(Model M keyboard typing)

- [LGR] Greetings, and welcome

to another LGR Woodgrain 486 upgrade video,

and the last time I did one of these,

we got Windows 3.0 installed on here,

which I just wanted to do because I was not as familiar

with this version of Windows.

I started at 3.1 when I was a kid,

but this one, it just always intrigued me

because it's a little more primitive,

but definitely laid a lot of groundwork

for 3.1 and later versions of Windows,

and I don't know, it's been a curious experience

messing with it for the past however many months.

However, there were some things

that were notably disappointing about it.

The fact that it didn't have any sound support,

unless you were to get some of the media extensions

and install those, which I haven't done,

so you don't get things like Media Player,

Sound Recorder or anything,

and Solitaire and Reversi were the only two games

that it came with.

We did install Best of Entertainment Pack,

so we had those in there, but again,

no sound, video support's really limited

in terms of things like SVGA and all that,

and I also wanted to try the original SimCity

for Windows 3, and the one that I had

in the last video didn't work,

and it turns out that because I actually had a later version

of SimCity Classic, it doesn't support Windows 3 anymore.

Well, this one does, so thank you very much

to all of you in the comments and those who sent emails

and such, letting me know that there were older versions

of SimCity for Windows that work with Windows 3.

This is pretty cool, (laughing) I did not know

that this version existed, and now I have it in the box,

so yay, another one added to the collection.

So while there are more Windows 3 games than I thought,

it's still not exactly like a gaming operating system.

In fact, it wasn't even on the market for too long

before Windows 3.1 came out, and really stole the show.

And yeah, that's what we're gonna be doing today,

is looking at Windows 3.1.

Yes, indeed, the classic, makes your PC easier to use.

Yeah, let's just uh, do this uh, you know what I mean-uh?

(PLONK) We're going to install it, get it unboxed,

and just talk about the Windows 3.1 experience,

'cause this is just, it's a comfy space for me.

This was my first graphical operating system.

I had MS-DOS 5 and then 3.1 installed on top of that,

and ahh it's just... it brings back interesting memories.

It was also a massive improvement over 3.0,

which was already a pretty big improvement

over versions two and one of Windows and all that,

but this is the one that put Microsoft Windows on the map

in terms of something being very popular,

and this was something that came out in 1992,

less than two years after 3.0 was introduced.

So three didn't even have a whole lot of time on the market

before this came out and completely supplanted it

on April 6th, 1992, when it was released to manufacturing,

and it was sold in two different versions, primarily,

a $49 upgrade,

and a $99 full product edition, which is this one right here.

So you don't need a previous version of Windows

to install it from this release.

But yeah, it added so many things,

not just extra game and software support,

but things like TrueType fonts,

which was a first for Windows,

at least without third party software,

so it made it a viable desktop publishing solution.

Of course, one of the biggest additions were multimedia

and audio support, so no longer have to worry

about adding media extensions.

You could just get sound and MIDI music

right out of the box, if you had the hardware for it.

It also came with screensavers out of the box.

Before this, you were limited to getting packages

like After Dark if you wanted screensavers,

and of course, it was backwards compatible

with Windows version three, to a degree, anyway.

3.0 software worked, but not the Windows 2 and one software

that may have worked under three,

so it depends on what you were trying to use,

and it also dropped real mode support,

so that meant that Windows 3.1 required a 286 or better CPU

with protected mode, in order to function.

And yeah, 3.1 ended up being extremely popular.

It was really the first Windows environment

to see wide software support, and major commercial success,

selling three million units

in its first few months on the market.

Really signaling a huge shift in the mainstream PC market

away from DOS and towards graphical operating environments,

especially towards Windows.

There were several alternatives, notably OS/2 2.0,

but Windows 3.1 really became kind of the standard

and then 95 took it up from there, but yeah.

Let's just go ahead and take a look at this right here,

and see what's inside.

I don't know if this is exactly gonna have everything,

'cause I found this box at Goodwill years ago

and I don't know, it seemed pretty complete.

Well, kind of, there's no manual, is there? Ha!

I guess it wasn't as complete as I thought.

So, at least we have a guide of some kind.

We have the disks.

I hope this is all of them!

If not, that's okay, I have many, many more copies

of Windows 3.1, this is just the only one

that I have the box for, so yeah.

It comes with seven 5 ¼ inch,

high-density disks right here,

and we also get the guide to support.

We also got this hardware compatibility list.

They had one of these for Windows 3.0 as well.

Yeah, this is pretty much just a list of all the computers

and things that they had tested it with.

Okay, so there's no manual in here, hm.

