That's so cool! While I agree Windows 3.1 was a significant release, it looks like a major release to me due to the fact it was the most popular Windows operating system from 1992 to 1995 and it introduced several things like being capable of playing sounds and music. Well done!
@the hevy I'm referring to the fact that starting off with Windows 3.1, startup and shutdown sounds would be in use regularly. Besides, the .wav file format did not exist yet until 1991, a year after Windows 3.0 first came out.
@@cjshields2007 Yes, there was a special multimedia version with the necessary libraries and drivers. No, WAV is a special file format based on RIFF containers.
The biggest change was to NT which brought with it stability and many of the technologies Windows is still based on today. After that it was largely refinement
Fun fact: companies often had a ton of these unopened boxes because each user needed a product key; when imaging came along, boxed installs became obsolete. Great video!
My first PC in 1995 had MS DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11. I still remember going through that tutorial. To the 10 year old me it felt like something special. Almost like some kind of secret knowledge or that the future is going to happen right now. I think today this excitement is not comprehensible for most kids anymore, but to me back then it was something that was new even to most adults. The stuff of dreams. But it got sour pretty quickly after my mother constantly occupied my computer in my room all the time so I couldn't use neither of it. For the next 5 years we fought almost daily, because I couldn't even do my homework in my room, let alone on my computer, until *after* dinner! School finished at around 2pm, dinner was at 7pm... I don't know, even today I still think about this every time I see Windows 3.0 - 95 and all the anger and frustration I had. I even got grounded after I found out how to protect my PC with a password at boot time...
This is not what I would call the canonical Windows 3.1 box art. This was a really odd design. I know Microsoft had a bit of a "newspaper" marketing motif for 3.1's release, but this box is about as barren as it could be. The first time I saw it, I was a little bit like "uh.. what _is_ this?" The non-upgrade version had the new Windows flag flying large at an angle above the "Microsoft Windows" banner, and a big "NEW!" starburst on the corner. It totally looks the part. A 10 out of 10 for box design. (EDIT: Oh. Paused and wrote this like two seconds before he showed the other box. DOH!)
@@nickwallette6201 The Windows 1.0x box still beats it, in my opinion. I actually got an original boxed copy of Windows 1.0 a few years back. Something just sets it apart from the other boxes that followed. The old Microsoft logo, the plain blue design, the IBM PC on the front... They are not very easy to find, in my experience, and I had to pay around $400 for it.
I was using 3.0 in a professional setting in 1992 when this exact box came to my (tiny) desk. There are many benefits under the hood, but TrueType was GIGANTIC.
As a kid, writing 7th grade reports and printing them on a 300 dpi laser printer, I was very excited about scalable typefaces. Almost as excited as I was about multimedia extensions.
Oh wow, that actually looks super cool and awesome. Because I the fact the operating system looked like a totally new level. The icons look professional. The stabability, and the UI and so on.
Some people get excited when unboxing a brand new phone. Some people get excited when unboxing a brand new laptop. Michael MJD gets excited when unboxing a 30 year old PC operating system... and I like it! 😄
This video was perfection. It literally covered everything that was possible to cover in my opinion and it left no open questions. Many thanks, my friend!
Oh yeah? I was left curious "where did he get the box, did it cost $$$ and did he feel at all 'guilty' for opening it reducing the unopened supply in the world and devaluing it."
I'm pretty sure I played with the Windows Tutorial when I was a child on my grandma's first pc since I'm getting such a deja vu seeing it now. The monitor she had was black and white so it's weird seeing colors 😅 I'm pretty sure that happened somewhere near 1997 or 1998... I ended up inheriting that pc and I remember it going strong until 2003 when my parents finally bought a modern pc with Windows XP hahaha
When I was growing up I don't think I ever actually saw a PC running Windows 3.0 or 3.1, they all seemed to use 3.11 for Workgroups! I remember setting up a Windows 3.11 print server in the school library which I volunteered in, I was basically their IT support as the actual IT department weren't too helpful!
Our first PC was a Gateway from 1993 and had vanilla 3.1. Well, that's not true. It had Video for Windows and Multimedia PC components, so in addition to the "getting started" seen here, there was also a "HyperGuide" which had videos on various Windows topics. But it came with the 6 disks shown here, though the extra multimedia stuff was on the CDROM that also came with it. Starting with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 Gateway put Windows on their CDROM (but DOS was still on floppies. I don't think you could boot from CDs back then).
Seeing something that old piece of software still in its box is cool. I didn't know that 3.1 was when the old Windows flag was introduced until you mentioned it at 1:09. Still not too fond of the text on that box design though, because of all that Serif font (which I have some problems reading and processing in my mind) and that the first "W" in "Windows" is bigger than the other letters. Windows 3.1 is probably older than a good chunk of younger people on the internet nowadays and probably not as well known as Windows 95 or XP but its still pretty neat to see the progress of the UI/UX design from its time. I've tried 3.1 myself ok a VM and the thing I remembed being really different is how windows are closed with the Exit option being located on menu on the top left button instead of a dedicated title bar button. That aside its still Windows.
