The only versions of DOS that i know were released by the OEM on cdrom, are a late version of DR-DOS (i think 7.something), and IBM PC-DOS 2000. I have the latter.

The packaging consists of shrinkwrap, with the DOS cdrom, some manuals and other things IBM were want to put in their boxes. The actual cdrom consists of a cdrom install version, a fully laid out version (ie unexpanded), and a directory of diskettes, and a utility for making the diskettes. No extra freebies etc.

By this time, Boca Raton had closed, and Austin had taken over the PPC business.

It was fairly normal for OEMs to manufacture recovery or install disks, especially once cdroms became the normal fare.

Every 16-bit Windows is on floppies.

Windows MME 3.0 came on a cdrom, but it is intended for OEM only.

When i cut my first cdrom, one of the review diskettes was someone's OEM diskette, which had dos and windows 3.11 for wallies on the cdrom, no diskettes were supplied.

It's useful to put things into context of 1994 prices. A pressed cdrom is about the price of two, maybe three floppy diskettes. Even at five, one saves an enormous amount of money by one floppy and one cdrom, with dos, windows, the drivers, and oem software all on the cdrom.

Expecting the users to back up their data to cdrom did not come until the age of cheap writable cdroms. We're talking much later than 1994 here. When i bought my first cd-burner, it was 600 $, and the disks were 20 $ a pop.

I remember a Windows 3.1(1?) version on a CD by german OEM Vobis, too. But unlike the above, they also put Works on it and another program. It also had a "Highscreen" logo on it (trademark for Vobis computers) instead of just Vobis. It came with a 60 MHz Pentium computer, could have been late 1994 or early 1995? Sadly, I don't have it anymore

Different question: Is the only preserved version of Windows 3.0 MME that Tandy variant with its perfidious custom menu system?

You can generally thin out the win307 (win30mme) stuff just down to the actual windows directory and i think the tandy one. If you edit setup.inf, i think even the tandy one is prunable.

I founded somewhere in my computer one ISO image of Windows 3.1.

Here is a download link: https://mega.co.nz/#!z5IkFBRA!OzziAlL_c ... WcGjgx1aQk

Windows 3.x retail was Floppy Only. Many OEM's (Packard Bell, IBM, etc) had 'restore cds' for their multimedia systems that had Dos, Windows 3.x, and any drivers and applications the system was shipped with on a CD, but these weren't retail releases. This is the only shipped method for Windows 3.x being on a CD that I know of.