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I'd like to make a video about the brief history of Windows, along with how to install them and take a quick look at their functions. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the installation of Windows 1.01. I tried a few different OEM versions found at WinWorldPC and so far I managed to actually install and start each of them, but no matter which options I chose, the mouse doesn't work and none of the apps start. Nothing seems to happen when I try to launch them or at best, an error message appears that filename.exe cannot start. I tried this under VMware Workstation Player, VirtualBox, and even DOSBox (extracted the contents of each image into the same folder and mounted it as drive A:\) but it just doesn't work.

spikey_richie
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Weylyn Savan
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    How about using DOSBox??? If you have managed a disk image of windows 1.x then extract it into a folder and mount it DOSBox, run setup.exe then. – Wasif Jun 24 '20 at 14:51
  • @WasifHasan As I mentioned in the description, I already tried DOSBox as well but it didn't work. I was able to install it but DOSBox froze out when I attempted to start it. – Weylyn Savan Jun 26 '20 at 09:27

2 Answers2

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The farthest back I go is Windows 3.1 . I have that machine here in VMware Workstation 15.5.6 running in a Windows 10 Pro Host machine.

It works.

(a) You must install the machine from Floppy Disks - at least I did. You need a USB Floppy drive (I have one of these from a prior time).

(b) There are no VMware Tools for Windows 3.1 (and therefore earlier). The screen is only 640x480 and nothing can be done with this. My mouse works but moving from Guest to Host does not work. Copy and Paste does not appear to work.

I would try loading the machine from floppy disks and see if it runs.

Note: I should have said I have also a pure DOS machine that works. Try making a DOS machine and loading Windows 1 into that.

John
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  • I have experience with 3.1 as well. I installed it in DOSBox. With the Tseng ET40001 driver, I could use it on 1024x768 resolution with 16-bit colors. – Weylyn Savan Jun 26 '20 at 09:31
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I used MS-DOS 6.22 and apparently, it was too new. It runs fine on MS-DOS 3.30, which is the earliest version I could install.

Weylyn Savan
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