| With the help of Kari Eveli, who tested it and suggested a dozen ways to make it far better than it was at first, I’ve put together an environment for running Windows 3.1x applications using the DOSBox emulator, complete with printing, PDF creation, two-way clipboard exchange (it requires pressing some keys), the ability to copy files from Windows 3.1x to the host desktop, and the ability to open files located in the Windows environment in the default application for the host. If you drop a file on to the Win31DOSBox application (it’s a compiled AutoIt script), the file will open in its default Windows 3.1x application, and its surrounding folder will be “mapped” to drive Y: in DOSBox. You can also drop a folder on to that application, and it will be accessible in Win 3.1x as drive Y: By default, your other host drives (except for drives with modern Windows on them) are also “mapped” in DOSBox, but you can easily modify this behavior by editing an INI file (as described on the linked page). You can easily modify this so that it acts like an application - for example, you could create a shortcut that causes Win 3.1x to open Quark XPress or Write when it starts, and then automatically close down when Quark or Write closes. Limitations: it can’t run applications like Microsoft Word 6.0 that require the actual MS-DOS SHARE.EXE to be running; it can, however, run applications like Visual C 1.52 that will accept the (supplied) http://FAKESHAR.COM instead of the actual SHARE.EXE. It has no internet access, so you can’t use your old Windows 3.1x browsers - which is probably a good thing, all in all. You will need the installation files for Windows 3.1x. If you don’t have them at hand, you can buy them cheaply on eBay or elsewhere; or you may still have the “archival copy” of those files that Microsoft’s license specifically allowed you to make for your own use; or if you don’t have that archival copy immediately at hand, you may be able to find it with a bit of searching. In any case, if you ever had a license to run Windows 3.1x, that license is presumably still valid, and does not require you to use the actual physical diskettes or CD-ROM that you got when you obtained the license. Full details and a download link here: Again, this system was vastly improved by Kari’s testing and advice, together with help from various developers in the DOSBox forum. |