Yes I too was doing IT in the mid 90's and did far more than my share of widnows 3.1 with win32s.
If you'd looked into bow it hooks all the timers from dos, and can happily run more than one thing at a time, and preempt them.
It's a winning combination for sure, even on my lowly 386 DX 16, I can run word, excel & bow at the same time. It's great!