8 ms·
I absolutely understand this. However, was there any particular reason why 9x used 3.1 as it's preinstallation environment, as opposed to booting 9x directly? A
by kmeisthax 2y ago
I absolutely understand this. However, was there any particular reason why 9x used 3.1 as it's preinstallation environment, as opposed to booting 9x directly? AFAIK, this imposed a lot of very specific restrictions on filename lengths because the preinstall environment didn't understand FAT32 LFN extensions.
In comparison, the preinstall environment for the NT line was always just NT. Same for Linux and Mac OS[0].
[0] OS 9's install media was actually a live CD, funnily enough, mainly because that OS was about as technically sophisticated as Windows 3.x.
- userbinator 2y agoI think they already had the 3.x kernel as a modular component, and it was of course smaller than 95 - remember that they had a floppy version of the Windows 95 installation media (a dozen of them). It's well known that 3.x is small enough to boot and run from a floppy, but perhaps 95 was just a bit too big for that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39489748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39489748
- zinekeller 2y agoAlso the 3.1 part is already designed to facilitate upgrades from Windows 3.1, which means that there is no need for debugging two paths (3.1 installer for the 3.1 upgrade path and the theoretical straight-to-95 brand-new installer).
- yuhong 2y agoAFAIK this was based on Windows 3.1 standard mode which was small enough to package in a mini.cab.
- jkrejcha 2y agoRaymond Chen has an article on this as well[1], the TL;DR is that you have 3 different upgrade paths (i.e. the text mode portions for a clean install, the Win16 portion for a 3.1 -> 95 upgrade, or the Win32 portion for a 95 -> 95 upgrade) [1]: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20241112-00/?p=110507 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20241112-00/?p=11...