Win 95 vs DOS/Win 3.11: Which one's faster to install on a 386?

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  • Опубліковано 21 жов 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 53

  • @HouseOfFunQM
    @HouseOfFunQM 5 місяців тому +1

    This channel is actually FANTASTIC!
    How have I only just found this xD

    • @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR
      @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR  5 місяців тому

      Too young a channel, too niche to have a large viewership and widespread recognition.
      But glad you like it nevertheless! ^^

  • @RetroHWs
    @RetroHWs 5 місяців тому +3

    Hello beautiful video! I installed Windows 95 on my 386SX 16MHz with 4MB of RAM and it took over 2 and a half hours! :)

  • @peachgrush
    @peachgrush 5 місяців тому +15

    I used to use Windows 95 on an Am386DX40 with 4 MiB RAM. It was painful. A bit less painful than OS/2 2.1 on the same machine, though :) Anyway, upgrading to 8 MiB made a night-and-day difference. It actually made the system usable, even with the slow 386.

    • @zoomosis
      @zoomosis 5 місяців тому +5

      I think the slowest PC I ran Win95 on was a 486SX/25 with 4 MB RAM. I also ran OS/2 2.1 on a 486DLC/33 with 4 MB. Both were pretty slow but not impossible to use.
      In later years the real need for a Pentium system (aside from games) was when web sites started using JavaScript which would cause Netscape and IE to slow down terribly.
      You also needed at least a 486DX4-100 to play MP3s in real time with Winamp.

    • @ruben_balea
      @ruben_balea 5 місяців тому +1

      With 8MB Windows 95 itself ran fine on a 386SX/16, but there weren't a lot of Windows 95 programs that had enough with 16MHz

    • @rootbeer666
      @rootbeer666 5 місяців тому

      I didn't know you could run it on just 4mb.

    • @peachgrush
      @peachgrush 5 місяців тому +1

      @@rootbeer666 Microsoft went to great lengths to make sure that Windows 95 could run on a machine with 4 MiB of memory. You can read more about that on Raymond Chen's blog. They even claimed that on such a machine Windows 95 should run as well as a Windows 3.11 one with the same workloads. I have doubts about that point, though :)

    • @cyngaethlestan8859
      @cyngaethlestan8859 4 місяці тому

      @@ruben_balea I think you are mis-remembering. My first PC was a second hand 486 DX4-100 that came with 8mb & NTxx it ran fine for the week or so I had it till the seller provided me with the promised Copy if Win95 and the fast responsive machine instantly became annoying, yes it was usable and I liked 95 but slow - I quickly added another 16mb costing £40 and it flew. (I later added another 16mb for a total of 40mb of edo but that wasn't a huge benefit the first upgrade was transformational.)

  • @billwood2914
    @billwood2914 5 місяців тому +5

    Looking forward to the next video.

  • @knghtbrd
    @knghtbrd 5 місяців тому +6

    You could run Win95 on a 486DX2/66 well enough on 8MB when it first came out, though by 1996 you really needed 16MB because programs increased in bloat pretty dramatically when they were recompiled for 32 bit. For me, though, I moved to OS/2 as Win95 came out because I ran a BBS, and while Win95's final beta test could multitask it quite well and better than most things I was using up until then, the release version could not. It just worked under OS/2, so that's what I used.
    In the years to come, IBM would abandon the idea of anyone but bangs using OS/2 on their ATMs pretty much. When they announced in 1997 that Netscape 4.04 was coming to OS/2 and that it would be a paid IBM product, I switched to Linux and just haven't really looked back. Windows XP was all right after SP2, and Windows 7 was good up until after 10 came out. Everything after makes me feel dirty.
    The history of Windows almost into the modern era is relevant because Windows XP was said to run on a minimum of a 233MHz CPU and 64MB of RAM. It did not run on that any better than Win95 ran on a 386 with 4MB. At the time XP came out I had a 450MHz system with 128MB of RAM. Passable again for another year or so, but you'd want more memory soon.
    Windows 7 … runs well in its base specs assuming you have plenty of room on your HD, the major "you need this" for Windows 7 was the video card. For Windows 10, the specs say it'll run on a potato. "Run" might be a strong word if you don't upgrade the boot drive to a SSD.

