3 ms·

I've been seeing a lot of stuff about Windows 3.11 lately, did they release it free recently? Like they did early versions of MSDOS? https://github.com/micros

I've been seeing a lot of stuff about Windows 3.11 lately, did they release it free recently? Like they did early versions of MSDOS? https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS

Macha 7y ago
The author mentioned in a reply that they got their copy with a VS subscription.
- sebazzz 7y ago
  Yes, and until about a year back Windows 95 and 98 were available also but they have been taken offline. If I recall it correctly it is due to some copyright issue.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Didn't Windows 95 and Windows 98 include Java by default? Probably yet another side-effect of the Oracle-Google thing.
    - pram 7y ago
      Microsoft Java (lol) and they already were sued about it ;P
      - stkdump 7y ago
        Oh, I remember J++! The glorious embrace and extend days...
        WorldMaker 7y ago
        J++ is a big part of why C# exists today.
        Nitramevfank 7y ago
        Isn't that a back backwards? Isn't it more like: Microsoft wanted a more modern language and they weren't allowed to use Java so they created c#?
        WorldMaker 7y ago
        Microsoft thought Java was a good idea in that they liked the JVM a lot, but the language itself they saw as flawed and missing key features that would make it a truly modern language, in particular they heavily disagreed with Sun's approach to FFI (foreign function interface) [Java's slow, laborious efforts eventually building JNI, the Java Native Interface], because of their many years of experience for better and worse with COM (component object model). J++ was never meant to be "Java", and never technically was even in branding, it was essentially a second language (that Microsoft saw at the time as C++ is to C, it was to Java, and that's very clearly represented in that brand name) that also targeted the Microsoft version of the JVM, and used a couple Microsoft-specific escape hatches for FFI and COM. (So it absolutely was an "embrace and extend", but it wasn't of the Java language itself so much as it was the JVM that Microsoft wanted to embrace and extend that seemed to fright Sun so badly. That's probably why so much of the legal drama and the consequent blows to the rest of the Java ecosystem at the time was Sun withdrawing JVM licenses from just about everyone as a part of that battle. Originally Sun seemed rather happy licensing the JVM to whoever wanted to implement it, which is why Microsoft had a JVM in the first place, thinking controlling the Java language was enough. Sun worked to put that genie back in the bottle and move everyone back to mostly a single JVM again. There's no lack of irony in the exact same battle playing out between Oracle and Google decades later in the battle of Dalvik [Google's JVM] and Android.) It wasn't that Sun didn't want Microsoft using Java, they didn't want Microsoft using the JVM any longer, and without a license to build their own JVM, J++ wouldn't run on any other JVM and wasn't a useful language. When Microsoft lost their JVM they decided to start from scratch, moved the J++ team (including and particularly Anders Hejlsberg, C# lead) to a new VM that they could control from top to bottom (including its FFI mechanics), and much of what had directly been the J++ team used what they learned from the whole mess to create C#.
- fuball63 7y ago
  If anyone else is curious what else you can get, Microsoft publishes this Excel list: https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/4/15454442-CF17-47B9-A65D-DF84EF88511B/Visual_Studio_by_Subscription_Level.xlsx https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/4/15454442-CF17-...
neurostimulant 7y ago
People uploads a lot of old Microsoft OSes and software on Internet Archive [1], but curiously, no one uploaded Windows 3.11 installer yet (plenty of Windows 3.1 though). I wonder why. Legal reason? [1] https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Microsoft%22 https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Microsoft%...

Macha 7y ago

The author mentioned in a reply that they got their copy with a VS subscription.

sebazzz 7y ago
Yes, and until about a year back Windows 95 and 98 were available also but they have been taken offline. If I recall it correctly it is due to some copyright issue.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Didn't Windows 95 and Windows 98 include Java by default? Probably yet another side-effect of the Oracle-Google thing.
  - pram 7y ago
    Microsoft Java (lol) and they already were sued about it ;P
    - stkdump 7y ago
      Oh, I remember J++! The glorious embrace and extend days...
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        J++ is a big part of why C# exists today.
        Nitramevfank 7y ago
        Isn't that a back backwards? Isn't it more like: Microsoft wanted a more modern language and they weren't allowed to use Java so they created c#?
        WorldMaker 7y ago
        Microsoft thought Java was a good idea in that they liked the JVM a lot, but the language itself they saw as flawed and missing key features that would make it a truly modern language, in particular they heavily disagreed with Sun's approach to FFI (foreign function interface) [Java's slow, laborious efforts eventually building JNI, the Java Native Interface], because of their many years of experience for better and worse with COM (component object model). J++ was never meant to be "Java", and never technically was even in branding, it was essentially a second language (that Microsoft saw at the time as C++ is to C, it was to Java, and that's very clearly represented in that brand name) that also targeted the Microsoft version of the JVM, and used a couple Microsoft-specific escape hatches for FFI and COM. (So it absolutely was an "embrace and extend", but it wasn't of the Java language itself so much as it was the JVM that Microsoft wanted to embrace and extend that seemed to fright Sun so badly. That's probably why so much of the legal drama and the consequent blows to the rest of the Java ecosystem at the time was Sun withdrawing JVM licenses from just about everyone as a part of that battle. Originally Sun seemed rather happy licensing the JVM to whoever wanted to implement it, which is why Microsoft had a JVM in the first place, thinking controlling the Java language was enough. Sun worked to put that genie back in the bottle and move everyone back to mostly a single JVM again. There's no lack of irony in the exact same battle playing out between Oracle and Google decades later in the battle of Dalvik [Google's JVM] and Android.) It wasn't that Sun didn't want Microsoft using Java, they didn't want Microsoft using the JVM any longer, and without a license to build their own JVM, J++ wouldn't run on any other JVM and wasn't a useful language. When Microsoft lost their JVM they decided to start from scratch, moved the J++ team (including and particularly Anders Hejlsberg, C# lead) to a new VM that they could control from top to bottom (including its FFI mechanics), and much of what had directly been the J++ team used what they learned from the whole mess to create C#.
fuball63 7y ago
If anyone else is curious what else you can get, Microsoft publishes this Excel list: https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/4/15454442-CF17-47B9-A65D-DF84EF88511B/Visual_Studio_by_Subscription_Level.xlsx https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/4/15454442-CF17-...

neurostimulant 7y ago

People uploads a lot of old Microsoft OSes and software on Internet Archive [1], but curiously, no one uploaded Windows 3.11 installer yet (plenty of Windows 3.1 though). I wonder why. Legal reason? [1] https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Microsoft%22 https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Microsoft%...