Have you tried mTCP for DOS? I've just started using it after having read about it on Vogons, and it's fantastic. I've put an old 286 on my home network with minimal hassle (the hardest part was finding the correct packet driver for my Etherlink III card).

Microsoft Network Client 3.0 can access samba under DOS : http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/doscltcp.htm

also for Windows 3.11, you need the 32 bit TCP/IP network stack to do the same thing as MS Network Client 3.0
Windows is probably slow because I think it keeps trying to connect and fails everytime thus making slowdowns

MMaximus wrote:

Have you tried mTCP for DOS? I've just started using it after having read about it on Vogons, and it's fantastic. I've put an old 286 on my home network with minimal hassle (the hardest part was finding the correct packet driver for my Etherlink III card).

Second that, both in the simplicity of mTCP and the digging for the packet driver.

This site has a few relevant-looking downloads:
http://ohlandl.ipv7.net/NIC/3com_529.html
3C5X9PD.COM on the Etherdisk 6.1 #2 looks like what you need.

If this works you can start trying to figure out what's up with Windows, but with a 386SX I'd just stick to DOS or OS/2 2.0 tbh.

Sadly you can't connect to network shares with mtcp. That would be awesome if that was possible. FTP works, but for me that's annoying because I have a samba share on my rpi that works for every retro computer I have EXCEPT for my XT because mTCP doesn't support that so I would need to make an ftp server just for that computer ...

Deksor wrote:

Microsoft Network Client 3.0 can access samba under DOS : http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/doscltcp.htm

also for Windows 3.11, you need the 32 bit TCP/IP network stack to do the same thing as MS Network Client 3.0
Windows is probably slow because I think it keeps trying to connect and fails everytime thus making slowdowns

I didn't see any sort of tcp/ip options when I was messing around with the network client, maybe I need to try this version.

Your hypothesis on the connection failure sounds very plausible.

Thanks for the useful info guys I will report back.

Deksor wrote:

Sadly you can't connect to network shares with mtcp. That would be awesome if that was possible. FTP works, but for me that's annoying because I have a samba share on my rpi that works for every retro computer I have EXCEPT for my XT because mTCP doesn't support that so I would need to make an ftp server just for that computer ...

IMHO Samba is a big inefficient PITA on any system. But that's the point: take it one step at a time. You don't run before you can crawl. In this case we have big pile of uncertainties. Instead of taking the biggest, most baroque networking stack available and wondering why it doesn't work (but does slow the system down to a crawl), start with the smallest, simplest one. If that works, you know that the hardware itself is functional and that the network connection is behaving. With that knowledge you can move on to the big stack knowing that you're just dealing with a software/configuration option.

I assume you want to connect your new(?) PC to your exisiting Windows network. Actually it is quite straight forward, and for such a machine, WFW 3.11 is the way to go in my opinion. Being sluggish when compared to normal Windows 3.1 probably means something is wrong (repetive connection failures like somebody else also mentioned? Problematic NIC, cables, etc?). Normally, any machine that can run Windows 3.1, would run WFW 3.11 at similar speeds.

What you need to do first is finding the MS TCP/IP pack and installing it: Microsoft TCP/IP-32 3.11b at WinWorldPC

Then, you need to make some arrangements regarding TCP/IP protocol. I don't have my WFW 3.11 box near me now, so I cannot give you detailed explanations about the setup (you can PM me for further instructions if you want them later) but you need to setup two things: "Default Gateway" and "DNS". You need to enter your routers IP for both of them. You also need to enable DHCP (or give your PC a static IP which is different than any other PC or equipment in your network).

Thats all! 🤣

I don't remeber a single think about "connecting to a domain". but I assume your Windows network is peer to peer (no dedicated domain controller server), so be sure that the all the PCs you need to connect is in the same workgroup.

mtcp does indeed work! Thanks again for all the help. I will update shortly!

Great! Then the hw and network layers 1-4 are all OK so you just need to figure out settings for your smb client.

And then keep using mTCP anyway, because it is superior software. ;-0

Trying to get WFW311 going again. This time I selected a custom adapter and pointed it at my network card's drivers directory. That seemed to work, however, when I try and start windows I get:

"Insufficient memory or address space to initialize Windows in 386 enhanced mode"

I feel like I just need some proper config.sys/autoexec.bat settings. Right now I have:

config.sys:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE
DOS=HIGH
FILES=30
LASTDRIVE=Z
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
STACKS=9,256

autoexec.bat:
C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRX.EXE /X
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\DOS;c:\mtcp
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
SET MTCPCFG=mtcp.cfg
c:\dos\doskey.com
3c5x9pd.com 0x60
c:\mtcp\dhcp.exe
c:\WINDOWS\net start

All my MTCP works with this setup but Windows won't load...

I'm not sure if you can have mtcp and windows using the nic at the same time

Deksor wrote:

I'm not sure if you can have mtcp and windows using the nic at the same time

I thought that might be the case but I've tried 'rem'ing a bunch of items in both files and nothing helped.

cezar wrote:

Deksor wrote:

I'm not sure if you can have mtcp and windows using the nic at the same time

I thought that might be the case but I've tried 'rem'ing a bunch of items in both files and nothing helped.

By "Windows won't load" you mean splash screen (Windows 3.11 start up logo) is present but it stops there? Be sure that your NIC is connected to a switch, router, etc. A network enabled WFW 3.11 will not start if the network cable is unplugged (according to my experience). And even then, give it some time (like a couple of minutes).

Deksor wrote:

By "Windows won't load" you mean splash screen (Windows 3.11 start up logo) is present but it stops there?

Right.

Deksor wrote:

Be sure that your NIC is connected to a switch, router, etc.

It is.

if you run win /n it should bypass networking, so if you boot into windows. its most likely not picking up a DHCP address.
This will most likely be driver issue as mtcp works so we know the physical network is good.

I'm also unsure if you can have mtcp running at the same time but I'm guessing not with the c:\mtcp\dhcp.exe line.
Educated guess is windows is trying to give the network card an IP address not realising it already has one.

Personally I have just enough networking in dos setup for gaming, and leave the rest of networking to Win3x to avoid internal fighting.

Technically speaking, it's not mTCP running at the same time ... it's the packet driver that remains resident and can interfere with other programs using the network card.

If you want to switch between packet driver based applications like mTCP or Windows just unload the packet driver when you are going to use Windows. Most packet drivers support a /u switch to unload. (Xircom packet drivers are ill-behaved and do not, so you have to reboot to get rid of the bugger.)