i tried another exhaustive search for prior versions of bcmwl5.sys and combed thru several dozen more driver packages, but the earliest i could find was 3.10.27.0 from this ftp archive: https://www.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/~lester/dtm662/laptop/cbg54/

there's evidence that there were a dozen or more driver releases before this, but they may be absent from any surviving source on the internet because there was a security vulnerability identified in the earliest drivers.

i have since tried to get this pcmcia card working in nt4 & win98fe facing similar failure. i'm stuck with win2k/xp which is a bit beyond the requirements of my 75mhz pentium, 40mb ram target laptop (win2k will install, but there are major incompatibilities with the cirrus logic pcmcia slots).

Did you look in win98/me isos?

Wouldn't hurt to look for any"ultimate wifi boot floppy" that may exist. It'll be a dos driver if it exists, but it'll work.

Ndis2 aren't super hard to set up

Found this by looking for VEN_14E4&DEV_4320

https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php … CvvT8m&frmist=1

Importantly it says NDIS 3.
And uses a different sys: LSBCMNDS.SYS

myne wrote on 2025-07-23, 10:55:

Found this by looking for VEN_14E4&DEV_4320 […]
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Found this by looking for VEN_14E4&DEV_4320

https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php … CvvT8m&frmist=1

Importantly it says NDIS 3.
And uses a different sys: LSBCMNDS.SYS

yes, that's a good find and linksys actually went to the trouble of modifying lsbcmnds.sys, if only to update the description. every other vendor just renames or uses the generic bcmwl5.sys. unfortunately, this version just doesn't work under win9x like everything else. i was thinking maybe an earlier driver version would be the answer, but the answer has to lie elsewhere. how can the same .sys driver files work perfectly fine in win2k/xp (ALL OF THEM), but fail to even start the device in win9x? there's something i'm missing. it's also just as hopeless in linux.

Missing updates?