Intel Ethernet Connection Driver for Windows 98SE

[submix8c]

Follow-up: The Win9x OS may not recognize it even if loaded as I described/noted. You may *still* have "no joy".

 

edit - NM, as dencorso linked you to a potentially useful procedure.

Edited November 27, 2014 by submix8c

[Dave-H]

@dencorso

Thanks den, I looked at that thread, which seems to be mainly about graphics driver problems, but couldn't quite work out what had been done to get the DOS network driver to work. Sfor wasn't using an Intel driver of course.

 

The Intel DOS driver seems to consist of just three files, E1000.DOS, which I assume is the actual driver, and PROTOCOL.INI and OEMSETUP.INF.

The inf file does not seem to work in Windows as a normal inf file, I can't update the driver with it for instance as it just says there's no information about my hardware there.

I tried loading E1000.DOS in CONFIG.SYS, and all that happened was that the system just rebooted when CONFIG.SYS loaded, even when booting to DOS!

I had to go into XP to put the file back as it was before.

 

Also, there is already a protocol.ini file in my Windows folder, so I'm not quite sure what to do with the one that Intel supplied.

I don't want to end up with my existing plugin card network hardware not working!

 

There are a couple of readme files with the driver, but none that say anything about how to actually use it!

[Drugwash]

Which version of the driver did you get? In the very large one (83MB) v19.3 from Supermicro's site,  the DOS inf lists 1096 among the recognized device IDs. Please check your oemsetuf.inf (its own version is 6.09) and see if there is a 1096 listed in the [PCI] -> DEVICE_ID section. If it's not, you're probaly using the wrong driver. The actual driver file e1000.dos is 64592 bytes dated July 28, 2014.

[Dave-H]

1096 is there in the INF section OK.

E1000.DOS is indeed 64592 bytes, although it seems to be dated 14th March 2014.

I got the driver directly from Intel's site.

It was supposed to be the latest version (19.5), and the digital signature on the downloaded PRODOS.exe file is dated 28th October 2014.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Dave-H

[submix8c]

You're lacking a few things in the way of the setup.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH107167

Note the above "basics" is for "pure DOS" as my previous post indicated.

An example for Ghost (DOS) for a 3Com.

Config.sys

DEVICE=\net\protman.dos /I:\netDEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dosDEVICE=\net\EL90X.DOS

Autoexec.bat

\net\netbind.com

...assuming using "net" folder at the Root of the disk.

PROTMAN.DOS (and PROTMAN.EXE) are in "Windows" folder.

NETBIND.COM can be downloaded from MS. See Intel instructions for Ghost-v5.1 (but for a Xircom adapter):

http://www.intel.com/support/network/sb/CS-003300.htm

DIS_PKT.DOS (maybe) from here (and read it as well; DOS 6.22):

http://www.legroom.net/howto/msdos

PROTOCOL.INI is what *you* have to do, as well as you *own* DOS Driver file.

 

Again, the above is *stricltly* DOS, so... I have no clue what the deal is with the INF. I guess I could look into attempting to load an NDIS2 into Win98 (VM or real) to see how Sfor did it.

 

HTH

 

edit: I'm *assuming* you got that from here?

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=enu&ProdId=2776

Edited November 27, 2014 by submix8c

[Dave-H]

Thanks again submix8c!

That link is exactly where the driver I've got came from.

You've certainly given me a lot more food for thought, I'll come back when I've digested it all and tried a few things!

Cheers, Dave.

[pangoomis]

Shouldn't .DOS files should work with no problems, seeing as they are present in NET7.CAB setup cabinet?

[Sfor]

First of all there is no need to edit the autoexec.bat or config.sys files, when adding a ndis 16bit network driver in the Windows 98 OS. Windows will do all by itself. But to be more specific only autoexec.bat will get added a "C:\WINDOWS\net start" line. The rest will do the net command.

 

The way to get a NDIS 16bit driver added is: (I will have to translate from Polish Windows 98 to English, so there could be some differences. Well, it should be something like manually adding a network adapter.)

1) Open network neigbourhood parameters/settings?

2) Click Add

3) Select Nework Adapter/Card and click Add

4) In the first list (Manufacturer) it should be a second line from top, I think (recognized driver or something), in second list (Network Adapters) there should be just two entries a Ndis2 driver related entry and ODI related entry. Select the one for NDIS and click "From Disk" button.

