They may not be useful anymore but it is a great history lesson to go back and see what operating systems originally were. There are many ways to approach this old process but this video makes setting it all up in VMWare very easy.
Although the video may be using VMWare Workstation 8, the same process should work flawlessly in WMWare player (which is free)! I personally followed the guide exactly for getting it all set up under workstation.
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At first I was going to use the set up floppies I had to get things going but that was turning out to be a little more complicated then it had to be. Since I was going to end up downloading DOS and 3.1 anyway I found this package along with this video that already has the pre-made WMWare hard disk for you!
Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?x2o51c36gvkgglo
Steps
The video does a great job guiding you though this but in-case you would rather read the step by step instructions, here they are!
Step One
Download and extract the pre-installed MS-DOS 6.11 and Windows 3.1 VMWare hard drive files. If you are in need of an extraction tool, download yourself a copy of 7-zip!
Step Two
Inside the extracted folder, double click the “Windows 3.1.vmx” file and turn on the virtual machine in VMWare. If you are prompted with a dialog box regarding the change in location of the files. Select “I Copied It” – Now just wait and let it load.
Step Three
Once MS-DOS has booted you need to type “win31\setup.exe” in the terminal. This will begin the installation of Windows 3.1 onto the hard drive of the virtual machine! Just follow the on screen instructions to finish the installation of Windows 3.1.
Step Five
After installation the computer will reboot. Once the reboot is complete you will once again be at a command terminal. Simply type in “win” and press enter. Windows 3.1 will launch! This is also how you will start windows 3.1 every time you turn on the computer!
I followed this and it worked out just fine for me! If you still need some help just say something in the comments and we’ll get your problem solved! Enjoy!
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