For a 286 or in combination with Win 3.0, MS-DOS 5.0 is the version to use.

MS-DOS 5.0 comes on 3 floppys. If you only have one, some stuff is missing.

To make a disk bootable, you also need to run the "sys" command or format the disk using the "/s" parameter. Just copying the files won't work. But if you have a disk image, it's better to write that to a floppy instead of copying the files.

MS/PC Dos 5 or DRDos 5/6. Devon also give GeoWorks a try. It will run quite well on that system. I used DrDos 6 on my original 286/16 and now use MSDos 5a on my current 286/12 system.

You need to download a disk image/s(ima, img file extensions) then convert that to a real floppy disk using a program such as rawwritewin. A one disk MS Dos 5 image, usually gotten from boot disk sites, is perfectly fine to get a system up and running. Some of these are *.EXE files that will actually create the Dos boot disk with no extra software needed. You can prepare the hard drive, transfer the files on disk to a Dos directory and then add extra utilities as required from elsewhere with these.

I sometimes will connect a hard disk via USB and install using an emulation platform like Qemu. To me, floppies are a precious resource.

You can still buy 3.5" floppy disks easy enough if you want to. http://www.athana.com/html/diskette.html

I installed dos 6.22 then windows 3.0. however after 3.0 installed I get smartdrv error incorrect dos version and when I type win at the prompt it crashes and says DIVIDE overflow.

I'll have to double check, but I believe the issue here might be the order of the DOS/WINDOWS folders in PATH= in auoexec.bat.
Since DOS 6.22 is newer than Windows 3.0, DOS should come first.

Example: PATH=C:\DOS;C:\WINDOWS;

After this, the DOS 6.22 version of SMARTDRV should be loaded.
Except, if SMARTDRV is mentioned with its full path (C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE instead of just SMARTDRV.EXE or C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE).

(Also, if you want to run Windows 3.0 in 386 Enhanced Mode -on a 386-,
wina20.386 must be around. Either in C:\ or C:\WINDOWS . That file is part of MS-DOS 5.0, too.)

Anyway, good luck! 😀

I usually use de Compaqified MS-DOS 3.31 for authentic feel(If you need hard drives more than 32MB), or MS-DOS 5.00 rev b. (Updated FDISK and FORMAT).

But in reality you can use MS-DOS 6.22, just delete drvspace.bin or dblspace.bin from root, to save memory.

Cyberdyne wrote:

I usually use de Compaqified MS-DOS 3.31 for authentic feel(If you need hard drives more than 32MB), or MS-DOS 5.00 rev b. (Updated FDISK and FORMAT).

But in reality you can use MS-DOS 6.22, just delete drvspace.bin or dblspace.bin from root, to save memory.

Unless he will be using Double Space 😉

I went with MS-DOS 5.0 with my 386SX which is basically a glorified 286, and it was all fine. If you have 1MB or less memory even DOS 3.x would probably be OK.

kixs wrote:

Cyberdyne wrote:

I usually use de Compaqified MS-DOS 3.31 for authentic feel(If you need hard drives more than 32MB), or MS-DOS 5.00 rev b. (Updated FDISK and FORMAT).

But in reality you can use MS-DOS 6.22, just delete drvspace.bin or dblspace.bin from root, to save memory.

Unless he will be using Double Space 😉

But why today.... drive space constrains are in the past.

I appreciate the help! I got DOS 5.0 install and used winimage which created the floppy just fine. however the computer keeps crashing in dos and windows and playing games. keeps saying memory parity interrupt at 0713:018E

Grab CheckIt and test your memory. Sounds like one of the memory chips is faulty. 640k isn't very useful when using Windows either.

I tried checkit and it found some bad ram doing the continuous test. It made 1 clean pass before showing the failure. I also removed each ram chip and sprayed QD electronics cleaner in the sockets and reaseated them before running the checkit test. below are the attached pics of the RAM, the test and it crashed right before i could by the mustang in SR2.

Glad to hear the error is narrowed down, at least. The 286 was a very well designed and stable piece of silicon.
Missing V86 and the "going back to Real-Mode" mode issues, aside.

devon wrote:

Hi, I have a old Suntac chipset 286 12 with only 1mb ram. I really want to run windows 3.0 not 3.1 on it and I installed dos 6.22 then windows 3.0.

I forgot to mention. My first 286 ran very stable and quick with 4MiB of RAM under DOS 6.20 and Win 3.10.
As far as "need help choosing a dos version for 286" goes, you can't go very wrong with DOS 6.x, either.
For example. DoubleSpace/DriveSpace come in handy on an ancient XT, even. Or F5/F8 key support during boot. 😀
It has about the same DOS 5 (DOS 3) kernal structure, so compatibility should be about the same.
Unless programs were hardcoded for a DOS 5.0 version check. But even then, things like the DOSVER utility could help.
Anyway, DOS 5 (5.0a) is probably fine, too. At least since this clip, it has a certain coolness factor for sure..

