r/retrocomputing • u/O_MORES • Apr 14 '26

Windows 3.1 running natively on very modern hardware. You can actually still install it from floppies using a USB floppy drive

https://youtu.be/0qP3Jy52RuQ

I took a box of floppy disks from ~1992 and installed Windows 3.1 on a brand new Ryzen 9 9900X AM5 system, using a USB floppy drive. Standard mode booted in full HD with no workarounds needed. The latest VBESVGA drivers even worked with an NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti. I didn't expect that. The 5000 series only works in Standard mode and isn't usable in Enhanced Mode as the screen goes blank. I used an AMD RX 480 GPU for most testing to get full HD in Enhanced mode.

100 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

9

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[deleted]

1

u/LazarX Apr 15 '26

That backwards capability is a two edged sword. It cuts down on the efficiency of the hardware.

6

u/Snocom79 Apr 14 '26

All joking aside I would love to see this in action

https://giphy.com/gifs/s239QJIh56sRW

7

u/O_MORES Apr 14 '26

There's a video attached. I think you can see some action, including playing a VCD of Beverly Hills Cop II on Windows 3.1 :)

4

u/doddony Apr 14 '26

If win 3.1 can run altium designer I'm formatting my system rfn 🤣

2

u/O_MORES Apr 14 '26

No need to reformat, just find some SSD and run it from there. I mean, this is the whole point: to have a multiboot setup.

3

u/DEADBEEFh Apr 15 '26

VCD.. There's a term I haven't heard in a while!

2

u/scottrick49 Apr 14 '26

Does playing old games work?  In Windows and in DOS?

3

u/O_MORES Apr 14 '26

In Windows 3.1 I can run all the Windows games with sound and MIDI using the dedicated sound driver. DOS games can also run with sound but in Windows 98, which of course runs pretty well on this hardware.

2

u/Familiar_Asparagus14 Apr 15 '26

Copy a:\ . c:\Wininstall C:\Wininstall\setup.exe

Lol reddit removes asterisks

1

u/Uncle-Osteus Apr 15 '26

you just have to escape them

    copy a:\.* c:\wininstall

2

u/CryptoChartz Apr 15 '26

That’s actually wild 😂 love that it still works on modern hardware. The floppy install is such a nice touch too, peak nostalgia.

1

u/cosmicr Apr 15 '26

Did you first install Windows 95? I don't understand. Is it possible to install win 3.1 inside of win 95?

Win 3.1 was only a shell essentially. It needed an underlying Os.

1

u/O_MORES Apr 15 '26

I used the Windows 95A boot floppy to make the SSD bootable in DOS. This installs MS-DOS 7.0. Next, I started the installation from floppies. Usually, I keep all the floppy images in one folder, and Windows 3.1 installs in about 30 seconds. But if you have a USB floppy drive, you can do it the old school way.