Norton Commander wrote on 2024-04-22, 16:47:

Well this thread made me wax nostalgic. All the other software recommendations are good but for me a must-have when I had Windo […]
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Well this thread made me wax nostalgic. All the other software recommendations are good but for me a must-have when I had Windows 3.1 was HP's Dashboard, a Program Manager replacement.

It was a start menu style launcher before it became a Windows standard, had built-in multiple desktops and resource meter.

well, i have never seen that, even though i was into various win 3.1 "skins" for a while like calmira - i'm always impressed by the sheet amount of software for win3.1 given its fairly short reign!

If you do get TCP/IP working with Windows 3.1 although you can't surf the web you can use IRC.

I've always preferred PIRCH over MIRC back in those days.

Norton Desktop for Windows is nice and XTREE GOLD for Windows.

If you use a modem Procom Plus or Telix for Windows was popular.

AMIPro was a great word processor for Windows and was purchased by Lotus for their office suite.

We had a Win3.1 PC at work used solely for generating product POS & Posters, but we soon added Microsoft Arcade! not sure if simulated or emulated, either way, it was great. I remember most cover CD's early Win95 era used to come loaded with game demos, but also lots of 'must have' free or shareware apps like Paint Shop Pro, Winzip, Acrobat, CuteFTP, as well as occasional full version older software, usually for Win3.1 including AOLpress a WYSIWYG HTML editor, which I used to build my first website, not much use now. The software bundle that came with my Win95 PC were older Win3.1 versions (except the OS of course!), I had MS Works 3.0 and MS Money 3.0, both very useful, and still usable, Lotus Smartsuite, and I'm sure the Microsoft Golf 3.0 was Win3.1, and don't forget all those cool screensavers, and MS Home era titles, and the National Lottery number generator ...never won 🙁 Nothing must have, but have fun!

rico001 wrote on 2024-04-30, 15:32:

If you can afford it I recommend visual basic 6. it had a form or app wizard. I think a copy of windows 3.11 under developer license is available with msdn subscription. Can't find info on the homepage. I think it used to be available. You may be able to get vb6 by subscription.

Visual Basic 6 required Windows NT or Windows 95. I believe the final version to work with Windows 3.X was Visual Basic 4 16bit. I don't recall the reasons why, but I remember preferring Visual Basic 3 over 4.

VB3 was most popular back in the day. Many applications used vbrun300.dll, I remember.
That was when Visual Basic was on its height, I think.

VB3 basically replaced VB1 (vbrun100.dll) as the dominant VB release. Many VBX extensions were made for both of them.

VB2 and VB4 16-Bit were less popular. VB2 was fine, but being superseded soon by VB3.

I've learnt to use VB2 mainly because of the free demo version (no compile to EXE).
It was a so-called "working model", I think.

VB4 16-Bit was being considered bloated and just seen as a means to compile VB4 32-Bit applications for Windows 3.1x.

Even Microsoft recommended using VB3 for pure Windows 3.1 development at one point or so I heard.

But in practice, even applications meant for Windows 95 still continued to rely on VB3. 😉

Edit: VB6 is in its own reign, I think. It's core runtime, msvbvm60.dll is still included in Windows 11, even.
So many VB6 applications can run without any doing from Windows 98 to 11!
Isn't that awesome? 😃 An VB6 application can run unmodified from 386SX-16, Win95 and 8MB of RAM to the latest hardware.

I think I installed everything 😀

VB 3 was the most popular for 16 bit code. VB4 did 16 and 32 bit code for NT and 95.

There is a VB for DOS out there that I have not been able to find boxed cheap enough to buy. Seemed cool and would go together with my Microsoft Basic Professional Edition.

VB DOS was essentially a cross between VB1 and QB45.
The syntax was essentially based on QBasic language.

Sophisticated programs like STS+ had been compiled with VB DOS, too, so it really wasn't bad.

VB DOS can be used to compile existing* QB projects, as well.
It's essentially an updated QuickBasic 4.5 with a form designer.

In reverse, it's also possible to re-use QB45 code in Visual Basic 1 (and up), but it needs a bit of editing.

PS: What's new in 32-Bit VB (VB5/6) was the use of Private Subs, I think.
Back in the early days of VB1, the Subs were public.
That's at least what I've noticed the most when migrating from VB1 to VB6. 😅

(*Provided that external QB modules don't cause dependency issues with the program code; some QB45 programs used modules and extended QB45 features etc).

