Windows 3.0? Pre-Release Version 0.1 Feb 1989

[RubyTuesday]

My neighbor has 2 Microsoft 5.25" Disks with label:

     Microsoft Windows Pre-Release 02/22/89
     Version 0.1 Status: ISV Alpha-Rel

I'm guessing, from the dates, that these are early builds of Windows 3.0? or possibly VERY late builds of 2.11?

Does anybody know more about this version?

[TheCollector1988]

My neighbor has 2 Microsoft 5.25" Disks with label:

     Microsoft Windows Pre-Release 02/22/89
     Version 0.1 Status: ISV Alpha-Rel

I'm guessing, from the dates, that these are early builds of Windows 3.0? or possibly VERY late builds of 2.11?

Does anybody know more about this version?

Well, from what I know, 2.11 is from March 1989, so yeah, upload them so we can verify these disks contain a beta of 3.0 or a beta of 2.11.

[The Distractor]

"ISV Alpha-Rel" and "Version 0.1" makes me think very early 3.0 rather than 2.x.

I hope you or your neighbour have the capability to image these floppies.

[Overdoze]

This could be interesting, provided there's a way to image said floppies and inspect the contents.

[DiskingRound]

Holy crap...
If your neighbour can share the floppies, please image them ASAP so we can inspect the contents and see what build it is.
If your neighbour doesn't want to share the floppies, at least you tried
The only thing we can do for now is wait for him to log in again (Which he hasn't since 3:01 PM, BA Time).
Thanks for your contribution.

[InsertGoodNameHere]

Now this, I am interested in. I don't usually pay attention to early Windows, but this caught my attention.

[JimOlive]

Please ask him if he could share them!

[RubyTuesday]

I'm sure I can get hold of the disks. I have a 5.25" floppy and a DeviceSide FC5025, so imaging should be easy enough, assuming the disks are still readable.

The FC5025 has worked well for me, but I've recently become aware of the Kryoflux. Is there a thread somewhere that details the differences between the 2? Would the Kryflux give me any added benefit with troublesome disks?

[mrpijey]

Are the floppies originals (with original labels) or just second hand copies?

And the Kryoflux and the FC5025 works in different ways. While both act as a floppy drive controller the KF reads the data on a magnetic flux level, whereas the FC5025 only acts as a dumb floppy reader (basically). In this regard the KF is much better as it can read the true raw data from a drive and then decode it into anything it needs to be, whereas the FC5025 only read it from a file system level and decodes the data without bothering much about custom sector sizes, custom sector data, raw sector data or anything like that.

[RubyTuesday]

They are original floppies, with Microsoft labels and sleeves.

The labels are dot-matrix printed on Microsoft logo labels.

I just read the disks. The Setup.Bat on Disk 1 implies that this is an early build of 3.0.

Regrettably, Disk 1 had read errors, while Disk 2 was error free.

I don't have FTP access (hopefully this submission gets me that ). I've uploaded the files to the public FTP account. The public account doesn't seem to have a folder structure, so I uploaded it to the root.

[DiskingRound]

They are original floppies, with Microsoft labels and sleeves.

The labels are dot-matrix printed on Microsoft logo labels.

I just read the disks. The Setup.Bat on Disk 1 implies that this is an early build of 3.0.

Regrettably, Disk 1 had read errors, while Disk 2 was error free.

I don't have FTP access (hopefully this submission gets me that ). I've uploaded the files to the public FTP account. The public account doesn't seem to have a folder structure, so I uploaded it to the root.

Can you please scan your floppies at 600dpi PNG resolution (or at least pictures of the floppies)? Thank you so much for your contribution Well appreciated.

[The Distractor]

I've uploaded the files to the public FTP account. The public account doesn't seem to have a folder structure, so I uploaded it to the root.

Sorry to be a pain, but would it be ok if you uploaded the images to a filehoster like mega or zippyshare also? so we can have the images in the short term before they get verified and moved to downloads?

[betaluva]

this really needs to be investigated, ASAP.

[RubyTuesday]

My original upload only included 72 DPI photos, so have made some 600 DPI scans, but the server isn't letting me access the FTP upload account - I guess I'll try again in an hour...

Here's Disk 1 at 72 DPI on Mega
https://mega.co.nz/#!Q55BBZCI!AQpmy26iE ... H9OMU71a1w

[The Distractor]

Sorry, I guess you misunderstood.

By "images" I meant the floppy dumps you made and already uploaded to the FTP.

BTW, reuploaded that file from mega to BA image uploader.

[RubyTuesday]

I found this 8 May 1989 InfoWorld article that seems to be related:

Microsoft has sent prerelease copies to more than 900 independent hardware and software vendors as part of a program to get the code to developers early....
Not all the new features are present in the prerelease code...

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Rz ... .0&f=false

[mrpijey]

I've uploaded the files to the public FTP account. The public account doesn't seem to have a folder structure, so I uploaded it to the root.

Sorry to be a pain, but would it be ok if you uploaded the images to a filehoster like mega or zippyshare also? so we can have the images in the short term before they get verified and moved to downloads?

Has anyone ever told you that patience is a virtue? You don't need to receive everything this instant second...

Anyway, I've got the image files, we're just waiting for better scans and some info on what sectors/files are damaged.

And I've added the files to Release 12 in the Help folder.

[DiskingRound]

Thank you RubyTuesday for your contribution. I'll download and install it and see what build it is, or if it has no build number (like the NT 3.1 10-91 beta...)

[mrpijey]

If you can install it that is... since the first floppy was full of errors.

[DiskingRound]

If you can install it that is... since the first floppy was full of errors.

Ah well, I'll still download it to see if we can get any files that show a build number.
Edit:

<Win 3.00 build no. 1.14 09feb89> Copyright (c) Microsoft 1988

Edit 2:

Windows v3.0 Debug Release 1.14

...which can safely say that the build is both a debug build and has the build number "1.14" (whatever that is).
Edit 3 (so much edits ) I checked the MSDOS.EXE (MS-DOS Executive) application using a hex editor, it is based on Windows 2.1.

[RubyTuesday]

Thanks DiskingRound,

I've cleaned Disk 1 and redumped both disks, and they are now both 100% error-free . I've also done better quality scans, and uploaded everything to the FTP, and let mrpijey know...

[DiskingRound]

Here's another find in this alpha of Windows 3.0 that I believe nobody has noticed:

Code: Select all

mtswslnkmcjkls

I don't really know what this means. Is it gibberish or a secret message?

[Daniel]

Bing returns two disk images containing the same string...

http://actapricot.org/disks/apr00192.dsk
http://actapricot.org/disks/apr00291.dsk

[The Distractor]

Bing returns two disk images containing the same string...

apr00291.dsk is one from a set of Apricot Xen-i recovery floppies (PC-compatible) that includes a version of Windows (I think 2.x).

apr00192.dsk is "VXNETDS DTCSERV MAILSERV". It's part of something called "vxnet", with client software being a Win 2.x application.

[RubyTuesday]

Code: Select all

mtswslnkmcjkls

I don't really know what this means. Is it gibberish or a secret message?

I did a Google search on "mtswslnk" and get this

It seems likely that mtsws... is an ascii representation of some Hebrew?