programs, e.g. Microsoft Office, Works, Publisher, Lotus Office programs... DOSBox is not emulating something that is needed for share.exe or vshare.386 to correctly work and since it isn't needed for games chances are slim that this will ever be emulated. HOWEVER there are two workarounds. 1. Run Windows 3.x on a boot image (see below on how to), this is the safe way since when you boot an image in DOSBox the needed functionality is working. 2. Download and run fakeshar http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/fakeshar.zip before starting Windows in DOSBox. THIS IS NOT SAFE since it only fakes that share is running even though it doesn't. When you insist on actually working with the affected programs in Windows you will experience data loss. -----Running Windows 3.x on a boot image----- You can also mount an image, boot from that, install Dos and then install Windows on that. The guide on boot images is at http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=7260, when you are done with that, use Disk Explorer (link is in the guide) to copy the install folders to the image, boot from the image (see the guise again) and begin installing. In dosbox.conf both xms and ems must be set to false. For most uses a boot image is not worth the hassle, though. One of my registered shareware games (Inner Space) only installs as registered version on a boot image, so if all else fails a boot image install might be the last resort. Another Problem with using a boot image is that you can only use mounted images not mounted real drives (floppy, cd-rom). Note: using an image is mostly overkill now for running Windows 3.11 -----Mirrors----- See Dosfreaks first post for mirrors of the drivers and the utilities. Also SierraHelp.com site copied and enhanced an earlier version of this guide and mirrors the downloads http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/Emu...OSBox.html (I'm not quite sure if I should feel annoyed about their lack of honoring the source of their guide ) ----- P.S.: If you think that Windows95 might work as easily and good, you are wrong Edit: mentioned Ian's soundblaster driver guide and another boot image problem/shortcoming. Edit: Mentioned problems with mouse when setting up Windows from the start with the Tseng drivers. Edit: Little adjustment for the 0.65 version Edit: Uploaded drivers and other useful stuff to badongo.com. Those files were uploaded by me and should be okay. Edit: did some layouting Edit: The guide is now for the upcoming DOSBox 0.70 but I kept the 0.65 specific instructions Edit: SET PATH= does not like spaces, so SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\WINDOWS; works. SET PATH=%PATH%; C:\WINDOWS does NOT Edit: fixed joystick driver section Edit: deleted 0.65 instructions Edit: updated the guide since Vasyls patches have been integrated ages ago, removed Ian's soundblaster drivers installation guide since it wasn't necesary for quite some time now. Fixed download links and put the files and guide pictures onto a dropbox account. Added the share issue and two workarounds to Troubleshooting. Added little mirror message Last edited by Dominus on 2010-7-18 @ 11:52 pm; edited 36 times in total

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2007-7-05 @ 09:05 pm
DosFreak Freaky Ram Thing Joined: 2002-06-30 Posts: 7362 Location: Your Head	Need permanent storage location for 3.1 drivers and software. Any other files that should be hosted? Graphical guide to Windows 3.1 in DosBox Site to host freely available tools..shareware/freeware. Windows 3.x drivers and software hosted by gulikoza S3 Trio/64 v1.41B5 (S3 Vision 64 or Vision864) http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/s3drivers.zip Tseng ET4000 http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/ET40001.zip Tseng ET3000 http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/et4win31.zip Paradise http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/paradise.zip Joystick http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/IBMJOY.zip SoundBlaster 16 Windows 3.x http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/SB16W3x.zip WIN32 http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/Win32s.zip Video for Windows http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/VFW11E.zip WinG http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/win/WinG.zip Other site with drivers http://www-ftp.lip6.fr/ftp/pub/pc/garbo/windows/drivers Thread cleanup Last edited by DosFreak on 2007-7-06 @ 03:44 pm; edited 9 times in total _________________ Game Acronym List DosBox CVS Builds DosBox Wish List DosBox FAQ PC Game Compatibility List DOSBox Video Tutorial Quote: I am the Milkman. My milk is delicious

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2007-7-06 @ 03:07 pm
DosFreak Freaky Ram Thing Joined: 2002-06-30 Posts: 7362 Location: Your Head	DRIVER RESEARCH (UNTESTESTED SO LIKELY DO NOT WORK) http://www.s3graphics.com/en/resources/...rchive.jsp http://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Hardware/S3/v64drv/ Newer driver for S3 864 chipset for Windows 3.1 ew311502.zip Possibly compatible NT 3.1/3.5 drivers as well. S3 864 Win 3.x Drivers http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysupport...86150F.EXE http://www.niagaratech.com/Support/vide...n16902.zip (v1.69.02) http://ftp.cvut.cz/local/drivers/vga/s3...311502.zip (v1.50.02) http://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Hardware/S3/v...311502.zip (v1.50.02) S3 864 Win95 Drivers http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysupport...862019.EXE http://www.niagaratech.com/Support/vide...50109b.zip (Only for VLB/PCI?) http://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Hardware/S3/v...50109b.zip (Only for VLB/PCI?) S3 864 NT 3.xx Driver http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysupport...00230A.EXE http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysupport...00112J.ZIP http://www.niagaratech.com/Support/vide...35112s.zip http://www.niagaratech.com/Support/vide...35112w.zip S3 864 OS/2 Driver http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysupport...30316Q.EXE http://www.niagaratech.com/Support/vide...g30316.zip _________________ Game Acronym List DosBox CVS Builds DosBox Wish List DosBox FAQ PC Game Compatibility List DOSBox Video Tutorial Quote: I am the Milkman. My milk is delicious

