Windows 3.0 Debug

Author: Anonymous

So, after a fairly long delay, it's finally time for the Windows 3.0 builds, and I'm sorry to say that we're off to an....incredibly boring start. The first build is called the "Developer Release 1.14", and it's commonly believed that this build was heavily rushed. It shows. First off, it doesn't even have an installer! It just has a simple batch file!

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IMPORTANT NOTE: The line shown here doesn't tell you everything you need to know about running this build. In order for this build to work, you need to add HIMEM.SYS and "files=30" to CONFIG.SYS. Also, this build needs a 386 processor in order to run, and at least on my tests, it requires at least 4MB of RAM, which for that time period, is an outrageous requirement.

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Here's how your "CONFIG.SYS" file should look.

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After entering "WIN386" to boot Windows, you see this message.

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...and here it is! You'll notice that this is the first build to have the build number at the bottom right corner. This would become a standard much later on, so it's really interesting to see it here.

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This build has no programs whatsoever, and as this dialog box states, the GUI was simply ported over from Windows 2.1. What an interesting, yet very boring, start to our journey. Let's hope the next one will be more interesting!

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