Windows 95 upgrade media does not recognise Windows 3.1

[x010]

As the title says , when attempting an clean install of Windows 95 on a blank disk , it asks for the media. But , when I tried to insert a Windows 3.1 CD(which cannot boot) , it came back with an error saying that it cannot find a upgrade media.(and with all other disks...).

Why? How does it verify the media? What OS's are supported?

[Lukas Marsik]

I doubt it even looks for anything on a CD as Windows 3.1 always came on floppies IIRC.
The easiest trick is just putting a file called "ntldr" to the root of the drive you are about to install to

[x010]

I doubt it even looks for anything on a CD as Windows 3.1 always came on floppies IIRC.
The easiest trick is just putting a file called "ntldr" to the root of the drive you are about to install to

Possibly , but when it fails at first attempt , it gives me an option to choose the drive for Windows 95 to search , so it should be looking for something...

[Lukas Marsik]

Still, I assume that 3.1 on a CD has modified setup files to not ask for floppydisks and all that which just makes the search return nothing as the files it checks are not in the state it expects them to be in, though this is just what I think actually happens and why it doesn't work, never really looked into it so can't say for sure

[os2fan2]

Windows 95 if i recall correctly, will recognise a copy of windows 3.11 even if it's on the same cdrom. I have a directory on my Win95/98/ME disk for msdos622 and win311 and wfw311.

Windows 98 will cough if you don't have a real floppy disk in drive a: (aka image in vpc's drive a:).

[x010]

Windows 95 if i recall correctly, will recognise a copy of windows 3.11 even if it's on the same cdrom. I have a directory on my Win95/98/ME disk for msdos622 and win311 and wfw311.

Windows 98 will cough if you don't have a real floppy disk in drive a: (aka image in vpc's drive a:).

That's a possibility , but my problem is that it does not recognise a Windows 3.1 CD-ROM even after pointing it to the correct drive. Through , on ME , Windows 98/95 disks did work.

[nerd70]

Still, I assume that 3.1 on a CD has modified setup files to not ask for floppydisks and all that which just makes the search return nothing as the files it checks are not in the state it expects them to be in, though this is just what I think actually happens and why it doesn't work, never really looked into it so can't say for sure

Actually, to put 3.1 on a CD, you don't even have to touch setup.
The 3.1 setup when it needs the next disk, it looks for the disk# file and if it finds it, setup continues.
If it doesn't it asks to insert that disk.

[os2fan2]

You have to point it to the Windows 3.1 install directory, not just the drive. So, if your cdrom is S: and windows is in S:\win31\win then you have to point the install to that directory.

[sdfox7]

If you find that you need to break out the old 1.44 floppies, you can make a set using my images here: http://sdfox7.com/win31/WIN31.ZIP Alternatively you can get the Workgroups version here: http://sdfox7.com/win31/311WFW.ZIP

You can use a program like WinImage (http://www.winimage.com/download.htm) to write the floppies. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll find the old 16-bit versions.

[x010]

You have to point it to the Windows 3.1 install directory, not just the drive. So, if your cdrom is S: and windows is in S:\win31\win then you have to point the install to that directory.

That's what I did. The CD had DISKx folders(if I'm right) and I pointed it to the first folder. That did not work.

[os2fan2]

No, you put all the windows 3.x files into one directory, not into diskN directories. This is documented in setup.inf.

[x010]

No, you put all the windows 3.x files into one directory, not into diskN directories. This is documented in setup.inf.

In that case , how did it work that time with floppies?

[os2fan2]

If you look in Setup.inf, it will have an entry for each diskette like '., disk1', it expects to find the file in question in the same directory as a file 'disk1'. In the floppy disk array, there's enough files to fill a 1440 on disk1 and another 1440 on disk2, etc. But if you put everything into a hard drive directory, everything goes into one directory.

You still need disk1 to diskN files, because Setup expects to find them there.

Regards setup.inf, if a program has some entry like ..\disk1, it expects to find files arranged by disk-to-dir arrangement, eg wep2\disk1. If you hack the setup.inf, you can make these say, eg \wep1 or \forehlp1, \forehlp2, and then have a whole mob of different apps like \winapp\forehlp1, \winapp\forehlp2, \winapp\wep1, etc. rather than winapp\forehelp\disk1, \winapp\forehelp\disk2, \winapp\wep\disk1.

Some programs use the disk1 thing even when there's only one disk.

[Overdoze]

I have yet to see a file called disk1 on the first disk, though any follow up disks indeed have files numbered disk2, 3, etc.

But if you think about it, if you put all the files into one directory, including the diskX files, that would probably work, right?

[os2fan2]

Seeing that i've been doing that since 1975, when i burnt my first set of windows, the way to put msdos and windows is to put the stuff in the directory. It does not work with the base install of ms-dos.

The magic is you should not delete the files disk1 to disk8, etc otherwise windows won't find the files. MS-DOS uses a different scheme, the name of an actual file.

I only have been successful in doing a string hack on the dos-setup, but you can write the windows setup from new, and the win31 resource kit shows you how!

[Battler]

- os2fan2: Not only did Windows not exist in 1975, not even DOS did, nor the Intel x86 architecture. I think you probably meant 1985 instead.

MS-DOS uses a different scheme, the name of an actual file.

MS-DOS checks if the volume label on each disk matches what DOSSETUP.INI (or SETUP.INI in 5.00) says it should be.

[os2fan2]

When DOS Setup runs from floppy disks, it uses the disk name thing, because i had to edit it to get pc-dos 5.02 to install from two 1440 rather than three 720k diskettes. But when the files are all on a directory, an upgrade version will install without changing disk name. I also edited it to put an alternate naming of edit.com/.hlp and a patched qbasic.exe into the layout.

Similar processes were done to slipstream the fixes for pc-dos 6.30 into a layout '6.31'.

1975 is actually 1995, the disk name is '7575' ie commissioned in 16.75:75 on the twelfty cycle.

[x010]

So you're telling me that I should place all the files in one directory while still keeping the DISKx folders intact?

[os2fan2]

That's what setup.inf and setup /a does.