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2009-3-30 @ 10:52 pm
Dominus l33t Joined: 2002-10-03 Posts: 2061 Location: Vienna	Just installed Microsoft's Fury³ and learned the following about joysticks 1. when you install the IBM Joystick drivers you have to select "one or two 2-Dimensional" this game (and others I think) will auto recognize that you have four buttons (if you have). The option "single 3-Dimensional Joystick" is only advisable if you have a throttle on your joystick. Without throttle you can not calibrate the joystick in the joystick control app. 2. At least this game needs in the conf joystick section timed=false or otherwise the in-game joystick calibration will not calibrate the joystick correctly and you will always have a drift. With the game Inner Space you don't have that, but the in-game calibration of that game also shows a not so steady crosshair. But in game it is fine. So for now I think I'll recommend timed=false. Edit: btw, this is a nice win32s game that works just fine, with sound, joystick control and everything else... (just forgot how blocky this game looked ) Last edited by Dominus on 2009-3-30 @ 11:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2009-3-30 @ 11:21 pm
Dominus l33t Joined: 2002-10-03 Posts: 2061 Location: Vienna	And someone please remind me to go over this again when the next version of DOSBox is released. The graphics driver section needs some revising then Question, should I remove the 0.65 instructions?

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2009-3-31 @ 06:07 am
wd DOSBox Author Joined: 2003-12-03 Posts: 9334	Quote: Question, should I remove the 0.65 instructions? Erm yes

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2009-7-27 @ 03:13 pm
HunterZ Moderator Joined: 2003-01-31 Posts: 4473 Location: Seattle	I was able to get Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to install and run on DOSBox 0.73 without jumping through any special hoops (didn't even need to disable EMS in dosbox.conf). I wasn't able to find SB16 drivers for Win 3.1 on Creative's web site (they had SBPro only), so I did some searching and found them on an FTP server in Taiwan: ftp.nsysu.edu.tw/Hardware/stuff/multime...B16/Win31/ I first installed the drivers in sb16wu.exe. Had some problems/flakiness but eventually got them to work. I then ran the installer in sb16up.exe while Win 3.1 was not running, which updated the driver files in the Windows directory tree automatically (was able to verify the upgrade by seeing the version number popup in the driver menu). Installed some S3 drivers for 32-bit color. Was disappointed to discover that DOSBox could not scale the Window to non-integer multiples of the emulated resolution, so I had to run at 640x480 unless I want to go full-screen, since my native res is 1920x1200 and in windowed move the DOSBox window's title bar pushes some of the emulated screen off the bottom of my real screen.

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2009-7-27 @ 03:28 pm
Dominus l33t Joined: 2002-10-03 Posts: 2061 Location: Vienna	Quote: I was able to get Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to install and run on DOSBox 0.73 without jumping through any special hoops (didn't even need to disable EMS in dosbox.conf). The only "hoops" I mention in this guide are the path settings. Unless you are talking about a bootimage installation turning off EMS hasn't been necessary for a while now (don't know if the bootimage way still needs ems to be disabled, but I guess it does). Quote: I wasn't able to find SB16 drivers for Win 3.1 on Creative's web site (they had SBPro only), so I did some searching and found them on an FTP server in Taiwan: ftp.nsysu.edu.tw/Hardware/stuff/multime...B16/Win31/ I first installed the drivers in sb16wu.exe. Had some problems/flakiness but eventually got them to work. I then ran the installer in sb16up.exe while Win 3.1 was not running, which updated the driver files in the Windows directory tree automatically (was able to verify the upgrade by seeing the version number popup in the driver menu). What is up with the drivers I link to? Are the ones you've found newer? And yes, soundblaster.com is extremely messy now to navigate... What were the problems you had? Were they caused by running the installer in Windows? It all sounds like you didn't read that guide before installing all that stuff

