ok, here is mine. It's WfW 3.11 with Norton Desktop for Windows 3.0 shell replacement, some system icons were replaced and the maxmeter is running on top. This system was restored from a ten year old backup and apart from some hard drive device drivers that had to be remarked out it ran almost right away.

Simple and to the point.

What, no Windows 9X? It's a shame to stop in v3.11...😉

Maybe you should write a WIKI about how to install v3.11 in DOSBox - there are already Wikis about "boot" and (even bootable) "imgmount" so all that's needed from you is everything after having a bootable c:.

Also, let me ask you something. Nothing bad can happen to a DOS game itself if Dos is halted. That's why if my PC shuts off instantly or if I intentionally shut off DOSBox, I never give it another thought. But everything bad can happen to Windows if it's halted in the middle, so what if DOSBox gets shut in the middle?

Maybe you should write a WIKI about how to install v3.11 in DOSBox - there are already Wikis about "boot" and (even bootable) "imgmount" so all that's needed from you is everything after having a bootable c:.

well before there were Wikis there were guides and it seems there is already a guides section in this forum for Dosbox. A quick look might satisfy your need (and there is really no need to use an image for running Windows 3.x on Dosbox).

Also, let me ask you something. Nothing bad can happen to a DOS game itself if Dos is halted. That's why if my PC shuts off instantly or if I intentionally shut off DOSBox, I never give it another thought. But everything bad can happen to Windows if it's halted in the middle, so what if DOSBox gets shut in the middle?

Nothing much happens to Windows 3.x

Nothing much happens to Windows 3.x

Yes, it is correct. In Win3.x times everybody knew that it was not a good idea to turn off the system while running but the reason was not so much in Win3.x but in then-new delayed write disk caching (think SMARTDRV). The behavior is quite different under DOSBox -- it mostly relies on host caching. It's actually not that trivial to use disk caching inside the emulator (you would have to use disk images), and it is pretty much useless anyway.
Thinking of it, you could really mess up your old DOS system by just powering it down: for a long time hard drives had to be manually parked; also, on the original PC the external devices had to be powered off in some particular order. Again, not a problem for DOSBox.

There is really no need to use an image for running Windows 3.x on Dosbox

Wow, that's great to hear. Will this be true for Windows 9X? If so, booting would be mostly reserved for bootable games.

you could really mess up your old DOS system by just powering it down

I didn't mean hardware, just pure software. So compare DOSBox to a bootable Dos on the latest PC (BTW, is there a way to run the hard drive in DOS mode alongside XP?). Anyway, in that DOS mode, I could power off the computer instantly at any second without a second thought. The question is what if I ran Windows v3.11 alongside XP as opposed to via DOSBox in terms of an instant shut off?

Will this be true for Windows 9X?

Making Windows 9x run is really not any priority for a loooooong time AFAIK. And not running it on a boot image is nearly impossible, I guess.
With Dosbox CVS you *CAN* install Win9x on an image but it is very unstable and the devices are not working properly as well. So for Win9x you are much better off with the now freeware VirtualPC from MS.

The question is what if I ran Windows v3.11 alongside XP as opposed to via DOSBox in
terms of an instant shut off?

how would you run Windows 3.11 along side XP? Software wise nothing happens to Windows 3.11 if you just turn it off, problem is only disk caching, meaning that if not everything has been written there could have been chaos (in the old days). If you run 3.11 alongside XP (though I really don't know how without Dosbox or other Emulators) still nothing should happen.

you are much better off with the now freeware VirtualPC from MS.

Or will I be better off with the now freeware VMware Player & VMware Server (for the latter you must bother register for free though) from VMware? Is VirtualPC at least just 1 program that requires no (free) registration?

Software wise nothing happens to Windows 3.11 if you just turn it off

So was Windows 95 the first "no sudden shut off support" Windows? Is this documented anywhere? It sounds so lame (well, this is Microsoft) to cancel a "feature" (so to speak) in new versions, although I guess there's a legit reason behind this decision (then again...this is Microsoft).

You're better off with QEMU instead since it's not proprietary bloatycrap. Runs 9x fine.

So was Windows 95 the first "no sudden shut off support" Windows? Is this documented anywhere? It sounds so lame (well, this is Microsoft) to cancel a "feature" (so to speak) in new versions, although I guess there's a legit reason behind this decision (then again...this is Microsoft).

No, as Vasyl described how Windows 3.x could get messed up.
You can shut off any IDLE Windows OS but if there is any file operations or anything like that going on, any OS can get suckered, not just Windows.

So was Windows 95 the first "no sudden shut off support" Windows? Is this documented anywhere?

No such feature. Hard shut off is a dramatic event for any system. I still remember how fragile Unix systems were on OS/370 or PDP-11 -- in both cases the system had to be completely restored from tape after power loss -- every time. Win95 perceived fragility is a combination of delayed write disk caching and ugly single point of failure -- the Windows registry. The fault is largely Microsoft's but many people would have to share the blame. At some point even the simplest shareware games were writing to registry all the time. Microsoft acknowledged the problem and tried to fix it but it was not that simple (combination of registry, disk caching, and poor legacy file system). NT had some tools to repair the damage, so did Win2k, but not in the initial release (some tools were in Windows Resource Kit). Those were rolled in into the system by the time for XP (or one of 2k Service Packs) which made XP quite resilient to power loss.