Installing Windows 3.11

Windows 3.11, officially Windows for Workgroups 3.11, dropped in 1993 as the last major 16-bit version of Windows before Microsoft went full 32-bit with Windows 95. It wasn’t flashy, but it was a game-changer for its time—basically Windows 3.1 with built-in networking, so you could hook up to local networks and share files or printers without extra software. It ran on top of MS-DOS, needed at least a 386 processor to really shine, and it introduced better TrueType font support and way smoother performance than 3.1. If you remember dialing into a network or printing something across the office in the mid-’90s, there’s a good chance Windows 3.11 was behind it.