DOS ain't dead

Hi, guys!

How can I install networking on Windows 3.11 WITHOUT a dedicated driver for my card. I have a modernish laptop with a modernish Realtek ethernet adapter card with its proprietary ndis driver and a packet interface. I would like to install networking on Windows so that it uses my DOS packet driver and forgets about the hardware itself. Or something similar. The reason behind this is that I want to use Browservice to access this-and-that, because WRP doesn't allow file upload and download, but Browservice is not useable with Links, Arachne or Webspyder. There are browsers for Win311 that can use it though.

Thank you!

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DOS isn't about why. It's about why not.

> Hi, guys!
>
> How can I install networking on Windows 3.11 WITHOUT a dedicated driver for
> my card. I have a modernish laptop with a modernish Realtek ethernet
> adapter card with its proprietary ndis driver and a packet interface. I
> would like to install networking on Windows so that it uses my DOS packet
> driver and forgets about the hardware itself. Or something similar. The
> reason behind this is that I want to use Browservice to access
> this-and-that, because WRP doesn't allow file upload and download, but
> Browservice is not useable with Links, Arachne or Webspyder. There are
> browsers for Win311 that can use it though.
>
> Thank you!

You may try the old good Trumpet Winsock with winpkt to use DOS packet driver from windows.

Rayer describes on his site how to force Windows95 to use the DOS network card driver.
Maybe it could be usable also for Win 3.11.

He describes it in czech language but after translating it via DeepL:



"Fortunately, Windows 9x, as a hybrid system, also allows you to work with realmode NDIS2/ODI drivers. So I selected "Existing NDIS2 driver" from the adapter menu during installation and clicked the location of the oemsetup.inf file from the DOS NDIS2 driver directory. The whole installation procedure is a bit more complicated, so I have described it in detail here. Windows then adds the net start line to autoexec.bat, which automatically loads the DOS driver rtgnd.dos. With this driver, my net works normally, maybe a little slower than it would run with the native driver. When downloading a file from fast FTP, I measured 980 kB/s, which is fine for normal browsing.


...and...


One USB EHCI controller needs to be temporarily disabled before installation,
that uses a shared IRQ (10) with the network adapter. After installation, it is possible to
re-enable it (if blue death occurs, leave it disabled).

1) Control Panel|Network|Configuration - remove the old adapter "Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCIE-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC"
2) in Device Manager, remove existing network adapters
3) Control Panel|Network|Configuration - Add|Adapter|Add|Existing NDIS2 driver|From floppy disk
and point the path to OEMSETUP.INF and let it copy the necessary files from the Windows installer (PROTMAN.DOS is needed), reboot
4) after reboot, skip the network detection
5) a new disabled network adapter "RTL8168/8111 Family Gigabit Ethernet Adapter" will appear in Device Manager
Enable the device, on the Driver tab click on Update Driver|Next|Show list of all drivers|Existing NDIS2 driver|From floppy disk
and show the path to OEMSETUP.INF, let it install "RTL8168/8111 Family Gigabit Ethernet Adapter"
from %TEMP%\~oem095B.WIN point the path to RTGND.DOS and let it copy the necessary files from the Windows installer, reboot
5) after reboot, skip the network adapter detection
6) in Device Manager, remove the "RTL8168/8111 Family Gigabit Ethernet Adapter" network adapter, reboot
6) in Device Manager, remove the "RTL8168/8111 Family Gigabit Ethernet Adapter", reboot
7) after reboot, when the network adapter is detected, select the driver from the list|Network Adapters|Show All Devices
select the manufacturer "oem" and "RTL8168/8111 Family Gigabit Ethernet Adapter",
let it install from WINDOWS\INF\OTHER\~OEM095B.WIN
and copy the necessary files from the Windows installer, reboot
8) After successful installation, the PROTMAN.DOS and RTGND.DOS files should be in the WINDOWS directory,
in AUTOEXEC.BAT line C:\WINDOWS\net start,
in Device Manager, one entry Network Adapters|RTL8168/8111 Family Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
with the NDIS.VXD driver and the Resources tab, and in Control Panel|Network|Configuration
also 1 item "RTL8168/8111 Family Gigabit Ethernet Adapter" (NDIS driver for real mode)

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DOS-u-akbar!