View source for Win32s

[[Image:Win32s install.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Installing Win32s 1.30c]]

'''Win32s''' was an addon developed by [[Microsoft]] to allow people to quickly start writing Win32 programs.  At the time the big problem was that all of the [[Windows]] users were using [[Windows 3.1]] and at the time there was no shipping 'production' version of [[Windows NT]], and there was no 'consumer' Win32 [[operating system]] at the time.

Win32s includes a [[device driver]] to setup a 32bit memory space on Windows 3.1, then takes specially formatted Win32 COFF exe's that can be relocated in memory (On Windows NT, all exe's get loaded at the same [[address space]], each application gets it's own 2GB memory area) as in Win32s they all have to share a memory space. Then as many as possible Win32 calls are then [[thunk]]ed into the appropriate Win16 calls.

Many [[World Wide Web|Web]] [[browser]]s of the time required Win32s for the memory, however Win32s did not include things like [[thread]]s, memory protection, long file names, it was just a stepping stone to Windows 95.

Visual C++ 1.0 & 2.0 32 bit editions shipped with Win32s, and a [[command line]] only environment for building Win32 applications.  [[Watcom C]] however did let people use a full GUI & [[debugger]] for Win32s.

== Versions ==
The first version I can find is included in the [[Windows_NT_3.1_October_1992_beta|October 1992 Windows NT Beta]].

* 1.1 
* 1.1a 
* 1.15 
* 1.15a
* 1.2  
* 1.25     
* 1.25a 
* 1.30  
* 1.30a
* 1.30c

== Notes ==
[[Image:Windows NT 4.0 pinball running on Win32s.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Pinball on Win32s 1.30c]] 
The last version can be downloaded [ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/MSLFILES/PW1118.EXE here].  The later versions of Win32s included OLE 2.0 updates that would bring this 32bit environment in step with [[Windows NT 3.5]] and break away from [[Windows NT 3.1]].

Win32s was remembered by a lot of users for adding the new card game Freecell.

Here is a list of programs that are compatible with Win32s http://stephan.win31.de/w32slist.htm

One of the most notable programs to run on Win32s was [[Mosaic]].  Another popular program for people to run later on was pinball from the Windows NT 4.0 Beta/production disks.

{{Nav Windows}}

{{semi-stub}}

[[Category: DOS Enhancements]]