Windows 3.1: Twenty Years Later

Yep, I remember the screen saver & the desktop backgrounds...

Imagine a world without the Start button. No, I'm not talking about Windows 8. Dig deep into your memory, and you may recall a time when Windows 3.1 ruled the Earth.

Twenty years ago this month, Microsoft released version 3.1 of its MS-DOS graphical-shell-turned-operating-system. Windows 3.1 became the first version of Windows to be widely distributed with new PCs, cementing the dominance of Microsoft's OS on the IBM PC platform and signaling the dawn of the Golden Age of Windows.

In honor of this anniversary, let's take a visual tour through Windows 3.1. In the following slides, I'll highlight many of the innovations this colorful GUI brought to Windows for the first time.

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Windows 3.1: Twenty Years Later | PCWorld

If I remember correctly, the OS came on about 20 floppy disks (there weren't any optical drives for computers back in those days). Installation was a tedious job, having to make sure that you inserted the next disk when requested (and in the correct order).

I only vaguely remember that...first computer I had total access to was a Pentium 90Mhz one, that struggled to run Windows 95. I couldn't tell you how little RAM there was, or anything else....except there were 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives.

Oh, and can't forget the 33.6 telephone modem.....epic download times!

Dwarf said:

If I remember correctly, the OS came on about 20 floppy disks (there weren't any optical drives for computers back in those days). Installation was a tedious job, having to make sure that you inserted the next disk when requested (and in the correct order).

Windows 3.1 came on 6 floppies (3.5 inch), but of course you had to have DOS installed first and that came on 3 floppies (3.5 inch). :)


I worked in a computer store about that time, don't know how many Windows 3.1 installs I performed. Probably couldn't install it now as I've become accustomed to the automatic installs of today.

Windows 95 was on 13 or 17 3.5-inch floppies, and OS/2 was on 24 floppies (17 for the operating system, 7 for the additional drivers).

I don't think those were the good ol' days.