Working copy of Windows 3.1 Farsi found!

[Battler]

Well, as some remember, there was a discussion in this thread: http://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewto ... =6&t=19121 about the MSDN version of Windows 3.1 Farsi that is corrupted. I have to say I tried to get that one to work myself - I managed to get it to run by replacing its GDI.EXE with the one from the Arabic version but the characteres were all gibberish and it would obviously freeze with its own GDI.EXE.

Now a week ago I found a non-MSDN version of Windows 3.1 Farsi on a Google search. And surprisingly, it works. It installed without problems and booted without problems too.

Here's some screenshots:


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The OS itself has been uploaded and is waiting in the queue for its turn to be released.

[WinPC]

Well, I'm sure that mrpijey will be glad to upload this to the BetaArchive FTP server, since that's what he usually does when such releases are made, even if and when they are rereleases of something where the only other copy available was damaged (such as this Farsi release of Windows 3.1).

[Battler]

Well I've just verified both versions of Farsi Windows 3.1, and I've determined the following:
1. The MSDN one is version 3.1.127, while the non-MSDN one is version 3.11;
2. The MSDN one has fonts provided by Glyph Systems, while the non-MSDN one seems to have fonts provided by Microsoft themselves;
3. The two versions are mutually compatible (using the non-MSDN GDI.EXE on the MSDN version still produces gibberish characters).

So it seems we have two different versions at hand.

[DeFacto]

That's great, thanks...

[TheCollector1988]

great, another one for my collection!

[CaptainPeanut]

Looks interesting...
I might give a chance to this.

[MegaDragon998]

Great! Ill try it for sure

[roytam1]

Well I've just verified both versions of Farsi Windows 3.1, and I've determined the following:
1. The MSDN one is version 3.1.127, while the non-MSDN one is version 3.11;
2. The MSDN one has fonts provided by Glyph Systems, while the non-MSDN one seems to have fonts provided by Microsoft themselves;
3. The two versions are mutually compatible (using the non-MSDN GDI.EXE on the MSDN version still produces gibberish characters).

So it seems we have two different versions at hand.

The English resource says "Arabic fonts supplied by Glyph Systems", the biggest possibility is they hacked their own Arabic windows 3.11 to farsi. The evidence is they don't even change "Arabic" to "Farsi" in readme.wri!


and of course the charset convertor (convert.exe) of 3.11 version is Arabic one. Farsi has different encodings.

BTW this non-MSDN Farsi Windows 3.11 has a thin type of System font and FixedSys font.

[incognitte]

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Based on this screenshot, I can confirm that this is a copy of Windows 3.11 Sina Farsi. It is a special (and very hard to find) edition made by a company called SinaSoft Corp. Searching the Internet, there is not much can be found about this Windows version, except this article on Internet Archive. Unfortunately the PDF disabled the copy feature, so I was not able to run it thru Google Translate. Havind said that, I also found this page the translation says:

There is another version which (by Sinasoft) is made from the Arabic version of Windows and in several places the word Arabic is left instead of Farsi.

Which confirms a previous post in this thread.


PS. One of the comments in the above link also names few other Windows 3.1 Farsi editions, named as Sabrin and Nagaristan developed in year 1370 (translates to 1991). It will be very interesting if those can also be found and archived. I started searching for their installation disks!

[Battler]

1991 could mean Windows 3.0 even, of it is 3.1, then it'd be based on 3.1 Beta's, since the final version only released in 1992. So it would be very interesting to find, in any case!