The linked page contains NO copyrighted software and has NO link to any copyrighted software. This page provides a system that will let you run Windows 3.11 on modern Windows (or macOS), but YOU must provide the copyrighted Windows 3.11 installation files:
Again, there is NO copyrighted software linked to that page. The software on that page is released according to the Creative Commons license described here: https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html#licenseText.
The system provides printing, PDF creation, clipboard exchange, and easy file transfer between the host and guest systems. Setup is easy: drop a Windows 3.11 installer (or disk images of installation disks) into a specified folder, and run the supplied installer program. Again, YOU need to provide the copyrighted Windows software - it is NOT included here anywhere.
Of course you don't need this, because anyone can set up Windows 3.1x in DOSBox. What this system provides is not available in standard DOSBox: printing, PDF creation,clipboard exchange, etc.
Again, there is NO copyrighted software anywhere in what is on offer.
Oh, one of those guides again: Most of the text talks about "Windows 3.11", but in the part about how to get the installation files it's suddenly "Windows for Workgroups", which is a different system from non-Workgroups, including major differences in the setup scripts (which may be relevant here, or not - tbh I only skimmed the rest after noticing that bit). Since you already have a half sentence pointing out it needs to be a "roman-alphabet version" you apparently already fiddled with different ones, and it might be worth capturing more detail about which versions will or won't work.
(I assume that you have Windows 3.11, but the installation should work with the earlier 3.1 version.
So wherever you see "Windows for Workgroups" you can assume that it means any Windows 3.1x version. I'll make that more clear, but it would be clear when reading the page (not just skimming it).
EDIT: Fixed the page to be absolutely clear about this.
That's what I was saying, but OP misunderstood and I'm tired of having the same discussion over and over again. Pointing it out once so people "in the know" know what level of expertise to expect from this guide is good enough in my book.
Anyways, since OP "fixed" the guide I had a closer look at what's provided and noticed there's a couple archives in there - FileBackups.7z and SetupHelp.7z - that are password protected for whatever reason. We don't get to know what's hidden in them so that's a hard nope from me. (Giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming it's not malware, "FileBackups" is big enough to contain an entire copy of Windows, which would be one way to make sure everything works regardless of what install media the user provides, I guess... Just ignore and substitute with known-good files. But that's just me spitballing.)
Good catch! Back in 2018, when I was first building this system, I used those encrypted files for my own convenience. The system hasn't used them since 2018, and I've removed them from the download ZIP. They can be deleted from any existing system, because they were never used when installing or running any existing copies of this system.
I've also now included the AutoIt source code in the ZIP, which anyone is free to read, test, and compile, in case anyone has any remaining doubts about what's going on in this system. The code is sloppy, inefficient, and mostly incompetent, but it seems to work anyway - which is probably good enough until someone else does this job better.
Are you aware that there is a Windows (NOT for workgroups) 3.11? As well as a Windows for Workgroups 3.1?
Yes, of course: as the linked page says, this setup works with Workgroups and non-Workgroups installation disks/files, and it displays different prompts depending on which is used. It also should work with any roman-alphabet version of 3.1, 3.11, Workgroups or non-Workgroups, though I haven't tested all of them. The installer works correctly with the two language versions that I know of which use a non-English name for SETUP.EXE. But some language versions may pop up message boxes that will need to be clicked, etc., for installation to continue.
It's now more compatible with non-English versions of Windows 3.1x.
I don't think any comparable setup exists. For both macOS and Windows, this provides printing and PDF creation, clipboard exchange, etc., without requiring any manual setup.
Again: there is absolutely NO copyrighted software in the installer or anuywhere else. And the source code is in the Windows download.
The print-to-PDF aspect is certainly unique, and it's what made me take a closer look. Having skimmed the source code (turns out I unfortunately cannot benefit from it, most of it being implemented on the host side and me not being on Windows or Mac, but an interesting read nonetheless), I was surprised by the amount of code related to printing - it looks like it probably took quite a bit of effort. If you don't mind me asking, are you doing something productive in Win3 that warrants putting so much work into this, or is it strictly a hobby?
It's now more compatible with non-English versions of Windows 3.1x.
I don't think any comparable setup exists. For both macOS and Windows, this provides printing and PDF creation, clipboard exchange, etc., without requiring any manual setup.
Again: there is absolutely NO copyrighted software in the installer or anuywhere else. And the source code is in the Windows download.
I wish this could run with Boxer. I moved from running Dosbox on PCs to an old MacMini and couldn't be happier, as when installing from a USB connected VD Boxer is intelligent enough to copy over ALL of the CDROM related material like the CD music tracks in Fantasy General and the documentary videos from Castles 2. The advantage of using the Mac is Time Machine. With Windows 7->10->11 upgrades you never know when something may break. Not saying Mac hasn't done this as you do need to search for a fork in the project that works on the latest MacOS.
I was surprised by the amount of code related to printing - it looks like it probably took quite a bit of effort. If you don't mind me asking, are you doing something productive in Win3 that warrants putting so much work into this, or is it strictly a hobby?
I devised the printing (and clipboard-exchange) code (and thank you for noticing it!) many years ago for a system that I used for running WordPerfect for DOS under DOSBox. And it did take quite a bit of effort, but I used that system every day. I still maintain it, but I now use a faster vDos-based version that's faster and better-looking. Both versions are available at a site called "WordPerfect for DOS Updated." The DOSBox project required working with either codepage 437 and 850, and so that part of the system already existed also.
When I put together this Win31 system (as a hobby and for occasional testing), it was trivial to take over the WPDOS printing, clipboard, and codepage code.
The rest of the Windows setup took a lot of effort also. For example, the names of the printers had to be in all the languages I supported, which could have been a headache, but I got the proper names from an old Microsoft book on international programming for DOS and Windows.
The hardest part of putting together the Win31 system was working with the .INF file that SETUP.EXE uses. AutoIt uses UTF encoding by default, and I couldn't get the non-English versions of Windows to install until I figured out that I needed to convert the .INF file to ANSI encoding.
I think it can, at least partly. I downloaded the Boxer 4.1 beta (I wasn't able to build it from the source code). At the prompt to import a new game, I dragged the C:\WINDOWS folder from the Win3Disk folder that my app creates. When I clicked "launch the game" Boxer displayed a file list, and I selected WIN.COM. Windows immediately started up. Of course the printing, clipboard, etc. features won't work, but at least Windows runs.
However, the DOSBox-X mouse integration feature won't work, so you'll have to use the keyboard to navigate to the system settings, and change the mouse driver to something like the PS/2 mouse and then force-quit Boxer and start it up again. The mouse works correctly after that. I don't know if it's possible to modify Boxer to use current DOSBox-X code and modify the conf file to support the DOSBox-X mouse integration, but it might be an interesting experiment.
EDIT: You make this start Windows automatically by going to DOS Games folder in your home folder, show the contents of the WINDOWS folder, edit the DOSBox Preferences.conf file by adding these two lines at the end:
1cd windows 2c:\windows\win.com
Win 3.1 will now start up automatically. I've never used Boxer before, so I don't know how to make its window close automatically after you exit Windows. (An "exit" line after the two lines above does NOT work.) If you know this, could you let us know, and I'll document how to use the basics of this setup in Boxer.
EDIT: Fixed a few things in the Windows launcher; have updated the download.
