Maybe you have tried the following, but just in case :

(Assuming nothing else was installed or removed, both hardware and drivers, and unaltered autoexec and config files)

1. Run setup from within Windows directory?

2. Switch off machine. Try again after sometime?

3. Try running with loadfix?

4. A very unlikely but possiblly missed virus?

5. Loose RAM?

make sure you have plenty of conventional memory too

retro games 100 wrote:

I have changed Display several times. Perhaps I have exceeded a limit, and Windows 3.11 has become confused? I have tried rebooting, and also run scandisk to check for possible disk corruption. No joy. Any ideas please people?

I experienced the same. You can try to manually remove all entries left by former display installations out of the win.ini and system.ini files.
Sometimes it helps, sometimes not... if the problem persists, you have to delete and reinstall windows. Maybe there is another solution... but that's what I do from time to time with my "test-machine".

Solved! I did the following at the DOS c:\ prompt -

1) cd c:\windows\system
2) dir *.inf
3) identify all of my old/previous installation .inf files. These were oem0.inf, oem1.inf, and oem2.inf. Also, there were other "oem" .inf files too.
4) rename these identifed files to oem0.old, oem1.old, and oem2.old, etc.
5) cd .. (to return to the c:\windows folder)
6) setup.exe
7) attempt to change the video display. That worked! I can now change the video display.

My guess is that Windows 3.11 "ran out of room" to "hold on to" all of the different video cards and resolutions contained inside all of these .inf files.

Ah! I missed the clue "I have changed Display several times." 😀

Great solution. Will keep that in mind when I face a similar error.

I had the same problem several years ago already and found out that there is a known bug with the dos setup of win 3.1.
That is, if you have too many choices for graphics cards, the setup will ever crash with showing garbage on the screen or give a error message like you had.

The limit before this happens is rather low and the bug can already appear with a second additional driver.
(Especially cards with a lot of different modes fill up the list fast)

One day I deleted the setup.inf file found inside the c:\windows directory, thinking that that file was just another oem inf file. 😦

I know it's almost two months late but if I had seen this at the time I could have helped 😀
in my Dosbox guide I mention this as #1 problem in the troubleshooting section Windows 3.1x DOSBox Guide

- to change graphics drivers, I'd advice exiting Windows 3.x and then change directory to the Windows directory (cd windows) and run setup.exe.
But beware! Windows 3.x doesn't like it when you change drivers too often and then Setup crashes when you want to load other video drivers. In this case, got the Windows 3.x system directory (\windows\system) and get rid of the "oemX.inf" files (for example "oem0.inf" or "oem1.inf") you don't need.

😀

Thanks! Better late than never! 😉 😀