The “administrative” install is often called a “flat” installation. That’s how I usually install Windows 3.1 when I need it. On a machine with no CD, I install Procomm and ZModem it over and unzip it into a temporary directory.
I also have a one-floppy Windows 3.1 setup (I can get 386Enh running) that I use for random things. http://cini.classiccmp.org/ Long Island S100 User’s Group Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS ________________________________ From: cctalk <cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org> on behalf of Warner Losh via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2021 1:21:34 PM To: Grant Taylor <cct...@gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net>; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk@classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Microsoft OSs (was: Install Floppies) On Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:41 AM Grant Taylor via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 7/23/21 6:43 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Well, maybe similarly to how you did with AIX, by the total size divided > > by number of images. Although what I was referring to was people's > > memories of the size of the box that they kept the install disks in :-) > > Maybe someone who is more versed in the possible disk sizes and more > accurate (non-rounded) count. I'm extremely foggy when it comes to > 5-1/4 inch disk capacities. 720 kB and 1.44 MB disks I can deal with. > But the minutia between 320 kB and 360 kB, combined with rounded > measurements, things get foggy for me. > 320k - 8 sectors per track, 40 tracks, 2 sides. 640 512 byte sectors. 360k same, but 9 sectors per track. 720 512 byte sectors. There are also single sided versions as well with 1/2 the capacity. Warner > > > The "Tools" CD-ROM was a third party commercial product containing a > > large collection of CD-ROM drivers. > > Talk about a chicken and egg / priming problem. How do you get the > CD-ROM drivers off of the CD-ROM that you need a driver to access. ;-) > The quintessential answer is to have (access to) another system (or > driver) assist. > > > In August 1991, I attended a Microsoft Developer conference in Seattle. > > Bill Gates didn't show up, because he was in NYC on TV about the > > birthday of 5150 (August 11, 1981). They gave us copies of Windows 3.10 > > (which couldn't load on the 286 laptop that I had brought along, because > > it didn't have A20 support, and gave those of us who asked that > > international distribution Windows 3.0 CD-ROM. Never saw it before or > > since. It had Windows 3.0 installation with at least half a dozen > > different languages. > > Windows 3.x was relatively easy to streamline the installation by doing > -- what I think is called -- an "administrative" install such that it > copies all files off of the floppies into a single directory, presumably > on a network share, in a way that means that you can subsequently run > setup therefrom. I don't remember if simply copying all the files into > a single directory also sufficed. > > > Actually, you can, and easily. > > MS-DOS 6 had an "INSTALL" program, which was demented. It INSISTED on > > installing on drive C:. But, some of my machines had four floppies, and > > I didn't want it to install on the 8" drive, or 3.25" drive, . . . Once > > you install it on SOME/ANY OTHER machine, then, with that OTHER machine > > booted up to DOS 6, just do a FORMAT A: /S of a boot floppy, and copy > > files onto that, specifically including FORMAT. > > Ya. I know that I can manually install MS-DOS by sysing boot media > (floppy or hard disk) and copying the contents of the DOS directory. > But that seems like more of a hack than should be necessary. Though it > can be made less annoying. > > > FORGET ABOUT THE "INSTALLATION" files. with extreme prejudice. > > Boot your target machine with the DOS 6 boot floppy; it has FORMAT.COM > > on it (which IIRC was actually a .EXE file renamed .COM), and then use > > that to FORMAT C: /S . > > I feel like there /should/ be a way to streamline the MS-DOS 6.22 > installation using methods from Microsoft. But, maybe I'm asking for > too much. Or more likely, I've simply not found it yet. > > I do sort of like the installer from the 3rd party MS-DOS 7.10 CD-ROM > that's floating around the Internet. That's the general idea of what > I'd like. > > > Once that system format is done, and CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are up, > > then all of the rest is just copying files, which can be COPY *.*. > > ACK > > > For learning any language, it helps a LOT to have a copy of something > > that you are familiar with in that language. When she started to learn > > Spanish, I gave her a copy of McCracken FORTRAN in Spanish (she was > > familiar with, and had a copy of, the English edition), and loaned her > > the international Win3.0 disc. She then setup one machine with Win3 in > > English, one in Chinese, and one in Spansish. > > Win3.0 could run on an 8088, which were then a dime a dozen. > > > > I don't know whether you could put more than one copy on a machine. I > > think that you could - we had a copy of Win3.1 on a Win95 machine! > > I think you definitely could put more than one copy of Windows 3.x on a > single machine. The biggest point of contention I see would be parts of > CONFIG.SYS that reference drivers inside of the Windows directory. > However there are plenty of ways to deal with that. Beyond that, it's > just another directory that consumes disk space. > > Aside: I've got a virtual machine with the following installed and > bootable using Microsoft boot options: > - MS-DOS 6.22 > - Windows 3.11 (on top of MS-DOS 6.22) > - Windows 95 > - Windows 98* > - Windows NT > - Windows 2000 > - Windows XP > > *I'm just shy of 100% certain that both 95 and 98 were on there. > > I did it as an exercise to see if it would work, and it does. I think I > did the install in that order. MS-DOS 6.22 vs Windows 3.11 was simply a > matter of starting Windows (WIN) at the command prompt. Windows 95 > brought in it's MSDOS.SYS based boot menu and allowed booting "MS-DOS" > (or something like that). I think Windows 98 had an option to augment > 95's boot menu to allow both 95 and 98. Windows NT / 2000 / XP brought > in BOOT.INI and another "Older Windows" (nomenclature?) menu option as > well as NT / 2k / XP. > > > But, the Windows 3.10 BETA program sent us tons of floppies. > > I bet. > > > It had an even more demented problem: it installed Smartdrv first. > > Then, if it hit any error, the installation would fail, without the > > usual option to IGNORE and manually copy the failed file later. > > Instead, SMARTDRV cut out the options, and you could only R(etry)! If > > the error wasn't transient, then you could only power down the machine! > > But SMARTDRV had told DOS that stuff was ALREADY written that it hadn't > > done yet, so powering down wiped the whole installation. I had one > > machine that had an error that neither SpinRite nor SpeedStor could > > find, but the Windoze installation consistently found it! The work > > around was to put a lot of extraneous files on the disk, so that the > > sector with the error was used by something else. I reported the > > problem to the BETA support; their response was "That's a HARDWARE > > problem, NOT OUR PROBLEM." My comment that 1) any program should exit > > gracefully even from a hardware problem, not lock up the machine and 2) > > that SMARTDRV's actions would end up costing them substantially. (It > > DID; DOS 6.20 was written primarily to deal with SMARTDRV causing > > problems!) 'course my comment also meant that I wasn't invited back for > > any other BETA programs; they only wanted cheerleaders, not critics nor > > actual testers. > > Ya. Thankfully (?) I started with computers after that and avoided > things like that. > > > It eliminated another LARGE box of floppies. > > ;-) > > > > -- > Grant. . . . > unix || die >