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2009-7-27 @ 04:48 pm
HunterZ Moderator Joined: 2003-01-31 Posts: 4473 Location: Seattle	Dominus wrote: Quote: I was able to get Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to install and run on DOSBox 0.73 without jumping through any special hoops (didn't even need to disable EMS in dosbox.conf). The only "hoops" I mention in this guide are the path settings. Unless you are talking about a bootimage installation turning off EMS hasn't been necessary for a while now (don't know if the bootimage way still needs ems to be disabled, but I guess it does). I read about the EMS thing in another thread somewhere, which was probably old. I installed off of a ~10MB .iso, which was probably just a compilation of the original install floppies. Quote: What is up with the drivers I link to? Are the ones you've found newer? And yes, soundblaster.com is extremely messy now to navigate... What were the problems you had? Were they caused by running the installer in Windows? It all sounds like you didn't read that guide before installing all that stuff I didn't think to check hear until after because I was able to manage on my own. The S3 drivers I found linked in another thread can do 16M colors instead of just 64K (doesn't really matter for Win3.1 stuff though): http://ranger.s3graphics.com/swlib/?license=accept (other S3 legacy drivers are here: http://www.s3graphics.com/en/drivers/le...chive.aspx ). The SB16 drivers are apparently different (at least in install procedure) than the ones you linked, as the initial version was oemsetup.inf based (i.e., have to install from within Win 3.1). The upgrade version has a DOS-based installer that then manually overwrites those driver files in-place in the Windows directories. I should grab your drivers and compare to see whether they're different versions. As far as soundblaster.com, people suggested at least 3-4 different domains for getting drivers, and they all now ultimately funnel you to the same driver site that emphasizes current products). I was, however, able to navigate to their list of legacy cards, and I can assure you that the only thing they list for SB16 is some DOS utilities: http://support.creative.com/Products/pr...d+Blaster# http://support.creative.com/Products/Pr...nd+Blaster Edit: Holy crap that badongo site is a seedy piece of garbage. Can't get the SB16 driver to download in Firefox 3.5 (finally got the captcha to appear and then it said Please Wait forever) or MSIE 8 (never even got the captcha), so I'm not going to bother trying.

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2010-7-18 @ 11:17 pm
Dominus l33t Joined: 2002-10-03 Posts: 2061 Location: Vienna	muhahah.... while updating the guide and fixing the links, I found this Sierra help site which copy/pasted parts of my guide http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/Emu...ivers.html Edit: actually my whole guide has been copied... but they added usefull things to it on their own... Edit2: Updated the guide. These links should work a bit longer... @HunterZ, sorry I never saw that you weren't able to download the SB16 driver. It should work now though

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2010-7-19 @ 12:25 am
collector Oldbie Joined: 2003-01-15 Posts: 1492	No, it is not a copy and paste. Similarities exists because it is the same process. Make the windows install files accessible to DOSBox and run the installer then install the drivers. It is not exactly a novel idea for a guide to be step by step with images. I'll grant you that your guide predates it, though.

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2010-7-19 @ 12:48 am
Dominus l33t Joined: 2002-10-03 Posts: 2061 Location: Vienna	Oh come on, it's almost the exact same wording in several places, just a bit changed to when I excessively used I. If you want you can check in the internet cache all my old versions and compare it. For example in the version before this nights changes http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7801769/win31old.txt I link to the discussion about the s3 drivers and the whole thing about the s3 drivers is almost the same... The notes are the same, just more in my guide, since the sierrahelp one is based on an older version of mine. The denying of the blatant copying makes me more annoyed now...

	Re: Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide :: 2010-7-19 @ 12:52 am
Dominus l33t Joined: 2002-10-03 Posts: 2061 Location: Vienna	Or right at the beginning Quote: DON'T mount your actual c:\ drive -Mounting your actual c:\ drive root as c in DOSBox (never do 'mount c C:\' - it's okay to 'mount c C:\doswin') as this places your regular Windows at risk when you try to install Windows 3.x. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! if that is not copy/paste... Edit: take a lok at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=9405 and compare both guides (not just graphics driver page, the whole Windows 3.x guide on sierrahelp.com) and you will find many parts where it is obvious that it was partly a copy/paste job and sometimes a copy/paste/change a bit job... Example my guide (very first version on the wayback machine) Quote: - in regular builds you can set windows to use the S3 drivers found in the archive named 864141b5.zip at http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?4009. More on this and interesting discussions at http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=7528. With these drivers you can run Windows at 800x600 with 256 colours (large or small fonts). sierrahelp.com Quote: S3 Graphics Card - In regular builds, use the S3 Drivers. With the S3 you can run Windows at 800x600 with 256 colors (large or small fonts). More on this and interesting discussions in this VOGONS thread. Use these drivers - S3DRIVERS.ZIP And so on... Don't tell me you still don't see the copy/paste there... I'm not pissed at them for basing their guide on mine, after all they added a couple of nice touches to the guide and partly more in depth explanations... but when you do something like this you should at least give credits to where it's due. Something like "based on the guide from Dominus on the official DOSBox forum http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=9405" instead of slapping a copyright by sierrahelp.com on the pages...

page 1 of 1

Last Visit : never :: 2010-8-01 @ 01:51 am : Now
FAQ	Search	Memberlist	Usergroups
Register	Profile	Messages	Log in
View posts : unanswered