To understand Windows 3.11, you have to distinguish between its two distinct "flavors":

In the early '90s, computing was a much louder, clunkier affair. Before the iconic "Start" button of Windows 95 changed the world, there was . Released in 1993, it was a pivotal "operating environment" that bridged the gap between the command-line past and the networked future. Why 3.11 Mattered

Windows 3.11 didn't have a Start Menu (that was '95). It didn't have plug-and-play. You still had to manually configure IRQ addresses for your sound card. But it was stable enough for real work. It was the operating system that ran the legal offices, the accounting firms, and the school computer labs of 1994.