Windows 3.0 build 33

Windows 3.0 build 33 is a build of Windows 3.0 that was shared on 23 September 2022, along with some disks of its software development kit. It was also mentioned in an internal Microsoft e-mail from August 1989.

starts the build in real (referred to as "286r" in the watermark) mode (using the kernel ) with a Windows 2.x-style boot screen that animates, with a Windows 3.0 logo in the font used for the Microsoft logo of the era, with text where the version information was in Windows 1.0 and 2.x reading "We Believe in Magic!".

starts the build in standard mode (referred to as "286p" mode) and uses the kernel. ( or   also works) starts the build in 386 mode (using  ), but it is unknown exactly what systems it supports yet.

This is the last known build to use MS-DOS Executive as the default shell, since by the time the undated 1989 build had been compiled, it was switched to Program Manager and File Manager. This is also the last build of Windows 3.0 to use a debug watermark before returning in debug compiles of Windows 3.1.

While there is no setup application for this build, there is a  file, apparently left on the disk by mistake, that mentions   and , as well as several utilities that were apparently removed from the pre-release SDK distribution (such as an early version of Solitaire and an unknown version of Terminal and Calculator). Either this was a placeholder and development of the utilities had not been started, they were too unfinished and unstable to ship to developers. It is also possible that they were removed to hide the new UI from users outside of Microsoft at this point, given the contemporary accounts of a very strict NDA. The contents of  also indicate that the Setup identifies as "Microsoft Windows/386 Version 3.00", and also supports installing a Windows runtime a la earlier versions of Windows.

Installation
Since this build does not ship with a setup application, the contents of the floppy disks should be manually copied to.

Using MS-DOS 3.31 is recommended.

To get 386 mode working, add  to.

The display driver is set to VGA by default. In order to use the proper display driver, edit the display.drv line in  from   to:
 * for Video 7 VGA
 * for 8514/A
 * for CGA
 * for EGA
 * for Hercules
 * for Compaq

Bugs
This build is quite early and rough and exhibits numerous bugs:


 * The placement of the text on every single Button control is misaligned and is above where it should be.
 * Windows Help crashes the entire OS. An initial look indicates that the file may be corrupted around the 0x200 to 0x1000 range.
 * Under rare circumstances, the kernel may attempt to launch the nonexistent Program Manager instead of the MS-DOS Executive during startup.
 * The Task Manager is not present and attempts to launch it will fail.
 * Running the kernel when Windows is already running crashes the OS with an endless series of "Cannot read device AUX" error boxes, using an early version of the Windows 3.x "white box" error message box.
 * As the Microsoft employee using this build in August 1989 commented, the build is indeed slow due to extensive debugging hooks.
 * Trying to use a DOS window in display modes other than VGA seems to crash the OS.
 * Some icons in Control Panel look a bit broken under the 8514/A display mode.
 * Calendar will crash the entire OS when in 386 mode.