There's no native networking support in plain Windows 3.1.
You can only use the NIC via DOS...

IIRC Windows 3.1 (and 3.0) is networking aware, it just doesn't include a network stack - like with MS-DOS you've got to provide that yourself. Microsoft sold the Workgroup add-on for Windows. Novell had their NetWare client as well as Personal NetWare. Probably Banyan VINES and Artisoft LANtastic had some level of Windows 3.1 integration too though I've never actually seen either of those before.

The Workgroup Add-on for Windows is probably what you're after. Windows 3.1 + the workgroup add-on should be functionally equivalent to Windows for Workgroups 3.1:

Some things maybe worth reading: https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/115/Q115940/
https://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php?ti … _Archive/126746

probably easier to just upgrade to WFW 3.11

Grzyb wrote on 2022-05-16, 00:32:

There's no native networking support in plain Windows 3.1.
You can only use the NIC via DOS...

How would I go about doing that? Is there a packet driver for it for DOS?

I mostly just want to ftp to my LAN

Horun wrote on 2022-05-16, 03:18:

probably easier to just upgrade to WFW 3.11

I do have wfw3.11 on the computer currently. The problem is I can only find soundcard drivers for it for win3.1 😭 trying to get the soundcard and the nic working on the same operating system 🤣

I would have thought any sound drivers for 3.1 would have worked fine on 3.11. What sound card do you have?

If you want TCP/IP networking on DOS (including FTP), this is probably the best choice: https://www.brutman.com/mTCP/mTCP.html. There are network drive options for DOS too though they pretty much all want a Linux server of some kind to talk to for various reasons.

ThenZero wrote on 2022-05-16, 03:23:

Grzyb wrote on 2022-05-16, 00:32:

There's no native networking support in plain Windows 3.1.
You can only use the NIC via DOS...

How would I go about doing that? Is there a packet driver for it for DOS?

I mostly just want to ftp to my LAN

You need the following:
1. packet driver for your card - probably SMC_WD, from Crynwr
2. WINPKT, from Crynwr
3. Trumpet Winsock
4. some FTP client for Win16, WWW browsers should work as well

davidrg wrote on 2022-05-16, 03:39:

I would have thought any sound drivers for 3.1 would have worked fine on 3.11. What sound card do you have?

It's a soundblaster ct4170. I tried installing under wfw3.11 but got no sound. Under win3.1 it works perfectly.

ThenZero wrote on 2022-05-16, 04:07:

davidrg wrote on 2022-05-16, 03:39:

I would have thought any sound drivers for 3.1 would have worked fine on 3.11. What sound card do you have?

It's a soundblaster ct4170. I tried installing under wfw3.11 but got no sound. Under win3.1 it works perfectly.

Don't think I've ever had any difficulty getting similar age creative cards working under 3.11. You could try grabbing the latest drivers from Creative (click view all downloads at the bottom of the page for DOS/Windows 3.1x).

davidrg wrote on 2022-05-16, 04:20:

Don't think I've ever had any difficulty getting similar age creative cards working under 3.11. You could try grabbing the latest drivers from Creative (click view all downloads at the bottom of the page for DOS/Windows 3.1x).

I'll give that a shot, thanks

davidrg wrote on 2022-05-16, 04:20:

Don't think I've ever had any difficulty getting similar age creative cards working under 3.11. You could try grabbing the latest drivers from Creative (click view all downloads at the bottom of the page for DOS/Windows 3.1x).

Would you suggest starting with a fresh install or upgrading from the win3.1 install where the soundcard is already working?

As much of a pain as it is I'd do a fresh install just to be safe.

davidrg wrote on 2022-05-16, 19:44:

As much of a pain as it is I'd do a fresh install just to be safe.

Ok thank you that's what I'll try next

Grzyb wrote on 2022-05-16, 03:48:

You need the following: 1. packet driver for your card - probably SMC_WD, from Crynwr 2. WINPKT, from Crynwr 3. Trumpet Winsock […]
Show full quote

ThenZero wrote on 2022-05-16, 03:23:

Grzyb wrote on 2022-05-16, 00:32:

There's no native networking support in plain Windows 3.1.
You can only use the NIC via DOS...

How would I go about doing that? Is there a packet driver for it for DOS?

I mostly just want to ftp to my LAN

You need the following:
1. packet driver for your card - probably SMC_WD, from Crynwr
2. WINPKT, from Crynwr
3. Trumpet Winsock
4. some FTP client for Win16, WWW browsers should work as well

This. I just went through this process on my 286 running Windows 3.1 in standard mode.

The "internet.zip" located here:
http://www.k7tty.com/Utilities/Windows31/index.html

Should have everything you need except SMC_WD.COM that you can get from crnwyr

Ok I gave this a shot and the packet driver seems to work and shows the right Mac address and settings, winpkt looks good, tcpman lets me set up the IP address but...it won't ping the router. When I turn on the trace it shows the Mac address for destination and source as all zeros.. What does that mean??

Here's a picture of it in action.

It also says icmp transmit error.

First, make sure the packet driver matches your hardware, and is properly configured.
You can eg. try running mTCP with that driver.

Thank you to everyone! I at least now can select whether to use the network card or the sound card (but not both...more on that in a sec).

I never did get SMC_WD to work, but I went back to the WFW3.11 installation where the network card was working and found a folder called "Packet" that had "PKT8000.COM" in it and THAT worked great.

Turns out there is SOME kind of conflict between the network card and the sound card because once I initialize the packet driver, the sound card won't work in Windows again after that. Any idea why that might be?

Here are the current settings of everything that is installed:

XTIDE card, I/O 0x300, 0xcc00
Sound card, IRQ 5, I/O 0x220
Midi I/O 0x330
SMC StarCard IRQ 3, I/O 0x280, Addr 0xD400

Also I'm getting random application lock ups now if I have mTCP on and sound going. I also tried using Trumpet Winsock and sound at the same time, and that caused the whole system to lock up.

Very strange.

I've no idea what the SMC StarCard Plus is - there doesn't really seem to be much out there on the internet about it. Even the archived version of SMCs website from 1996 doesn't seem to mention it. It calls the 8003-based cards the "Elite 16 Ultra" or "EtherCard Plus". The few 8003-based cards I've got are all very old 8bit ISA cards so perhaps even in 1996 it was too old for SMC to bother writing about on their website.

I've got the Elite16/EtherCard Plus drivers archived here perhaps they may work better (check the README file for descriptions of the files). It may also be worth trying the newer drivers in ether.exe - the documentation claims the drivers for WFW at least support WD8003 cards.