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Previous version of Windows in VirtualBox - Boredom

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Hi everyone,

Just want to share my boredom. I made myself a little VirtualBox museum of old Windows versions, all functional!

Just hearing the sounds makes me nostalgic.
Screen Shot 2020-09-01 at 10.03.07 PM.png


If you want to try yourself, ENJOY (archive.org).

You can find the .ISO too if you're interested to install it from scratch.

Those are completely legit btw :). As long as it's not used for professional purposes I guess.
As stated on the site, "for historical research or museum quality display".
 
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No Windows 3.1 or Windows NT 4/3.5.1 since your doing this in a VM? I like the idea of doing it this way. :)
 
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No Windows 3.1 or Windows NT 4/3.5.1 since your doing this in a VM? I like the idea of doing it this way. :)

There's a link here for an .ISO compatible VMWare and VirtualBox.

Haven't tried yet tho, but hey, I'm bored, so why not! :laugh:

Started using it at Windows 98, never saw 3.1 in my life.

And you're right, what a time to be alive and be able to run those in a VM.
 
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There's a link here for an .ISO compatible VMWare and VirtualBox.

Haven't tried yet tho, but hey, I'm bored, so why not! :laugh:

Started using it at Windows 98, never saw 3.1 in my life.

And you're right, what a time to be alive and be able to run those in a VM.

My mom always got pissed at me when I changed all the colors and rearranged all the windows in 3.1. I don't know what her deal was, I was making it look good in the eyes of a 12 year old. Then I load up Commander Keen - Goodbye Galaxy and play that for a while (always thought it looked like he was wearing a Green Bay Packer's helmet - so awesome!) until I'd beat it and then I'd load up Duke Nukem.....awesome side scrolling games.

Then again, maybe she was always pissed that I'd figure out the password to get online on Prodigy....I was amazed at the new speed the 14.4k modem brought in, made the 9600 feel slow.
 
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The memories of 3.11 still gives me the creeps.
My father's PC got so bad the fucking Word v6 was typing stuff on its own. Just like that. Creepy AF.
 

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Hell, I might do this just for nostalgic memories. :toast:
 
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The memories of 3.11 still gives me the creeps.
My father's PC got so bad the fucking Word v6 was typing stuff on its own. Just like that. Creepy AF.

I remember in middle school I sat down at an old PC like that, started writing a science report, and it kindly informed me I was gay in the middle of my paper.
 
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I remember in middle school I sat down at an old PC like that, started writing a science report, and it kindly informed me I was gay in the middle of my paper.
The word gay used to have a different meaning back in the day. It meant "Happy". The same as "Fag" used to mean cigarette. But yeah in this context it is really funny.
 
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The word gay used to have a different meaning back in the day. It meant "Happy". The same as "Fag" used to mean cigarette. But yeah in this context it is really funny.

As a non-native English speaker, I was not aware of that until I played Ni No Kuni and stumbled upon a sentence talking about children playing "with gay abandon" while reading the in-game Wizard's Companion. Admittedly, my brain short-circuited for a moment and then went "WAIT, WHAT THE F***!?" :laugh:

My father's PC got so bad the fucking Word v6 was typing stuff on its own. Just like that. Creepy AF.

Perfect for an after-horror-movie prank :D
 
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No Windows 3.1 or Windows NT 4/3.5.1 since your doing this in a VM? I like the idea of doing it this way. :)

I haven't spent much time yet but I'm still figuring out how to install Windows 3.1 in my virtualbox :laugh: .
Working on making a custom setup as the floppy disk simply won't boot.

Worse than making Windows ME work.
 
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I haven't spent much time yet but I'm still figuring out how to install Windows 3.1 in my virtualbox :laugh: .
Working on making a custom setup as the floppy disk simply won't boot.

Worse than making Windows ME work.
You need to install MS-DOS 6.22 first to the C: drive then you can execute the setup.exe off the floppy disk image. A:\Setup
 
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The word gay used to have a different meaning back in the day. It meant "Happy". The same as "Fag" used to mean cigarette. But yeah in this context it is really funny.

Yeah, this was the 90s so no question what it meant. The wording may have been less kind and more similar to a "cigarette" too.
 
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You need to install MS-DOS 6.22 first to the C: drive then you can execute the setup.exe off the floppy disk image. A:\Setup
I can remember the first time I tried to run DOS on my 8088, I accidentally picked up a 45 record instead of the floppy, stuck it in, and my PC started playing "To Much Heaven" By the Bee Gees. :peace:
 
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I can remember the first time I tried to run DOS on my 8088, I accidentally picked up a 45 record instead of the floppy, stuck it in, and my PC started playing "To Much Heaven" By the Bee Gees. :peace:

Oh lookie here boys, we got a hoity toity with a sound card...
 
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You need to install MS-DOS 6.22 first to the C: drive then you can execute the setup.exe off the floppy disk image. A:\Setup
Oh well you're right! Thanks for your wisdom, it's installing. :)

Now I can say I did installed, in my life, MSDOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1.
Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 10.02.12 AM.png


6 Floppy disks later
Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 10.07.06 AM.png

And a benchmark to check the performance
Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 10.08.44 AM.png
 
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And a benchmark to check the performance

That made me laugh more than it should've :roll:

My first Windows was 95. Prior to that it was GEM UI on top of DOS. Still got the machine too
 
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Win 3.1 was a 7 disk set up ( last disk .... disk 7 is a printer driver disk and not generally needed :) )
Yes I haven't had to use it in that case :).

That made me laugh more than it should've :roll:

My first Windows was 95. Prior to that it was GEM UI on top of DOS. Still got the machine too
Hahaha but seriously I have to admit it's very responsive tho. I guess it wasn't the case back then. Took like less than 5 minutes to install.
I remember the last time I installed Windows XP it was so fucking long.

I did not know that MSDOS had some 3rd party UI. Very interesting.
In fact, checking Windows history is very interesting.

I just started another MSDOS install to check that out :laugh:
 
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I did not know that MSDOS had some 3rd party UI. Very interesting.
In fact, checking Windows history is very interesting.
Windows v1.0-3.11 is just a GUI shell on top of the underlying MS-DOS operating system. Windows 95 is when Windows started to go beyond just being a pretty GUI on top of MS-DOS.
 
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Windows v1.0-3.11 is just a GUI shell on top of the underlying MS-DOS operating system. Windows 95 is when Windows started to go beyond just being a pretty GUI on top of MS-DOS.
I just realised that when I had to enter the command "win" to start windows 3.1.
 
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I just realised that when I had to enter the command "win" to start windows 3.1.
Are you gonna boot Windows 1.04, 2.0, and 2.11?
 

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Just found this in my vmware collection, converted it to virtualbox for linux:

This is Neptune booting up.... it never made it out as an os... too bad!
 
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