  • @tsimeone
    @tsimeone 5 місяців тому +1

    Calmira.. I forgot all about that.. Brings back some memories

  • @FubarMike
    @FubarMike 5 місяців тому +2

    I tried win95 on a 486 66 with 8mb ram back in the day and I think 95 ran about the same performance as 3.1. The only reason 95 got slower was when I asked it to do more demanding things that 3.1 simply couldn't even try. That's what I loved about 95. It would let you try to do anything even if it was going to run like utter crap doing so.

  • @ResonantBytes
    @ResonantBytes 4 місяці тому +1

    Nitpick concerning your comment in the video about Win 3.11 being a strictly 16-bit OS (3:46): It's a 32-bit protected mode OS for 16-bit applications (without Win32s). Older versions support 16-bit protected and even real mode but starting with WfW 3.11 the kernel (VMM) runs strictly in 32-bit protected mode. But having watched a few of your other videos you probably knew that already and just wanted to simplify. :)

    • @ResonantBytes
      @ResonantBytes 4 місяці тому

      4:12 is the correct timestamp ;)

    • @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR
      @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR  4 місяці тому +1

      Yeah, sometimes I have to somewhat cut it short, other I'd loose myself into details.
      Though what you're saying is fully correct. Windows 3.x actually was a jack of all trades, running in real mode, standard mode (which is, essentially 286 / 16-bit protected mode), or 386 enhanced mode (as mentioned, 32-bit protected mode).
      Windows for Workgroups 3.11 introduced 32-bit mode drivers for file, disk and network access for improved performance.
      That's also the reason why WfW 3.11 forcefully did away with standard and real mode, at least officially, as it mandated a 386 as a minimum to run.
      Although you could still run "sort of" standard mode in WfW 3.11 by calling DOSX.EXE. Not really functional, and things like DOS VDM would terribly break, but still possible nevertheless.

    • @ResonantBytes
      @ResonantBytes 4 місяці тому +1

      @@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR I can totally relate to that. I'm glad you found a balance and manage to finish your really interesting videos!
      It's amazing what they put into Windows 3.x and under what conditions they made it still run. An amazing play field from a developer's (at least those who like weird hardware modes and control flow shenanigans) perspective, but fortunately for everyone who just wanted a stable system Dave Cutler knew very well what he was doing with NT.
      I do hope MS releases the source code for Windows 3.x at some point!
      Oh interesting, I didn't know that! I'll definitely give that a try on a disposable install.
      Cheers! - btw just subscribed! :)

  • @NiceCakeMix
    @NiceCakeMix 5 місяців тому +3

    I had Windows 95 on my 486SX33 with 4mb of ram but then upgraded to a 486DX4 100 with 16 megs of ram and it flew. I upgraded that machine to Windows 98 then 98SE but by then it was struggling and would regularly run out of resources when using AIM and winamp along with Netscape 4 communicator. I could have kept my Windows 3.1 desktop as it would have fun much better on this machine and most of the software I used at the time still ran on Win3.1 but I wanted the new shell and my Titanic game played better on Win95 than on 3.1 so I upgraded. I still have Win95 on floppies but haven't used them for many years now.

    • @brianellison8744
      @brianellison8744 5 місяців тому +2

      I started my Win95 experience in late 1997 with an AMD 5x86-133-PR75 (an enhanced 486 running at 133mHz that rated at the equivalent of a Pentium 75). Initially I had 8mb of RAM, then upgraded to a total of 24. I noticed performance issues fairly soon in some places, but that system worked for me for several years & I learned a fair bit about compromising with bargain parts in system building (mostly to avoid it if possible 😅).