DarthSun wrote on 2024-06-27, 04:58:

I think I installed everything 😀
Screenshot from 2024-06-27 06-49-28.jpg

Q: What Windows 3.1 Must Have Software will you install?
DarthSun : Yes

😀

Jo22 wrote on 2024-06-27, 08:16:

VB DOS was essentially a cross between VB1 and QB45. The syntax was essentially based on QBasic language. […]
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VB DOS was essentially a cross between VB1 and QB45.
The syntax was essentially based on QBasic language.

Sophisticated programs like STS+ had been compiled with VB DOS, too, so it really wasn't bad.

VB DOS can be used to compile existing* QB projects, as well.
It's essentially an updated QuickBasic 4.5 with a form designer.

In reverse, it's also possible to re-use QB45 code in Visual Basic 1 (and up), but it needs a bit of editing.

PS: What's new in 32-Bit VB (VB5/6) was the use of Private Subs, I think.
Back in the early days of VB1, the Subs were public.
That's at least what I've noticed the most when migrating from VB1 to VB6. 😅

(*Provided that external QB modules don't cause dependency issues with the program code; some QB45 programs used modules and extended QB45 features etc).

VB DOS had a special short-lived place creating GUI DOS applications before win3.1 really took off (and then 95), it was a strange beast in some ways coming just after the 'basic professional development system' i think, which in turn was only a year or two after Quick Basic 4.5. the change of pace was very fast from QB4.5 in 1988 through to VB3 in 1993 and yet there are so many applications written with these tools.

Meanwhile close competitor Turbo pascal also had version 5 in 1988 to version 7 in 1992 and in the same year i think both turbo pascal for windows and the professional tool; borland pascal 7. i believe they never had an equivalent of VB DOS and had to wait until 1995 and delphi 1 to have a functionally equivalent development approach to vb's visual drag/drop/code

Unknown_K wrote on 2024-06-27, 07:50:

VB 3 was the most popular for 16 bit code. VB4 did 16 and 32 bit code for NT and 95.

There is a VB for DOS out there that I have not been able to find boxed cheap enough to buy. Seemed cool and would go together with my Microsoft Basic Professional Edition.

Was seeing ebay $179 for a shrink wrapped copy of vb3 standard edition for msdos, with 3.5 floppies, today.

Lots of excellent suggestions here!

One piece of software I have a love/hate relationship with, but still install it every single time, it's Calmira II. http://www.calmira.de/

It's free and makes Windows 3.1 look and feel a bit like Windows 95, a "total conversion" is what they used to call software like this. It's pretty well known and has been around for a very long time. I can't remember the first time I used it, but every time I install Win 3.1, I always install Calmira. I just got used to having it there and using it. Windows 95 has always been my favorite MS OS, so that probably plays a big part in my nostalgic brain.

Slam! by Robert Epps, Confound by Pete Koziar, Sokoban by Allan Liss.

One program I had back then but which I've forgotten the name of, was a shareware utility that allowed you to have custom images as the backgrounds of Microsoft programs like Word and Excel. Does anyone remember this?

rico001 wrote on 2024-07-19, 20:40:

Unknown_K wrote on 2024-06-27, 07:50:

VB 3 was the most popular for 16 bit code. VB4 did 16 and 32 bit code for NT and 95.

There is a VB for DOS out there that I have not been able to find boxed cheap enough to buy. Seemed cool and would go together with my Microsoft Basic Professional Edition.

Was seeing ebay $179 for a shrink wrapped copy of vb3 standard edition for msdos, with 3.5 floppies, today.

As far as I know VB DOS was just a single release 1.0. VB3 was Windows only.

I am looking for a piece of software: The Ultimate Home Oragnizer for Windows (Windows 3.1/95). It would really be nice to have some structure for the things I bookkeep opposed to having to do it all manually.

Any software suggestions similar to keynote are appreciated.

I have a feeling that I saw that one on cover disks at some point in time, so maybe coverdisk archives will have it.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2024-04-21, 04:58:

WinBar 1.20 the best minimal and nice status bar with start button. Super compact, low resources, super functional and customizable. Totally replaces Program Manager for me. Calmira is nice but too bloated.

Got a link? I did some google searching for WinBar but I'm failing to find it.

Update: Found on Internet Archive, tho the files a mess. Someone mixed the binary and source code, then also included a zip with source code.

https://archive.org/details/winbar12

Great, you found it. And yes version 1.2 is the latest. It is so customizable, one ini file. Just love it.