VOGONS


First post, by weldum

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Hi, I'm in the need to find an office suite that works well in my Laptop

Here are the specs:

ACER ANYWARE K386s
386sx 25MHz
4MB Ram
Video Cirrus Logic CL-GD6428
CompactFlash to 2.5 HDD with a cheap Kingston 4GB CF
Windows 95C 🤣

I've tried installing older versions of MS Office and Works in WfW 3.11 but they need some share.exe file installed that i can't find
Now I'm using Windows 95, and it doesn't work as slow as i thought. Almost at the same speed than the 386DX 40 that i had.
I need the software to be for Windows (16 or 32 bits) and only need a word processor and a spreadsheet

Thanks

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 1 of 12, by jesolo

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Windows 95C on a 386SX-25 with only 4 MB of RAM?
I would recommend you rather install DOS 6.22 with Windows (for Workgroups) 3.11.

However, to quote a small section from what I found on some archive:

"Some older programs which were written for Windows 3.1 required that a program called "share.exe" be loaded into memory before they would run. This includes some of the setup programs for older versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Microsoft Office. "Share.exe" served to lock files that were open, preventing other programs from opening the same file. This causes "share.exe" errors.
If you are getting a "share.exe" error, you should upgrade to the Windows 95 version of the software rather than using the fix below.
Windows 95 uses a different method for locking files, using a file called "vshare.386". The first release of Windows 95 included a "share.exe" file for the sake of compatibility with these older programs, but the newer OEM Service Release 2 (OSR2) did not.

Microsoft suggests that you can fool some of these older programs by creating a zero-length (i.e., empty) file called "share.exe" in the root of the C: drive and inserting the word "share.exe" (do not include quotation marks) into your autoexec.bat file."

Microsoft Office 4.x is the last Office Suite that will run on Windows 3.1.

Reply 2 of 12, by weldum

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well there is a problem, this laptop does have a working floppy drive, but here in Argentina is impossible to find working floppy disks
That way i can't install windows 3.11 and DOS

Now i've installed MS Works 4.0 in Windows 95, It takes almost 10 seconds to load and get ready, but works really fast, even for that machine.
My main PC (FX6100 8GB 2TB HD6450) pales in comparison when opening Word 2016 in Windows 10

Sadly i've got to install only the English version, my Spanish copy got damaged the 2nd floppy, and the first is starting to fail.

Anyway thanks jesolo, your help would be useful when I can find a way to deploy DOS 6.22+WFW3.11

EDIT: I've forgot totally, there is any driver that I can install to get something better in the display? more colors, higher resolution or some kind of acceleration?
It works well now but I want to know if there is a driver

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 3 of 12, by .legaCy

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weldum wrote:
well there is a problem, this laptop does have a working floppy drive, but here in Argentina is impossible to find working flopp […]
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well there is a problem, this laptop does have a working floppy drive, but here in Argentina is impossible to find working floppy disks
That way i can't install windows 3.11 and DOS

Now i've installed MS Works 4.0 in Windows 95, It takes almost 10 seconds to load and get ready, but works really fast, even for that machine.
My main PC (FX6100 8GB 2TB HD6450) pales in comparison when opening Word 2016 in Windows 10

Sadly i've got to install only the English version, my Spanish copy got damaged the 2nd floppy, and the first is starting to fail.

Anyway thanks jesolo, your help would be useful when I can find a way to deploy DOS 6.22+WFW3.11

EDIT: I've forgot totally, there is any driver that I can install to get something better in the display? more colors, higher resolution or some kind of acceleration?
It works well now but I want to know if there is a driver

I had success installing msdos on a lte5300 with cf by installing it on another machine and putting the cf back into my lte5300

Reply 4 of 12, by chinny22

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If your happy with Win95, Office97 was ok on my 486 back in the 90's, takes hours to install but runs ok.
I agree that Dos/WFW is more suited.
Great thing about dos is it doesn't look at your hardware, so you could just format the card with /s to make it bootable in another computer, move it back to the laptop and continue installing dos, drivers, windows. You could also copy the install files to the card while on the other PC. I normally have a folder called rebuild with subfolders like Dos, WIndows, Drivers and byspass needed floppy's CD's etc all together.

Not sure about the video card driver, quick google came up with nothing for me as well

Reply 5 of 12, by weldum

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thanks, later i will see how to get msdos installed and working

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 7 of 12, by weldum

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That had to be interesting.
Sadly now have to reinstall everything on this machine, i've screwed the mbr and deleted the ontrack disk manager

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 8 of 12, by feipoa

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Windows 95 on faster 386's is even slow. I would find some way to install DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 onto the hard drive, perhaps by pre-installing it on another machine, or saving the installation media to the HDD and then installing it.

Personally, I like to use Novell Word Perfect Office Suite 6.0 on my 386 in Win 3.11. I also have MS Word v2.0 from Office 3.0 installed.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 9 of 12, by weldum

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Thanks feipoa, i will try to find a copy of wordperfect and install it.

About getting dos and win3.11 installed, have to get the compact flash, put in a newer laptop that supports boot from USB, and with E2B install Ontrack to get it working in the 386. The big problem is that because Dos 6.22 is 3 disks + supplemental disk, and i don't have any way to "change" disks.
I will try some ways, if i get it working i will post it here because can be very useful.

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 10 of 12, by feipoa

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You can pre-install DOS 6.22 to the hard drive by moving the hard drive to another computer which has a floppy drive.

Alternately, you can make a copy of the installation diskettes onto the hard drive by moving the hard drive into another computer.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 11 of 12, by weldum

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feipoa wrote:

You can pre-install DOS 6.22 to the hard drive by moving the hard drive to another computer which has a floppy drive.

Alternately, you can make a copy of the installation diskettes onto the hard drive by moving the hard drive into another computer.

The thing is, don't have any diskettes, and the only floppy drive that i have doesn't work.

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 12 of 12, by feipoa

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Then you will need to find a copy of the installation media off-diskette, like in zip files or what-not.

Or, you can buy a floppy drive and connect it to a working computer. Then copy the files from the installation diskettes. If you don't have the installation diskettes, then you can probably find them on eBay or similar.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.