Maybe the swap file.

Did you have a look in the drive?

Do you have any idea how much memory is installed on your computer?

I'm taking a good guess that 150 MB of disk space might have used for a swap file if I'm mistaken.

How do I check the swap file?

I have 39mb of ram in the system.

I should clarify - after installing 3.1, I noticed the space available drops by about 150mb, but when I check in dos dir the size of the windows file is only about 9mb. So I'm not sure where that 150mb is going, but windows itself isn't taking up all that space, it seems?

Take a look at Control Panel, 386 enhanced to check the swap file settings.

nightsky wrote on 2024-11-02, 00:44:

I have 39mb of ram in the system.
...
So I'm not sure where that 150mb is going, but windows itself isn't taking up all that space, it seems?

In Windows 3.x that was easy:
The more RAM the bigger the swapfile.
Basically it is a good idea to change default swapfile size.

Yes, AFAIR the default swapfile size is 3 x RAM size, which doesn't make sense if there's plenty of RAM...

nightsky wrote on 2024-11-02, 00:44:

How do I check the swap file?

I have 39mb of ram in the system.

I should clarify - after installing 3.1, I noticed the space available drops by about 150mb, but when I check in dos dir the size of the windows file is only about 9mb. So I'm not sure where that 150mb is going, but windows itself isn't taking up all that space, it seems?

Use "dir c:\ /a" to see the hidden 386SPART.PAR file at your root directory.

To check the swap file do:

Load Windows, open Main group, open Control Panel, open Enhanced, select Virtual memory and here you can see current settings and change it.

I wonder how much virtual memory did Windows allocate. I see the recommended value is 20MB with 8 and with 16MB of ram.

Grzyb wrote on 2024-11-02, 01:42:

Yes, AFAIR the default swapfile size is 3 x RAM size, which doesn't make sense if there's plenty of RAM...

I think Windows 3.x does it simply by principle.
It doesn’t know the usecase, after all and plenty of RAM is relative.

Memory hungry applications I can think of are
- picture manipulation (Photoshop)
- picture digitizing (flatbed scanner, 600 dpi and up)
- digital audio recording (Creative Wave studio)
- raytracing (Highlight Professional, POV Ray)
- video capture (Hauppauge WinTV cards and their software)
- MPEG playback (Xing Media Player)

These are niche applications, but they did exist in the Windows 3.1 heyday.
Multimedia on PC used to be a big thing beginning with Windows 3.x.

There alsohad been science applications in style of MathLab etc.
There's a viewer for chemical molecules, for example.
There's a list over here: http://forum31.gaby.de/viewtopic.php?t=18

Thanks everyone for the helpful guidance! I checked, and the swap file was 150mb. What's a good number to put in there?

Also, I'm looking to dual boot with windows 95 rtm. Any guidance on things to look out for?

nightsky wrote on 2024-11-02, 00:44:

I have 39mb of ram in the system.

nightsky wrote on 2024-11-02, 17:59:

I checked, and the swap file was 150mb. What's a good number to put in there?

With this much RAM, you don't really need any swap file.
However, certain brain-dead software may refuse to run without swap no matter how much RAM there is - see eg. Win32s.
So, set it to something small, but non-zero - eg. 1 MB.

nightsky wrote on 2024-11-02, 17:59:

Thanks everyone for the helpful guidance! I checked, and the swap file was 150mb. What's a good number to put in there?

Also, I'm looking to dual boot with windows 95 rtm. Any guidance on things to look out for?

A 32mb fixed swapfile give or take is more than plenty for a 3.1 swapfile. I used to use a large fixed size swap file to run “software that wasn’t supposed to work” on 4mb/6mb ram. In my case I was running heraldry/name history software and scanner /photo software that would only barely run on 8mb of ram but being cheap with a big hd I just ran a large fixed swapfile and let it grind.

nightsky wrote on 2024-11-02, 00:14:

I read that 3.1 should only take up 15mb.

nightsky wrote on 2024-11-02, 17:59:

Thanks everyone for the helpful guidance! I checked, and the swap file was 150mb. What's a good number to put in there?

Also, I'm looking to dual boot with windows 95 rtm. Any guidance on things to look out for?

