The end of an era - Windows 3.x

[FreewheelinFrank]

An application has expectedly quit.

Windows 3.x has come to the closing moments of its long life.

On 1 November Microsoft stopped issuing licences for the software that made its debut in May 1990 in the US.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7707016.stm

 :'(

[ardvark]

Hi Frank...

I had no idea they were still issuing licenses for it!

I used a copy of this OS once as a legal stepping stone to use a copy of Windows 98 upgrade and my mother used it for a while on an old system that was either a 2, 3 or 486 (I can't remember which.)

Best Regards...

[oldman]

Does this mean I have to mothball my 386DX? What next win9x?

[Vladimyr]

Does this mean I have to mothball my 386DX?

Of course not! My old 8MB 486DX2 with 3.1 still works fine.... Well it did today when I started it for the first time in 8 years after reading FreewheelinFrank's post. When I say "fine" I really mean it didn't blue screen. Netscape Navigator 4 did need to continually thrash the swap file just to load any web page!

[bob3160]

I still have the original 3.5" floppies used to install Windows 3.1
It might be fun to install it on one of the spare computers just for nostalgia's sake. 

[DavidR]

I still have then somewhere, I think it was 10 or 12 of them.

[Metalhead85]

I still have an ancient black and white screen laptop that still running with windows 3.1 ..i never use it though...but it reminds me of what things were like..and maybe i'll show it to my kids in the future !

[KlondikeGeoff]

i don't care what they say, I think 3.11 was the best Windows of all, and I've used every one from Ver1 to XP (won't go to Vista until I absolutely have to, dragged there screaming and yelling). At least it did not have the damned Registry. Anybody could easily edit autoexec.bat.   

[OrangeCrate]

I certainly remember it, I used it, and I certainly thought it was long gone. That was an interesting article Frank, thanks for posting.

[DavidR]

I can't remember but wasn't windows 3.11 called Windows for Workgroups

[bob3160]

I can't remember but wasn't windows 3.11 called Windows for Workgroups

It sure was.

[ivorycruncher]

Actually, there was Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, Windows for Workgroups 3.1, and Windows for Workgroups 3.11.  Seriously, all 4 versions exist.  I have the installer discs for all of them them archived somewhere.  WfW 3.1 was very short-lived due to serious problems, and WfW 3.11 quickly replaced it (think Win98 and Win98SE).  The basic Windows 3.11 was sort of like a service pack for 3.1, and did not include the workgroup networking features that WfW 3.11 did.  Only WfW 3.11 is commonly known as the "3.11" version, probably in part because it was displayed in the boot logo.  In just plain Windows 3.11, the boot logo still showed 3.1 (even in an OEM copy), and you only saw the 3.11 version in the About screen of the Windows apps.

Unfortunately, not many people know this, and many of the Windows history websites are also missing this information.  However, even I did not know that they were still issuing licenses, nor had any level of support for it.  I know there are still Windows 95/98 machines out there, but I can't believe there are still Windows 3.1 machines alive and kicking in the corporate world.  That's just sad, really.  I mean honestly, you could argue the point of if it works, why fix it, but there's so much functionality that it's missing, it's not even funny anymore.  Windows 3.x wasn't even a true operating system, but rather just a GUI shell for DOS.

Anyway, glad to see it's finally going bye-bye.  It was decent for its time, but its time has long since passed.