Who ever thought that Windows 3.1 would be installed to a cell phone?  It took Marcinprv at FrazPC a full day to do it but he was able to get installed to his Nokia N95.  The phone itself is running Symbian but he was able to install DOSBox and then Windows 3.1.

While the usefulness of Windows 3.1 on any device these days is pretty limited the cool factor is pretty high.  This is yet another illustration of how powerful modern cell phones have become.  Many machines that could run Windows 3.1 could also run Windows 95.

As a result of just how similar it is to run Windows 95 on a phone he was later on also able to get it installed via the same method on the same device.  While it is not as cool it is still interesting to see that it is possible.  I am sure someone is now working on installing Windows ME to a smartphone to see if they can find a device on which it is stable.

UPDATE: As Jones111 pointed out in the comments this is actually the Calimira User Interface being used on Windows 3.1 to emulate the look of Windows 95.

Check It Out> FrazPC via OSNews

ReactOS has released Alpha version 3.8 today of their Windows NT clone operating system.  ReactOS is very different from other operating systems in that their goal is to create a Windows compatible operating system but with entirely original code.

This release is Alpha and as such is not suitible for every day usage but if you want to try it out you can download their Live CD.  This will allow you to boot off of it and use the operating system without making any changes to your own computer.

Changelog:

• Various bugfixes and enhancements to Kernel core services (e.g. registry, system information routines, sync primitives like guarded mutex, IO support and other)
• An initiative has been started to fix the remaining unstable parts of the kernel: Memory Manager, caching code and filesystems driver APIs and other dependencies of Mm
• Introduction of a new Portable Structured Exception Handling mechanism (PSEH 2.0), which is much closer to the native compiler SEH syntax
• A few longstanding bugs are fixed (such as multipartition HDD support by LiveCD, Task Manager CPU graph)
• Various GDI drawing problems were fixed
• A minimal open source version of the KernelDebugger protocol has been implemented, allowing basic MS WinDbg functionality
• CRT and RTL library improvements
• A number of problems were fixed in base system drivers: NPFS, CDFS, FASTFAT, FS_REC, SCSIPORT
• Video driver improvements for better real hardware support
• Ongoing Win32-subsystem work
• Continued work on supporting MSVC
• Build tool chain fixes and improvements (also as part of the MSVC support work)
• Core tools and components shared with Wine were updated to the latest version

Check It Out> ReactOS via OSNews

This is a list of commands for the new Windows PE 3.0 based on Windows 7.  There have been many changes to PE including the addition of a new application called DISM.exe or the Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool.  ImageX can still be used for some commands such as mounting and unmounting the wim and more importantly compressing the wim.  DISM does normal compression by default but does not have an option for you to change the compression level (that I am aware of).

At the time of writing this Windows PE 3.0 is still in the beta phase but is more than stable for typical usage.  To create Windows PE you need to download and install the Windows Automated Installation Kit or WAIK.  You can get this from Microsoft.

To start create a directory in “C:\” called “PE” so that it looks like “C:\PE”

You can then create batch files from the following commands by simply copying the text and pasting it into a notepad document then saving it according to the format “MountWIM.bat “.  An important note with these commands is they must be executed as an administrator.  If you are on either Windows Vista or Windows 7 you either have to elevate a command prompt or create batch files and then right click the file and select “Run as administrator”.

Create winpe_x86 directory in C:\PE (this WILL delete it if the directory already exists):

rd /s/q C:\PE\winpe_x86

cd “c:\Program files\windows aik\tools\petools”
call copype.cmd x86 C:\PE\winpe_x86

Mount the WIM image:

cd “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\Servicing”

DISM.exe /Mount-Wim /WimFile:C:\PE\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount

UnMount the WIM image commiting changes:

cd “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\Servicing”

DISM.exe /unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Commit

Add packages into your WIM, this can be edited to only add in what you need to reduce the size of the WIM:

cd “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\Servicing\”

dism /image:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_OCs\winpe.cab”

dism /image:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_OCs\winpe-wmi.cab”

dism /image:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_OCs\winpe-hta.cab”

dism /image:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_OCs\winpe-legacysetup.cab”

dism /image:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_OCs\winpe-mdac.cab”

dism /image:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_OCs\winpe-scripting.cab”

dism /image:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_OCs\winpe-setup.cab”

dism /image:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_OCs\winpe-wds-tools.cab”

Check what packages are installed:

cd “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\Servicing\”

dism /image:c:\PE\winpe_x86\mount\ /Get-Packages

UnMount the WIM image discarding changes:

cd “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\Servicing”

DISM.exe /unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\PE\winpe_x86\mount /discard

Create Windows PE ISO:

cd “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86″

oscdimg -n -bc:\PE\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\PE\winpe_x86\ISO c:\PE\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso

If you were not around for the first version of Windows or were just starting kindergarten like me in 1983 you probably missed the first Windows review ever.  If you were a user of Windows 1.0 I am sure that you appreciate all of Vista’s little flaws and were even grateful for Windows ME.  ToastyTech has the first review of Windows 1.0 posted on their site and after reading it I have to admit that I am grateful I was not using Windows until 3.11.

From Gizmodo:

• Microsoft Windows is an installable device driver under MS-DOS 2.0 using ordinary MS-DOS files.

• Complete compatibility with MS-DOS means that Windows will at least let you run any application that runs under MS-DOS.

• In the worst case, Windows will turn the fill display over to an MS-DOS application and return you to your place in Windows.

• During normal use, Microsoft Windows displays one or more [tiled] windows, each with a different application.

• The “session-control layer” becomes the equivalent of the empty desktop where you can manipulate files. The available commands appear near the bottom of the screen.

• To see the available applications programs, you either use the mouse to position the cursor on the command “Run” or type the letter “R.” Windows lists all the applications programs as commands, and you point at the desired program and click the mouse to run it. You could also type the appropriate letter instead.

• In this case, the program that’s run is “uncooperative” – that is, it doesn’t do everything through MS-DOS system calls, sometimes going beyond the operating system to write directly to the hardware addresses such as those of screen memory.

• …the transition from the uncooperative program to a “smart” one that can live happily in a smaller window and share the screen with other programs that take full advantage of Microsoft Windows. The smart program is Microsoft Word.

• Pointing at the PEN commands on the command bar at the bottom of the screen has brought the display of the menu of pen sizes and patterns. You select sizes and patterns by using the mouse to point at one of the boxes shown in each list, then pointing at the “OK” box

While I am sure that people were amazed that a computer could do these types of things times have changed.  We grew up on the Jetsons and are still waiting for our houses in the sky and robots to be our servants.

Check It Out> ToastyTech via Gizmodo