  • @ruben_balea
    @ruben_balea 5 місяців тому +1

    I installed the same Windows 95 upgrade on an emulated (86Box) machine with a 386SX-40 CPU *which is slower* than a 386DX-40 CPU due to its *16 bit data BUS*
    The remaining hardware was a 504MB hard drive, an 1.44MB floppy using real life speeds, a Sound Blaster 16 PnP, a 4x CD-ROM, an OAK OTI-77 SVGA, an AMD PCNET ISA+ PnP network card, a MS serial mouse and 4MB of RAM.
    00:00:00 Start setup.exe from floppy 1 (hard disk was already formated)
    00:00:?? Scandisk...
    00:01:?? Copying files...
    00:03:?? Welcome to Windows 95 Setup!
    00:03:?? Setup is now preparing the Windows 95 Setup Wizard...
    00:05:?? Insert disk 2
    00:09:?? Accept license agreement
    00:09:?? Update check (Insert Windows 3.x setup disk 1)
    00:10:?? Starts setup wizard
    00:10:?? Choose Directory
    00:10:?? Preparing Directory
    00:10:?? Checking for installed components...
    00:10:?? Checking for available disk space...
    00:11:?? Setup options
    00:11:?? User information
    00:11:?? Product identification
    00:12:?? Analyzing Your Computer (Hardware detection)
    00:14:?? Windows Components
    00:15:?? Computer name, Workgroup name, etc.
    00:15:?? Startup Disk (skipped)
    00:15:?? Start Copying Files
    00:15:?? Preparing to copy files...
    00:16:?? Copying files...
    00:18:?? Insert disk 3 (file copy progress 19%)
    00:25:?? Insert disk 4 (file copy progress 38%)
    00:31:?? Insert disk 5 (file copy progress 44%)
    00:37:?? Insert disk 6 (file copy progress 48%)
    00:42:?? Insert disk 7 (file copy progress 57%)
    00:50:?? Insert disk 8 (file copy progress 59%)
    00:56:?? Insert disk 9 (file copy progress 73%)
    00:02:?? Insert disk 10 (file copy progress 83%)
    01:12:?? Insert disk 11 (file copy progress 85%)
    01:19:?? Insert disk 12 (file copy progress 96%)
    01:22:?? Insert disk 13 (file copy progress 99%)
    01:27:?? Preparing to restart your computer...
    01:27:?? Getting ready to run Windows 95 for the first time...
    01:28:?? Hourglass mouse cursor on empty screen
    01:29:?? Setting up Hardware dialog
    01:31:?? Insert disk 8 (drivers for something?)
    01:35:?? Insert disk 9 (drivers for something?)
    01:38:?? Insert disk 8 (drivers for something?)
    01:42:?? Workgroup and computer names
    01:44:?? Insert disk 1 (boot files?)
    01:46:?? Insert disk 2 (netapi.dll...)
    01:47:?? Insert disk 7 (mapi32.dll,vlb32.dll...)
    01:49:?? Insert disk 12 (winpopup.cnt,choosusr.dll...)
    01:51:?? Extracting *WINSUCK* ahem winsock.dll from disk 12 ;-)
    01:52:?? Insert disk 13 (filesec.vxd, mssp.vxd, ndix.vxd...)
    01:59:?? Hourglass mouse cursor on empty screen
    01:59:?? Setting up control panel, shortcuts, help, time zone, etc.
    02:01:?? Choose Time zone
    02:01:?? Printer setup (skipped)
    02:01:?? Finished, restart computer!
    02:01:?? Login screen
    02:02:?? Setting up Hardware
    02:02:?? Played Windows startup sound, loaded the Desktop and the "Welcome to Windows 95" program.
    ?? = I stopped measuring the seconds because it was a PITA... I tried to swap the floppies as fast as possible.
    The only question mark in device manager was something on port 0100-0100 which seems to be a SB16 PnP control port or the like and does not use any drivers, everything else was properly detected, installed and working fine. Well, the screen was in 16 colors and the network protocol was IPX/SPX but I think that was the default for any Windows 95 upgrade installed without having Windows 3.x installed before to "steal its settings"

  • @laharl2k
    @laharl2k 5 місяців тому +5

    windows9x from media is a pain, i always copy the installation media to the hdd and install from there, kinda like what modern windows does.

  • @WhatALoadOfTosca
    @WhatALoadOfTosca 5 місяців тому

    That sigh was brilliant! :)

  • @eugiblisscast
    @eugiblisscast 5 місяців тому +1

    Honestly, I'd rather wait more for the install rather than having to fix more things by myself later!

  • @MegaManNeo
    @MegaManNeo 5 місяців тому +2

    I was a little kid in the mid 90's when my father got me a 486DX2. I asked him specifically it to have 3.11 installed because I liked the looks of it at the time.
    One day I asked him if we could install 95 though and while his answer was something among the lines of "I tried that already, it does not work." he still sat down with me, trying to get 95 to run.
    Maybe it was that this machine's turbo button actually worked in reverse and we didn't know that, what's fact is that while Win95 installed just fine, it'd always hang up at the splash screen.
    Those were memories of 6 years old me seeing Windows 95 running on his first PC 😅

    • @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR
      @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR  5 місяців тому +2

