While 95 interface was much easer, the 3.x interface had a certain simplicity to it, and still lie the side by side view in file manager.
3.11 came on our first PC but school had 3.1 and even though I couldn't tell the difference always felt smug that I had a newer version.

Never had to network it until recently, We upgraded to 95 just before getting the internet, but hear surfing the web on 3.x wasn't much fun even back then

Best Windows ever! Web browsing was basically the same as with 9x.

Still have it installed on my DOS boxes due to the better networking capabilities than those in straight 3.1. Only problem I have with it these days is due to graphics drivers. I'm using a bodged svga driver to run my ATI Rage agp card because there is no native Win 3.x driver for it. When you open up a full screen DOS prompt then close it again the screen is completely corrupted so you have to fumble around with F4 until you finally get back out to DOS again.

On the plus side if you do get the config VERY wrong then you can edit the .ini files with any text editor you have to hand which is something you can't do with the registry on newer Windows versions. I miss having that troubleshooting option open to me.

Internet browsing on WFW seemed less stable then Win95, but they did use the same browsers.

I liked WFW because of the built in networking (you just needed to add in the TCP/IP package). Any DOS machine should have WFW just to make networking easier. Add Norton Desktop for Windows for some needed utilities.

WFW simplicit UI made it grate, but most felt it to far simple and 9x really fixed that for most users.
I still say the 3x was better in UI, a few adjustments and it would be perfect. But you really had to be organized to use 3x to its fullest extant. Wile in 9x you could just dump everything to a folder or desktop and you'd properly be fine. That and you would have all sorts of junk open and be ok too wile in 3x having to much stuff open made it hard to switch between tasks.

My first PC had 3x on it, I recall it being a early Pentium, Sadly I had to upgrade to 9x for a few apps.

Back in 1992 I only had a 286 with 1mb of ram so even when I did load Windows 3.x I didn't see the point. DOS software was so much more interesting and complex. Didn't do any web browsing since my parents were too cheap but did all of my BBSing via qmodem in DOS. So yeah not much Windows 3.x love from me.

I guess Windows 3.x programs and to some extents 95 programs were the mobile "apps" of their day so didn't really interest me much except for the few exceptions.

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It crashed a lot, had no good games, and didn't seem particularly useful. That's what I remember of Windows 3.x.

Windows 9x had DirectX, a far nicer interface, and didn't crash nearly as often. It had real multitasking. The 8.3 character limit was gone. Best of all, it was its own operating system, which allowed most people to finally get rid of ugly old DOS.

Standard Def Steve wrote:

It crashed a lot, had no good games, and didn't seem particularly useful. That's what I remember of Windows 3.x.

Windows 9x had DirectX, a far nicer interface, and didn't crash nearly as often. It had real multitasking. The 8.3 character limit was gone. Best of all, it was its own operating system, which allowed most people to finally get rid of ugly old DOS.

Honestly this is my memory of 3.x as well. Granted, my interests were quite different than my then mid 30s working parents who enjoyed the multitasking and productivity software that came with it.

I always used DOS, if memory serves me right I had DOS Shell start automatically, that was fancy enough for me back then 😎

But Hot Dog Stand Lol Window's For Workgroup's Aka Window's 3.1 The Most Old School Windows Retro Did You Know Gabe Newell Port Doom To Window's It Get Game As New As 1998 Like Zombie War's The Rare Sequal To Halloween Hairy

I think WFW 3.11 didn't work properly with some Windows 3.x games?

Still use Windows FWG 3.11, and TCP/IP stack, plus WS FTP LE and i have bakop.com free cloud FTP server to move files between old computers.

HTTP internet is totally unusable, even vogons.com chrashes!

Everyone should still be using WFW 3.11. dammit!

^Yeah! 😎

Well, if you have a 386 or 486, then it is the best solution for office programis, paint programs, ftp and mail.
Because Windows 95 is ok, but has slow installation procedure, and is not so fast.
And you can use Calmira with Windows 3.1x, so it really looks like Windows 9x.

On my 386 I have WfW but on my 486DX2 66Mhz I run Win95 and it really runs decent for me. People usually only think about Win95 from Pentium upwards (some from PII upwards) but I personally have decent experience with Win95 on my 486.

As for the OP, WFW is what I had in my first contact with PCs (prior to that I had Spectrum ZX) and I fondly remember it.

Cyberdyne wrote:

Well, if you have a 386 or 486, then it is the best solution for office programis, paint programs, ftp and mail.
Because Windows 95 is ok, but has slow installation procedure, and is not so fast.
And you can use Calmira with Windows 3.1x, so it really looks like Windows 9x.

There is DSL linux too. But you need a fairly strong 486 system to run that.

I actually have Windows For Workgroups 3.11 on my Pentium MMX rig, I also ran Windows 3.x in VMs from time to time. It's a pretty advanced operating environment for its' time.

I'm amazed at how useful it was for Multimedia with applications like WMP 5.2 Beta, Xing MPEG Video player, Video for Windows, and some other programs that I can't really remember ATM.

Cyberdyne wrote:

HTTP internet is totally unusable, even vogons.com chrashes!

Unfortunately, I happen to agree with you there because the number of sites that are basic enough to work with IE5 is pretty low now. And with HTTPS becoming standard, the usability of older browsers is decreasing overtime. The only site I can think of that still works flawlessly on ancient browsers is Toastytech which is an interesting site to read once in a while.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Cyberdyne wrote:

Well, if you have a 386 or 486, then it is the best solution for office programis, paint programs, ftp and mail.
Because Windows 95 is ok, but has slow installation procedure, and is not so fast.
And you can use Calmira with Windows 3.1x, so it really looks like Windows 9x.

There is DSL linux too. But you need a fairly strong 486 system to run that.

There's an old 386/486able linux around called "monkey linux" comes in a zip file, installs on a dos filesystem. Needs 8MB for X.