Yes, 15 MB is the installation size without swap file.

No problem.
16 MB swap file size should be enough.

Dual boot with Win 95? If you decide for a FAT32 compatible version of Win95 (Win95B) you could use 2 partitions, one with FAT16 and one with FAT32. You would have less trouble with DOS tools that cannot handle long file name directory entries made from Win95. The trick is to have an empty disk, use fdisk started for larger disk support (enable FAT32), and to create a partition slightly above 256 MB for Win95. It only can be seen from Win95. For real DOS, use DOS' fdisk to partition the rest. It will be FAT16 then and visible to both DOS and Win95.

nightsky wrote on 2024-11-02, 17:59:

Thanks everyone for the helpful guidance! I checked, and the swap file was 150mb. What's a good number to put in there?

Also, I'm looking to dual boot with windows 95 rtm. Any guidance on things to look out for?

Windows 3.1x and Windows 95 on same partition?

Does this go well, with two swap files, I mean?
Or does Windows 95 cpmplain about a corrupt swap file?

Back in the day, I had Windows 98 and 3.10 on same partition, but I think I ran the later in Standard-Mode most of time (no swap file needed).
To have an vintage environment for older games and Visual Basic 1.0.

Edit: About 3.1 swap file, it really depends on usecase.
A swap file is barely needed for playing Chips Challenge and Skifree, if its that what the world of Windows 3 is to you. An XT class PC can handle this.

It may look different when playing, say, Myst, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time or Creatures or Fury³ though.

That's when 386 Enhanced Mode, DCI, WinG and Win32s+virtual memory come into play.
Hard disk cache, too, maybe. SmartDrive for CD-ROM cache, on top of it.

Now, Windows 3.1x really wants a sophisticated PC.
A fast 486 with 16MB of RAM, 16-Bit sound cards, VLB HDD and graphics card, a double-speed or quad-speed CD-ROM drive (or SmartDrive, at least).

At this point, though, the gap to Windows 95 is not big anymore.
If sophisticated Windows games are a requirement, Windows 95 might be a better choice.
It has better graphics drivers (mini drivers, with GDI being part of Windows).
Merely the 64KB resources are less being available to application (USER, GDI, KERNEL).

Edit: Also interesting to read: https://www.xtof.info/inside-windows3.html
Edit: https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/084/Q84388/
Edited.

I'd guess Win3X can be run on any DOS system. Even Win9X. It's just another SHELL program and not trying to be an OS.

Just install it in another directory like Win311.

kixs wrote on 2024-11-03, 09:12:

I'd guess Win3X can be run on any DOS system. Even Win9X. It's just another SHELL program and not trying to be an OS.

Just install it in another directory like Win311.

Actually, Windows 3.0 called it self an "graphical environment" at one point in time.
I think that's a nice way of saying it, without lying to users.

Windows 3.0 is no complete OS, but more like a GUI with its own drivers, memory managment and executable format (NE, New Executable).

Windows for Workgroups is even more - it's not an OS, but it meets the requirements for a "network OS" - like Novell Netware (needs DOS to boot).

And it can trap (filter) int21h and int13h calls for DOS and BIOS once 32-Bit Disk Access (FastDisk driver) is loaded (32-Bit File Access recommended, too).
Once that happens, it will stay in Protected-Mode all day and nolonger needs to call DOS/BIOS code to access files on HDD.

What's also interesting, the 386 Enhanced Mode kernal can run entirely without DOS. Wabi supports this approach on Unix/Linux.
Under this environment, DOS and Windows 3.1x are entirely separate.
Windows 3.1x kernal on Wabi can not run any DOS programs, at all.
To run them, a DOS emulator has to be installed separately (DOSemu).

Actually just tested this on my Win95 machine. I've copied a Win 3.10 and Win 3.11. Win 3.10 runs fine. While Win 3.11 complains about the wrong version of DOS.

It seems the standard mode works out of the box, while enhanced doesn't. Googling finds some solutions so the Enhanced also runs fine - some patching needs to be made.

Thread is also on Vogons:
Making Windows 3.11 work in DOS7.10 (patches inside)