Windows 3.1 (redirected from Windows 3.1x)

Windows 3.1

A major upgrade to Windows 3.0, introduced in 1992. It added support for multimedia, TrueType fonts, compound documents (OLE) and drag & drop and also provided a more stable environment. Windows 3.1 ran 16-bit Windows and DOS applications but was unable to run subsequent 32-bit Windows programs written for Windows 95 and beyond. Within the same year of introduction, Windows 3.1 evolved into Windows for Workgroups 3.11, which added peer-to-peer networking and which was the last 16-bit Windows operating system.

After 32-bit Windows 95 was released, many 16-bit Windows 3.1 applications continued to run smoothly under Windows 95 and subsequent versions (98, NT, etc.). However, although 32-bit supports long file names, Windows 3.1 applications support only the 8.3 naming convention in which file names cannot contain more than eight characters. See Windows and 8.3 names.

---

(operating system)

Windows 3.1 - A version of Microsoft Windows with many improvements over Windows 3.0, including True Type Fonts, Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) and Mouse Trails for use with LCD Devices. It also saw the loss of Real Mode, which meant it would no longer run on Intel 8086 processors (did anyone ever do this anyway?). Sometimes described as "stand-alone Windows", in contrast to Windows for Workgroups 3.1. Windows 3.11 is a free bug-fix update. 3.1's successors are Windows 95 and Windows NT.