The weekend is close, I don't feel like I have energy to work on my little(?) game, so I'm going to try and do the weirdest Windows 3.1 setup out there.

First step of getting cool Win 3.1 install these days is VBESVGA driver. Kudos to https://github.com/PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv

I think 16M colours looks pretty great, but it is noticeably slower than 256 colours.

If you follow me, you probably know that there's an open-source clone of Windows NewShell for 3.1 called Calmira. There's a version called Calmira XP, which looks really out of the place on 3.1. But my goal is to get the most unhinged, sick, abominable, overpowered and power-hungry Windows 3.1 install, so here we go.

A bit of a technicality, but it makes a lot of sense in terms of UX: doslfn to add Long File Name support in Calmira, and IFA to add Long File Name support to the basic Windows applications.

And while we're at it, let's get some sort of a wallpaper. This one is 256 colours, because Paintbrush 3.x and Paint 95+ aren't really compatible, and the only way I can convert images to this old system (for now) is ImageMagick gif 256 colours -> pcx -> bmp

Shocking Windows 3.1 development continues. Now I have win32s, which will allow me to run some Win32 applications on top of DOS and Win16 kernel. Freecell looks like any other app, but it is Win32 app, very MVP.

And IE 5.0 is being installed but still needs a bit of tweaking. It has a 128-bit encryption module, but it's useless, because no one supports SSL anymore.

Note WinRAR behind the IE50 installer.

It's taking longer than it should have, but I have working TCP/IP on Windows 3.1, and it plays along with IE 5.0. Google stopped supporting IE5 recently, but I learned about Wiby not that long ago, and I like it.

But we're far from being done.

Okay, this is the most cursed Windows 3.1 screenshot so far. I'm not saying things are working, but I'm not saying they're not working either. Sort of a limbo.
Sometimes it feels like Microsoft intentionally made Win32s incompatible with lots of apps (or the other way around). Only Calc and Real Audio player from Windows 95 are working with Win32s - even Freecell doesn't. Despite it being almost the same thing as Freecell shipped with Win32s itself.
@nina_kali_nina i remember back in ye day 32s was pretty hit or miss, with emphasis on miss