From Susan Kare's website: http://www.kare.com/MakePortfolioPage.cgi?page=6

Actually I think this is too early to be a beta, or even an alpha, just a GUI prototype.

Do not forget the GUI itself was partially shared between OS/2 1.1-1.3 and Windows projects.

Interesting it is still "Win386" ... And the window widgets look nothing like the SAA 'look' of OS/2 1.2 ..

The image looks very interesting to me.. How did you get such a nice image?

It's just a GUI prototype she made for MS... MS changed it a bit and you've got Windows 3.0.

This is a mockup for a set of icons that could be used in any gui app. Microsoft commissioned it, and used in windows 3.1.

The icons are entirely different to Windows 3.0. In any case, you see the same sort of thing at Windows Blinds and other theme-sites (although it largely predates both themes and 'makeover').

Note that 'colour' is mis-spelt. Must be written in american.

Only a few of the icons are their Windows 3.0 versions. The rest are 3.1 icons, which is interesting since this mockup is from 1988, 2 years before 3.0, and 4 years before 3.1!

What you have to remember is that the IBM/Microsoft shared code was due to break up in 1992, so they were not keen to share new developments with IBM. So what it looks like is that they dodgied up a hack based on OS/2 1.3 for Windows 3.0, and kept the good oil until after the breakup.

The big shift between 3.10 and 3.11, is that 3.10 refers to OS/2 as the preferred server, and 3.11 refers to NT in this role. This is yet another point in the IBM-Microsoft breakup. Windows 3.11 introduced a number of incompatibilities that would not work with "OS/2 for Windows", which IBM fixed OS/2 separately for it. Also, Wfw 3.11 does not start in standard mode, was positioned for the 'standard windows'. You can run wfw 3.11 in standard mode, with a few files added, but you have to pry these from a win311 set.

vshare.386, for example, has coding that specifically looked for wfw 3.11 (which prevents OS/2 getting it), until Word for Windows released a version that would run under any version of 3.1x, including Win-OS/2 3.10.

Microsoft used SZDD format in DOS, Windows 3.0 and 3.10. This is a pretty poor compression routine. But i suspect here that the plan was that the code would be shared with IBM, while the older KWAJ format would stay private. The KWAJ format is used in things like the WLO (windows libraries for OS/2), and 'compress' is vers 1.x, not 2.x. The compression was used in both DOS 6.0 and Windows 3.11. IBM never released a version of LZEXPAND.DLL that can handle both SZDD and KWAJ (the one from 3.11 does this). So i suspect that keeping KWAJ out of circulation from the SDK, and in general (compress v1 seems to appear only in FOX), is to stave off pressure to provide KWAJ decompression in other vendor's (ie IBM) versions of Windows. Device drivers would only appear in SZDD or a setup-driven compression, not the more useful KWAJ format.

DOS, unlike Windows, does not store the extention of the file in it. You read in the dos manual: expand a:\himem.sy_ c:\dos\himem.sys to expand the DOS files, but for Windows, expand -r a:\himem.sy_ c:\windows does the trick. But storing the name does not change the file size, since it changes a byte from '00'x to 'S' etc.

It's hardly new. Consider for example, the expiring of the Apple contracts with the various Beatles: For example, George Harrison had an LP of songs ready for release the day his Apple contract expired, and Paul McCartney recycled a lot of stuff waiting for MPL to take over the stuff. John Lennon simply retired, and Ringo just wandered on to a variety of different labels.

yeah i love this! this is the type of rich history microsoft is known for! the generated discussion based on this... the classic design sense. everything works!! the worlds greatest company creating the worlds richest product set!

I listened to it quite closely at the time. There are interesting articles in OS/2 Magazine on the subject.

0_0 Screenshot is real or fake? Confirmations?

This is not a screenshot; it's a concept someone made for Microsoft when they were developing Windows 3.0... It's real.

I thought that was just a weird mash-up when I looked at it at first, but looking more closely... yes, it probably is real.

Most of the grey icons in Windows 3.0 were, as I understand it, based on a continuation of the OS/2 theme from OS/2 1.3 (which looked very similar). The "arrow" maximise/minimise buttons were evolved from Windows 2 / OS/2 1.2, as was the "spacebar" system menu.

The screenshot shows some of the new Windows 3.1, non OS/2-styled icons, as well as elements carried over from Windows 2, such as the non-square scroll bars. More interestingly, the screenshot also shows a marked change in the window controls: the maximise and minimise icons are instantly recognisable as those from Windows 95 onwards, with the minimise one being a square (reflecting the way minimised programs appeared on the desktop) rather than a rectangle (reflecting the Windows 95 and newer way of showing a minimised window). Similarly the control menu is an icon rather than a stylised space bar - again, familiar from Windows 95 and still used today.

From that, I'd say it looks like Microsoft had the major "window dressing" UI elements ready as early as 1988, but for whatever reason changed back to Windows 2-eqsue controls for the Windows 3.x releases. I'd wager IBM had something to do with that, but once the split was complete they could finally go their own way, as they did with Windows 95.

It's still quite jarring to see those Windows 95-style window controls on a 1988 screenshot though!