Microsoft version weirdness: Info on Microsoft Works for Windows wanted

[Floppies_only]

Gang,

This is the next chapter in my Quixotic (qwee - ho - tic) search for Works for Windows version one. Even though a person who works for Microsoft couldn't find it in their archieves (he did find a copy of version two that he copied for me) I'm sure that I've seen it, back in '93 when I was still computer illiterate :)

I am wondering if anybody can tell me more about it. I'd like to know what it's system requirements were and if it had the same problem that Word for Windows version one had with not being able to display a whole line of text on the screen at the same time. I read somebody on USENET who said that it had this problem (implying that it does exist).

I recently edited the Wikipedia page on Works to include version one for Windows. Somebody changed it back. But I still think that it exists because my version two disks say that they are copywrite 1987-1991. I interperet this as meaning that the first time Microsoft copywrote any version was during the earlier year. But, I might be swayed in the other direction if I learn that Microsoft put out Works for DOS and Mac in version one and then version two and only added the Windows version during the second round (like they did with Excel). My Works for DOS disks seem to indicate that it's first version came out in 1987. Could it be that that is the code that was incorporated into version two for Windows, and that explains the earlier copywrite date on the "first" version of Works for Windows: version two?

Oh, I will be getting a real life "any day now" :) Already taken the first step by deciding that I will be happy to use version two because it can display the whole line of text at once, without flipping back and forth, which kinda ruins the expirience for me.

Great thanks in advance,
Sean

[vwestlife]

Microsoft liked to play funny games with Windows version numbers, so Works 1.0 for Windows may not exist. They may have started it at 2.0 in order to indicate that it was contemporaneous with Works 2.0 for DOS. Similarly, Windows NT (really an updated version of Microsoft OS/2) began life at version 3.1, to indicate that it had the same GUI as the plain 16-bit Windows 3.1. Also, Word for Windows had versions 1.0 and 2.0 and then jumped all the way up to version 6.0, to indicate that it had the same features as Word 6.0 for Macintosh. (Eventually Word 6.0 for DOS was released as well, but it never caught on, and thus many web sites claim that 5.5 was the last version of Word for DOS.)

[rmay635703]

Works Version 2.0 is the only windows version of works that can be run just using the executable and nothing else in the directory (aka portable, more or less). Works 2.0 originally released along side Windows 3.0 in 1992 and was basically identical to every version of works made since (except it probably had more features sadly as recent rev. have had old features taken out)

It was intended for any 286 or higher system running windows 3.0 or higher with extended memory, not too heavy.

I remember being in Junior high in 1993-1995 and it was on every 286 and 386sx system in the labs, the amazing version 3.0 eventually ended up on the couple of faster 386dx & 486's that eventually leached in. Version 3.0 would only run on a 32bit processor.

The main thing I can remember between works 2.0 and 3.0 is that 2.0 had the irritating problem with the printer setup did not always match the page setup in regard to landscape or portrait orientation.

In other words you could print a landscape document on portrait and end up with the sides cutoff, ditto on portrait and it had a really irritating error that would pop up if that was going to happen and at times you had to change the setup in works and windows itself a couple of times to get everything matched up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Works <- Many things are wrong with this but it does show that WOrks 1.0 existed for Macintosh before Works 2.0 for Windows. It is missing the 32 bit Works 3.? for Windows 95 (which I did use at highschool so yes it exists) They are also missing Works 4.? for Windows 3.11 which also did indeed exist as I used it also at high school.

Ah well.