      As for the Turbo button: it was not uncommon, to have it behave it inverse way.
      There were some vendors, where PCs booted with a lower than nominal frequency by default, so pressing Turbo would effectively double-up or sometimes triple-up the COU frequency.
      For others, the system bootet in specced frequency by default, where Turbo would to the inverse, i.e. halving the frequency.
      The latter was very unintuitive I must say …

  • @MonochromeWench
    @MonochromeWench 5 місяців тому +1

    Dogfooding on NT not only were they not allowed to use high end hardware, they were not even allowed x86 based systems. The various RISC platforms NT ran on added interesting special programming requirements that were not needed for x86 so, developing on x86 was very likely to result in things not working on RISC but the other way was fine. Restrictive dogfooding seems like it probably ended with XP as Culter wasn't really involved much with XP. It certainly didn't happen with Vista where it seems like they were intentionally using high end hardware from only certain manufacturers(poor quality NVidia drivers for vista should have been caught early if they were dogfooding properly but it seems like they were targeting ATI's Dx9 gpus).

  • @HouseOfFunQM
    @HouseOfFunQM 5 місяців тому

    For an actual technical comment - I understood that Windows 95 was the first release where it basically copied and launched a single image from the hard disk, and e.g. drivers were all auto-detected and loaded on each boot?
    Whereas Windows 3 and etc were still “configure drivers by-hand in autoexec”.
    Would make it faster to get running at first-boot, I guess.

  • @Kali_Krause
    @Kali_Krause 5 місяців тому +1

    If you have a certain AMD cpu running at 350MHz or a certain Intel Pentium cpu running at 2.1GHz, Windows 95 will throw a Windows Protection Error or the following error: "While initializing , Windows Protection Error. You need to restart the computer." What this means is that you have a memory management problem coming from the NDIS file. To fix this, you will need a program called Fix95CPU

  • @rashidisw
    @rashidisw 5 місяців тому +6

    I remember strongly advise against installing Windows 95 on anything less powerful than Pentium 133 Mhz, or having less than 16 MB of RAM.

    • @zoomosis
      @zoomosis 5 місяців тому +11

      Win95 worked OK with 8 MB RAM. It's crazy that 1000x that (8 GB) is now the bare minimum for any new PC.

    • @fnjesusfreak
      @fnjesusfreak 5 місяців тому +5

      486DX2/50's fine if you got the RAM.

    • @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR
      @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR  5 місяців тому +2

      @@zoomosis Right! I'm thinking a similar thing each time I update my nVidia graphics drivers, weighting in for almost 600 MiB.
      Then I remember the time where this was the size of a decent hard drive, and DOS and Windows just used up some 30 MiB.

    • @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR
      @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR  5 місяців тому +5

      @@fnjesusfreak indeed, Windows 95 works just fine on 50 or 66 MHZ DX2 with 8 or better 16 MiB of RAM.

    • @mudi2000a
      @mudi2000a 5 місяців тому +3

      I had a Pentium 90 MHz for a long time and it could even run NT4.0 well but I upgraded it to 48 MB. ( I tried 64 but that didn’t run stable ).

  • @thelovertunisia
    @thelovertunisia 4 місяці тому +1

    It took me like 10 hours to install win 95 on my 386 and it was so slow.

  • @e8root
    @e8root 5 місяців тому

    I wonder how long would it take to install modern Gentoo if Linux/GCC still supported pure i386 mode. Say on board that actually supported enough RAM.

    • @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR
      @THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR  5 місяців тому

      That‘s a good question.
      I was thinking about „Linux from Scratch“ lately …

  • @dismuter_yt
    @dismuter_yt 5 місяців тому

    5:10 Little mistake there, it should be > 2 GiB instead of < 2 GiB :)

  • @kusanag0
    @kusanag0 5 місяців тому +1

    I tried Windows 95 with one of my IBM PS/2, the mighty model 95 with a Pentium 60 and 128Mb of ram. It’s funny, Win95 only sees 64Mb…

  • @mikoyangurevic8634
    @mikoyangurevic8634 5 місяців тому

    Try real hardware or PCem. 86Box for me isn't very accurate. My i386 Dx25 MHz with 8 MB Ram had Windows 95 RTM installed after it's release. But I has very slow compared with Windows 3.11 For Workgroups.

  • @knoxduder
    @knoxduder 5 місяців тому

    Control alt del Mr. Know it all.

  • @knoxduder
    @knoxduder 5 місяців тому

    I like everything in these videos except for the goofy animated character. I could do without all that. He’s the jar-jar banks of nerd-tube.