5) Now is the time to show where is OEMSETUP.INF file located.

6) Then Windows should copy the drivers then modify it's config files by itself.

 

All the network drivers are loaded with the "C:\WINDOWS\net start" from autoexec.bat. The protman and other Ndis2 drivers will be loaded by the net command according to the PROTMAN.INI file bindings.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Sfor

[Dave-H]

Thanks so much Sfor, that's brilliant!

I had assumed that being an INF file it could be loaded through Device Manager, obviously not.

It hadn't occurred to me to use the Network setup dialogue instead!

I did what you said, and the driver apparently installed OK.

When I rebooted, the "Intel Gigabit Network Connection" had appeared in Device Manager, but was disabled.

I enabled it and rebooted again, and it stayed enabled.

It says it's working normally, but there are no driver files loaded for it.

It's not actually working of course.

If I go into the Network setup again the adapter is not listed.

No automatic modifications had been made to CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT.

I tried manually adding the NET START command to AUTOEXEC.BAT, and then just got an error message on boot saying "Error 2183: The default network services have already been started."

 

Any ideas?

Cheers and thanks again, Dave.

[Sfor]

Well, the driver files for a Ndis2 network adapter are mostly in DOS mode. The Device Manager can only show NDIS.VXD, as there are no more related 32 bit files.

 

In order to check if the 16 bit DOS mode drivers are present it is necesary to use "mem /c /p" command. There should be PROTMAN, NDISHLP and Ndis2 driver modules on the list.

 

If the binding went well, there should be an an information in the properties of the network adapter in device manager. Something like "this device is working correctly".

 

If some device drivers reported an error condition, an exclamation mark should appear and a message saying "it is not possible to load device driver" (or something like that).

 

That said, everything will work like I said if the bindings in the protocol.ini file are correct. If the bindings were not made properly, and there are no drivers listed there, they will not be loaded, and there will be no error message in the device manager.

 

Since the NET start command was missing, it is possible something went wrong with the protocol.ini file parsing. Also, all the network adapter settings are made through the protocol.ini file entries. It could be a MAC setting, hardware address, IRQ or link speed.

[Dave-H]

Thanks, I did the check and only PROTMAN was present, not the other two.

 

I did a bit more research and read something that said that I needed to have IFSHLP.SYS loaded in CONFIG.SYS, which it wasn't.

I think I probably removed it years ago to free up memory as it wasn't needed at the time.

I re-added DEVICE=IFSHLP.SYS in CONFIG.SYS, and tried the install again.

 

This time I got an entry in Device Manager called "Existing NDIS2 Driver" which said it couldn't load its driver with Error Code 2.

The entry for the Intel Adapter was also there as before, disabled.

Again enabling it worked, but there were no drivers loaded.

[dencorso]

Well, since you found out IFSHLP.SYS is required and now it's loaded from config.sys, I think you should remove both the "Existing NDIS2 Driver" and the Intel Adapter initial entry, in Safe Mode, and then reinstall the Intel adapter once more, using Sfor's instructions...

[Sfor]

In case of my Eee PC device manager there is a disabled entry with "PCI Ethernet Controller" that should stay disabled. This one is the detected by Windows PCI device. It is not used, since the NDIS2 driver is used instead. The NDIS2 driver entry says "Atheros L2 Fast Ethernet Adapter".

[Dave-H]

Well I removed everything and tried again.

This time I got two identical "Intel Gigabit Network Connections" in Device Manager, both disabled Code 22.

Enabling both simply disabled them again when rebooted, but enabling just one gave the same result as before "device working properly" but with no driver files.

One thing that is certain is that the E1000.DOS file is not being copied to the system.

The relevant entry in the INF file is -

 

[E1000]
devdir=1:E1000.dos
device=E1000.DOS,@devdir\E1000.DOS

 

So, where exactly should this "devdir" be?

"1:E1000.dos" doesn't mean anything to me, and searching on it hasn't helped!

[Sfor]

Here is how my .INF file looks like:

;ATHEROSL2  OEMSETUP.INF File:[netcard]ATHEROSL2="Atheros L2 Fast Ethernet Adapter",000,ndis,ethernet,real,ATHEROSL2,ATHEROSL2_nif[ATHEROSL2]devdir=?:l2.dosdevice=l2.dos,@devdir\l2.dos[ATHEROSL2_nif]drivername=ATL2$param=ETHERID,"Node Address",chars,13,"@000000000000",0x02