I believe you can find suitable ndis2 drivers for that card here?

https://archive.org/details/xircomrealportcre … modempcmciacard

The zip contains an .iso, which contains folders useful to you.

You want the LAN folder, which contains ndis2 drivers.

As for your questions...

Win3.11 wfw has native tcpip. I am old and forgetful, but believe win3.1 does not and will need winsock.

Anything newer than win2000 does not know how to use NETBEUI. This includes modern NAS boxes and SAMBA on linux. You need NetBIOS over TCP/IP.

If you are using netbios over tcpip, and have smb1.0 functions enabled, then the windows 3.11 file manager will work. (So will the DOS client for microsoft networks, but it's a memory hog. You'll still need the ndis2 driver for that.)

wierd_w wrote on Today, 02:41:

Win3.11 wfw has native tcpip. I am old and forgetful, but believe win3.1 does not and will need winsock.

It does have an implementation by Microsoft but it has to be installed seperately

https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-tcp- … /tcpip-32-3-11b

wierd_w wrote on Today, 02:41:

You want the LAN folder, which contains ndis2 drivers.

the .inf in that folder is for win95, but hot damn! i was prompted to recheck my original cd and despite there being no mention of win3x (just dos) in the readme or anywhere else, i found an oemsetup.inf that worked! i installed the tcp/ip add-on protocol and now everything is starting to look more like win9x & up. i am considerably closer to my goal.

Anything newer than win2000 does not know how to use NETBEUI. This includes modern NAS boxes and SAMBA on linux. You need NetBIOS over TCP/IP.

Hi, I'm not 100% sure, but I think Windows XP can join some older networks by using the network protocols/stacks on Windows 2000 CD and/or copying some Windows 2000 files.
That's how you can make it use AppleTalk, for example.
NETBEUI was somewhere hidden on the Windows XP CD, too, I vaguely remember.

Edit: I didn't mean to disagree, by the way.
By using Windows 2000 system files, we basically have Windows 2000 at work.

Win3.11 wfw has native tcpip. I am old and forgetful, but believe win3.1 does not and will need winsock.

Yes, It's TCP/IP-32. There also was an older "TCP/IP", I vaguely remember.
We once discussed that over here: Windows for Workgroups TCP/IP Disk

Then there's also WfW 3.10, which still ran on 80286 PCs (as client only) and used older network drivers (NDIS 2 Real-Mode drivers).
It doesn't seem to have TCP/IP, however.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20 … 25-00/?p=102616

https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ftp.microso … -us/126/746.HTM

stanwebber wrote on Today, 04:58:

wierd_w wrote on Today, 02:41:

You want the LAN folder, which contains ndis2 drivers.

the .inf in that folder is for win95, but hot damn! i was prompted to recheck my original cd and despite there being no mention of win3x (just dos) in the readme or anywhere else, i found an oemsetup.inf that worked! i installed the tcp/ip add-on protocol and now everything is starting to look more like win9x & up. i am considerably closer to my goal.

I noted that the .iso I linked had the oemsetup.inf in the root of the disk, which seems unusual.

I'm glad your existing driver package has the needed files.

While the others are correct that you can shoehorn netbeui onto winxp, that's where that line in the sand ends. Linux SAMBA server does not like netbeui. You'll have better mileage / a better experience with the tcp/ip protocol installed, using netbios over tcp.

Back in the day when I ran WFW ... I only had a local network which had only Winblows and DOS machines on it.
I played around a bit with getting the TCP add-on working, but never got deep enough into it to get it actually working!

Winblows used SMB(ServerMessageBlock) protocol ... and that changed in later editions to "fix" security "holes" and MS's solution to making WFW able to work newer was not to update the protocol for WFW - you could configure newer systems to use the old (insecure) protocol!

So, I seriously doubt that they put effort into keeping TCP anywhere near "current" in WFW.

... another idea .... Win3.1 ran on top of DOS - so much so that you could pull out the network client and use it on a DOS only system (which is how I got my DOS systems to "talk" to my Winblows server) *1

How about NOT trying to install networking in Windows, and just using Brutmans MTCP on the DOS "host". For that matter, you wouldn't even need Wfw, could use (and might conflict less) Win3.1
This wouldn't give you "special" networking services in Windows or it's applications, but you could share network drives and access any services MTCP provides.

*1 --- extra information is always good - here's a note I made "back in the day" on using WFW.SMB client under DOS (who knows, maybe it will spark an idea)
If you want to use the DOS client without having the rest of windows hanging around, you can distill it down to a minimum set of files. That this provides a client only... you have to run WFW to share resources on your machine:

WFW files needed to access network from DOS:
NET.EXE NET.MSG NETH.MSG IFSHLP.SYS NDISHLP.SYS PROTMAN.DOS PROTMAN.EXE WFWSYS.CFG SYSTEM.INI PROTOCOL.INI

You also need the real mode driver for your network card, which will be listed in the netcard= entry of the [network.drivers] section of SYSTEM.INI. In my case, I use NE2000 compatibles, and SMC/WD 8013's, which use one of the following:
NE2000.DOS - NE2000 Compatible
SMCMAC.DOS - SMC/WD 8013

If you want to trim SYSTEM.INI, you need only the following sections:
[Network]
[network drivers]
[Password Lists]

Make sure the devdir= entry under [network drivers], and all of the entries under [Password Lists] point to the directory where you have setup these files.

You have to load IFSHLP.SYS in CONFIG.SYS at boot time, just as you do for WFW.

Once setup, you can use the NET command to start the network, make connections etc. Use /? for help: NET /? | MORE