I was kind of hoping there would be,

but that's, well, that's how it goes.

And lastly, (laughs) well, you know,

we're upgrading Windows,

we may as well upgrade the mouse as well.

This is the Microsoft "ergonomic" Mouse,

the serial version that they released

for use with Windows 3.1 back in the day.

And yeah, check it out, it's getting that design down

that was pretty popular with mouse designs from Microsoft

in the mid to late '90s.

Breakthrough ergonomic research and innovative features

make the new Microsoft Mouse the ultimate pointing device

for the Windows operating system, yes indeed.

And yeah, you can see right there,

it'll work with all sorts of things right there,

but they kind of built it to work with Windows 3.1 and 3.11.

(light jazz music) (box unboxing)

(chuckles) Interesting packaging here.

Oh, I see how they did that.

Clever, using the artwork on the back of the manual here

as the background for that, that's cool.

Oh, it's so pink!

We have the Microsoft Mouse setup disk.

I've come across so many of these disks just on their own,

but I've never actually had the original mouse

like in the package to go with it.

You know, obviously pretty much any mouse

is gonna be Microsoft compatible from this time period,

but something about having this original one,

no scroll wheel and serial.

The only other one like this I had was PS/2 compatible,

so yeah, see what we got here.

Bus interface board and bus mouse, yes, an InPort mouse.

I've got one of these interfaces,

but don't actually have the mouse to go with it.

Anyway, I mean, it's pretty simple stuff.

You have that bloated mouse driver for MS-DOS.

Using the mouse and moving the mouse, how do we do this?

How do we use a mouse, guys?

The mouse controls a pointer on your screen.

That pointer can have a number of shapes.

The rubber-coated ball in your mouse rolls within its socket

when you move the mouse across a smooth surface.

It translates the movement of the ball into signals

that tell the computer how to move the pointer.

Fantastic.

Clicking, double-clicking, dragging.

(laughs) I love how in-depth this is.

I mean, it's just a mouse, and yet,

there are almost 50 pages.

Ah, the times when a mouse was still pretty fresh

in people's minds.

Like, you always hear that story

about them including Solitaire with Windows

to try to help people use a mouse.

It's not exactly true, but, you know.

(sniff!) Whew! (laughs)

It's a really good smell, I don't know why, but it is.

So, yeah, this is when they didn't have

that matte finish surface on the mouse.

It's very glossy.

I didn't know that it was actually glossy

from the factory like this.

The one of these that I had, like I said,

it was a PS/2 port on the end instead of serial,

it was all glossy like this, but in kind of uneven ways,

so I assumed that it had been worn down over years of use.

But no, it's actually glossy.

Oh man, that is one clean ball bay!

That's good stuff, I'm excited to use this.

(more jazz music) (more unwrapping)

Well, we got a serial adapter here

to go from nine-pin to 25-pin, not gonna be using that,

'cause I've got the 9-pin on the back of the Woodgrain 486.

All right, it is actually time to get things going now,

so let us install Windows.

All right, I've got the Woodgrain 486 turned on,

and plugged into this Packard Bell CRT.

It's smaller than the other one that I normally use here,

but, (laughs) this is just, this is the monitor

that I used with Windows 3.1 back in the day,

so it's extremely nostalgic, it just feels right to me.

Microsoft Mouse plugged in, we got disks ready to go,

so let's start here with Windows 3.1, disk one.

(smooth jazz music) (clicky keyboard typing)

Ah, that familiar Windows setup.

They used this for so friggin' long.

All right, yeah, so it has detected version 3.0

of Windows on there, so we'll upgrade that.

To keep your previous version and add 3.1 to your system,

press Escape. (hums warily)

No, we're just gonna override it and get that upgrade going.

MS-DOS, VGA, mouse and keyboard and all that.

I do want 256-color VGA at some point.

I may have to get some drivers and install them myself,

though, we'll just go with normal VGA for now.

And at this point, it's just, (laughs)

hoping that all these disks are functional

and that I actually have all of them,

and yeah, it's just copying things over, so.

Well, that was quick.

It only needed the first three disks,

and even then, it didn't look like it used much

from that third one, so, cool.

(light jazz music) (typity-type-type)

Yeah, all these optional things, install everything!

So at this point, it starts asking

for the other disks, so, all right.

On to disk six.

So far, so good.

Disk seven does not seem to be needed at the moment anyway.

To set up Windows correctly,

it needs to modify all the things.

Go ahead and do that.

Oh, we got Program Manager.

Reboot? Mm-hmm.

(disk drives buzzing like a disk drive)

Let's see what we got!