Back in time Windows 3.11 8

[carmike]

I received a PC from a friend to fix and got it to fly.
Found it had MS Dos 6.22 and windows 3.11 on it.
Everything worked on it except the sound board.
Only sound driver I could find was for Windows 95 and I do not Know how to load a driver for Win 3.11. any one help ??

I was thinking that maybe I am "Raking water uphill" with Win 3.11 and I should deltree windows 3.11 and reload Win95 I have 260MB HDD with 486 DX33 and I think that Win 95 would probably fit when 6.22 and 3.11 are removed. I want to keep the apps on the Hdd as the owner is not that young and the machine will be as slow as he is

Regards from the Antipodes

 

[JennITChick]

Most likely you are not going to find Windows 3.11 drivers for anything anymore. If the user can live without sound, leave it alone, otherwise you can try to install 95, but on a hard drive that small it'll be a squeeze. Jennifer Sigman
Unemployed again

 

[CitrixEngineer]

What's the sound card? Chances are that there won't be Win3x drivers for it, but you never know - if it's an old card.

If the machine has less than 32Mb RAM, it will be VERY slow with Win9x. I have a DX33 Laptop with 40Mb RAM, on which I run Win98 perfectly. If you trim down the installation of Win95, it should go on - but the apps may be a tight squeeze. Maybe you could track down a refurbished 1 - 4 Gb Hard drive from a local computer store (the smaller techy type shops, not PC World!) for a few bucks. Get more RAM while you're at it, otherwise you may well be "raking water..."


Hope this helps CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[danyelizondo]

I have drivers for the PCSPeaker, a Sound Blaster emulator, but it doesn't have MIDI instruments. If your friend doesn't want MIDI drivers, he should use these drivers. Contact me at danyelizondo@hotmail.com if you want them. They support Windows 3.1x.

Daniel Elizondo

 

[edfair]

There are probably DOS drivers for it available somewhere, just a matter of searching at the right places. Or try posting the make here and on the win3 forum for the right help to come along.
Space shouldn't be a problem unless you want the latest and greatest applications, which tend to be bloated up. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[rhubarbandcustard]

bit of a blast from the past.
couple of points:
1) you will probably find that windows 95 will take about 100Mb of space at it's minimum. If you can obtain the version that installed from floppy disks, halve that again (although the floppy version had flaws)

2) It is possible that the bios will not allow you to use a drive larger than 500Mb, dos and 3.11 won't anyway. (due to addressing restrictions in the older OS's)

3) If the card was found in a 486, I would be certain it was intended for dos (3.11)

4) installing a sound card within windows 3.1 /3.11 was not too hard, you were normally helped by being given an executable file, however: in the autoexec and config.sys files, you need to identify the device, the address range that it was using, the IRQ and any DMA channels. - still need the driver file though.

5) even with a sound card running in early windows, unless you had a genuine soundblaster (ie creative labs chips on the board) it would often not work here and there.

I would be happy to try and help further if you have problems with the autoexec approach. My approach to this problem would be (i'm not joking - being serious) to bin the whole lot as there are loads of early pentium machines (100 - 200 Mhz) with 1 gig or larger drives, knocking around for under £50, in fact, if you really want, I have a few here, one of which I will send you for the cost of the postage.

 

[Snickle]

A comment for thought: DOS is the Operating System and Win3.x is the Operating Environment. Most all things concerning hardware will need the DOS support first.

 

[Wassup393]

Concerning running Win95 on that PC, I can recall easily to the days when 95 came out and the Pentium was still as new as anything. The standard was 200mb HDD's and a 486 DX2/66 with under 32mb RAM. Plenty! You must remember that not a heap of free space is needed and applications barely took up any room at all. Off the floppy, 95 generally took 70mb of room (off disk's), and left enough to swing your elbows. Of course the drive was always compressed to around 400mb, a must back then, even if it did compensate speed. I say upgrade!

Sam

 

[jonhiker]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;138349

Will tell you the minimum requirements for installing W95.

My suggestion would be to dump the whole box and have the client by a new one. A very basic Pentium or PII can be for $100US to $200 US. Any apps or info can be loaded into the new box or the HDD could be installed and set as a slave.