That being said, there were several versions of Windows 3.0. Windows 3.0, Windows 3.0a and Windows 3.0 MME.
So you could also try, say, Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions and see if runs better on your system.
It's a bit never than vanilla Win 3.0 and lacks Real-Mode (& EMS) support, but runs otherwise fine on 286/386 PCs.
Here's a quick video of it (not mine) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN7wICVD30o

Some versions of Windows 3 were for US eyes only but strangely enough they made it out to the colonies. Hope I don't get arrested.

Box is a bit battered but it's still sealed.

Caluser2000 wrote:

Some versions of Windows 3 were for US eyes only but strangely enough they made it out to the colonies. Hope I don't [..]

So it was YOU who smuggled them to evil East Germany, eh ? 🤣
(Just kiddding! ^^)

Source: http://www.robotrontechnik.de/index.htm?/html … re/isysteme.htm

PS. Englisch maschine translation is attached as screen shot below (-credis/lefts belong to the respect. persons-),
since the source page is coded in a typical bad German manner (it prohibits direct links, going back to main page).
In short, it's slightly paranoid, obedient and follows all regulations perfectly fine (lots of stuff in inpressum, email adress as pic-only etc). 😁

Edit; Not only that, but there seems to be an error, too:
"[..] Windows apparently only operated in CGA mode with a resolution of 320x200 pixels[..]"
I guess they did forget that the stock Win 3.0 CGA driver uses monochrome CGA mode in 640x200 pixel resolution.. 🙄

My Zenith Z286LP Plus was shipped with MSDos 4.01 and Zenith modded Windows 3.0. The Zenith hard drives were formatted in such a way the it needed a custom windows driver to access them or an error would occur. Luckily when I received the system the hdd was DOA. I installed MSDos 5.0a and plain ol windows 3.1 on a replacement 400meg hard drive.

It's still funny looking at the Windows 3.0 system memory requirements and thinking "yeah right!"

Caluser2000 wrote:

It's still funny looking at the Windows 3.0 system memory requirements and thinking "yeah right!"

20190926_111551[1].jpg

Do you mean the "huge amount" of memory required or the fact that 8088 CPU iss missing from the list ?
Well, Windows has to co-exist with DOS+drivers, and since it has many capabilities & a comprehensive API, it naturally needs free continous memory. GEOS and GEM are smaller, but haven't got even 10% of the APIs and dlls. The latter can't even multi-task, also.
In addition, Win 3.0 Real-Mode kernal was never meant to be run off a real 808x computer.
Instead, it was included solely for compatbility with Windows 1.x/2.x apps and old Win 2.x drivers (btw. 3.0 VGA driver uses 186/286 code).
Just think of the 32-Bit editions of Win 7-10, same here. No sane person would install them on their free will on "real" 32-Bit PCs.
Strangely, though, real-mode kernal has full-featured EMS support on the other hand. Maybe for 286 PCs that used NEAT chipsets which featured excellent EMS support ? 😀

Anyway, this reminds me of two earlier vogons threads:
Windows 3.1 on a 386 with 640K RAM - Possible?
Hardware for Win3.11

Any Dos plus GeoWorks was definitely a better option wrt to functionality on a 8088 and 286 systems pre 1990 than win3.0 is.. GeoWorks uses any memory it can get hold of EMS, XMS or what ever. It wasn't until 386SX systems then later 386DXs and early 486s along with windows 3.1/Dos was bundled with systems did it really take off. Often with MS Works bundled as well to give it extra functionality. Other retailers shipped PFS:WindowWorks or Claris Works if they were in a mixed PC/Mac enviroment. Wrt to earlier Windows most of the better and bigger applications were shipped with windows run times so didn't actually need a full underlining windows installation to begin with.

EMS was developed for the likes of Lotus 123, DBase III, WordStar and certainly not for a graphical windowing environment. Ms wanted to get away from processors under 386 because of it's flat memory model. IBM insisted the 286 processor be supported for OS/2 then the liffle tiff happened and MS dropped OS/2 development altogether and concentrate on Dos based Windows 3.x and NT OS/2 being developed by David Cultler and his crew. The only relation between the original OS/2 and it was to support OS/2 v1.x application nothing more nothing less. The kernal was a completely different design and the OS intended for networking from the out set. IBMs networking in OS/2 is a hodg podg arrangement but does surprising work quite well once you figure out the terms use for thier configuration tools.