No need to put your email address in your post. I advise editing and removing it.

It is likely your old programs will run in Windows 7 without having to do anything special.

But if they don't, DOSBox does have the capability to run Windows 3.1. There is a guide here: Windows 3.1x DOSBox Guide

Master Keenmaster: Thanks for your very helpful response. (Yes I did delete my e-mail). I'll struggle forward. Stay Safe!

Emerging alternatives to using Windows in DOSBox include WineVDM and BoxedWine. A more thorough approach would be to use a virtual machine like VirtualBox or VMware, or possibly PCem. (This latter approach is basically what is used by "XP mode" in premium versions of Windows 7.) But generally running Win 3.x in DOSBox should be adequate.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2020-07-23, 15:02:

It is likely your old programs will run in Windows 7 without having to do anything special.

Eh? Not if it's 64-bit Windows.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-07-23, 15:33:

Eh? Not if it's 64-bit Windows.

You are correct. I am too used to just being able to run 16 bit Windows programs in 64-bit Linux using WINE.

Thank you both for sharing wisdom. Newbie Crady will persist forward. Seems like folks also share philosophy or some pithy thoughts. Here's mine. "To have a good tomorrow, don't do anything stupid today."

since PCem's mentioned I should also mention that emulator is for entertainment purposes only (for games), and like many of these emulators, won't provide the floating precision (for entertainment speed reasons as fully emulating a FPU in 2020 is still expensive).

Dunno if vDos can boot Win3.1 but that's a dosbox fork meant for non-games so that might be worth a shot.

The big problem with running these programs in Dosbox is that there is no share support. You will jeed to resort to using fakeshare which works somewhat for quick opening these programs and their files but it's not safe for actually working on files and is likely to result in data loss.
I *think* the vDOS fork does address this but I don't know.

Dominus wrote on 2020-07-24, 05:09:

The big problem with running these programs in Dosbox is that there is no share support. You will jeed to resort to using fakeshare which works somewhat for quick opening these programs and their files but it's not safe for actually working on files and is likely to result in data loss.

I was thinking about that, but isn't that only used in MS Office 4.x?

Jorpho wrote on 2020-07-24, 15:57:

Dominus wrote on 2020-07-24, 05:09:

The big problem with running these programs in Dosbox is that there is no share support. You will jeed to resort to using fakeshare which works somewhat for quick opening these programs and their files but it's not safe for actually working on files and is likely to result in data loss.

I was thinking about that, but isn't that only used in MS Office 4.x?

All office suites (Lotus), all Microsoft office like programs (Publisher, etc...) use it and some other programs as well. There was even a game that uses it. Everything that uses the OLE stuff I think... So, likely to be a problem (OP mentioned Excel)

If one booted a legit MS-DOS 6.22 image instead of using DOSBox internal DOS, then SHARE would come with it. I am not sure if SHARE would depend on low-level IBM PC INT15h that DOSBox may not be 100% compliant due to its focus on games.