I remember my dad showing me windows 3.1. He was so excited and although I did my best to act like an uninterested teen, I was impressed. Last computer l had used was my C64 but I grew out of that to avoid any future bullying.
Our first computer was a Windows 3.1 IBM. I no longer have the computer but I do still have all the floppy discs of games we got from a mail order club. Earlier today I got 3.1 running on my laptop via Dosbox and it's super easy to add stuff to it so I might actually play some of those old games again.
Thanks for doing this! I have a sealed copy too, and a box with For Workgroups addon which even comes with it's own network card, but I can't open them, I just can't. Now I can finally see the contents :D
In 1993 I did build a 486DX66 PC in a class room with colleagues, payment was taken from our salary during 12 months. We installed Windows 3.1, but I only used it for a couple of months, because end of 1993 I switched to Window for Workgroups 3.11. WfW 3.11 is one of my 3 favorite OSes and it was the first OS I used with the Internet.
At 19:33 I think it's pretty funny that Microsoft called the included help file "online help" since it is completely offline and on the PC. They should have called it interactive or electronic help, something like that. I wonder what the ice cream sundae dialog box settings do in that demo - it would be interesting to see.
"Online" had a different meaning at the time. It meant that you didn't have to go digging through dead trees to get to it. It was right there, on-line and ready to go, at all times. At this point in history, you _might_ have had a modem for dialing into local BBSes, CompuServe, or Prodigy, or one of the "information databases" for stocks, news, periodicals, etc.
12:28 I don't know much about minesweeper either, but the thing I know for sure is that the numbers indicate the number of bombs is somewhere next to either in the corner or right besides it
I mean sure install from hdd would go quicker. BUT, in same time it would also be longer, since copying disks to hdd first would take same ammount of time as just running install from disks. So you know: Copy 6 disks to drive + install time or just install time directly from 6 disks.
@@monkeywadaf8863 The time it takes to swap out disks when requested (multiple times) was less, because you were just selecting a different folder, instead. I remember this far too well! lol
Did you know that on Windows computers before Vista, that with Minesweeper open, if you type “xyzzy” and press Shift+Enter, every time you hover over a “good” square, it shows a white pixel on the top left corner of the desktop. If you hover over a “bad” square, it shows a black pixel on the top left corner.
This was the first widely used version of Windows. I took a microcomputer application class at the end of '91 and we just used MS-DOS, because that's what most companies were using at the time.
Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 6.22 were the end of an era, the last era that was more connected with the 80s tech world than today's. It was an exciting time to be into computers.
Holy shit, after 20+ years since I used these diskettes on a regular basis you just taught me that the little "CH" in the corner is actually supposed to be "HD".
I have forgotten all Win 3.1 operation. Going back to 1995 . when the Win 95 came out. The world is changed. From 16 Bit to 32 Bit Windows. And all Machines is changing to Pentium . A lot of money spend. But I earn more money earned by the PC efficiency. Good old years. Thanks for the video.
All those young'uns who don't know that back in the day it was actually questionable if the mouse really was a useful input device or not. You have to remember: People were used to text interfaces and using a keyboard.
When saw those disks a tear appears on my face, reemember in 1993 my dad bought a new 486DX with windows 3.1.1, WordPefect and Lotus 1-2-3, those was the golden era of 80s and 90s
Linux needs standard package managers, a "suggested" standard gui, a standard control center in it, and a standard tutorial for beginners. If someone doesnt beat me to it, ill do it. But it will take some time...
It's funny... Many of the DOS versions were a year or more apart and _barely_ changed. Then you had a 3-year gap between this, which was a big deal in and of itself, and Win95, which was a tectonic shift in PCs. Since then, the pace has seemed much more incremental. Hardware has changed a LOT, but OSes are still very recognizable.
Windows 3.1 kind of would be a major release if Windows 95 wasn't insanely popular, Strong fact is that under the hood Windows 95 even had the Windows 3.1 Program Manager just most people didn't use it.
LOL you were very convincing saying you think you pretty much knew the rules to minesweeper and could figure it out, and then proceeding to play it totally backwards. On the other hand, I think I only got the gist of Reversi and have never played it, and that Hearts or Spades card game (whichever it was called) I was always baffled by trying to figure it out on the go and never did bother to look up the rules even though I gave it a whirl whenever I was bored.
I think such ultra basic tutorials are missing a bit these days. Not everyone can pick up how something work instantly und intuitively, in particular if you had never worked with somethin compareble bevore. (Thinking of how I had to teach my mother how to use her first smartphone for example.)
