The Windows 3.1 USB guide

The homebrew method

This is the one where you manually create the Windows 3.1 installation
If you're already intimidated, use the copy method instead.

Here are the steps:

1. Download the Windows 3.1 floppy image collection
2. Extract the folder with the IMG files.
3. For each of the IMG files, remove the 0-padding from the filename (e.g. Disk01.img becomes Disk1.img)
4. Drag the folder onto ExtractFD
5. Rename the "EXTRACT" folder to "INSTALL"
6. Download VBESVGA.DRV onto the root of the flash drive
7. Plug the USB drive into the target computer
8. Turn on the computer, making sure that it boots off of the USB

Now, on the target computer:

1. Go to the directory INSTALL (cd INSTALL)
2. Run SETUP (SETUP)
3. Go through the setup process
4. Go to C:\WINDOWS (cd C:\WINDOWS)
5. Copy VBESVGA.DRV to C:\WINDOWS (copy C:\VBESVGA.DRV .\)
6. Run Windows (SYSTEM\DOSX)
7. Open Notepad
8. Using Notepad, open the file C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI
9. Set display.drv to vbesvga.drv, and then save the file.
10. Open C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT using Notepad
11. Append the following lines:

cd C:\WINDOWS
SYSTEM\DOSX