Intel HD is based on AC97, but isn't backward-compatible. There might be special drivers which allow to use it in DOS, but unfortunately I don't have any information about them.

There's no reason for MSDOS setup to care about your sound card when every game uses its own drivers. This looks like some hacked up non-official thing that somebody has thrown together.

Many motherboards had AC97 audio devices, but only very few of them ever had DOS drivers for those devices, and certainly nothing that used "Intel HD Audio" ever had DOS drivers.

If this is for "testing purposes", why not try the different options and see for yourself?

jmarsh wrote on 2021-05-11, 14:01:

This looks like some hacked up non-official thing that somebody has thrown together.

Of course it's an unofficial setup for 7.1, there was no such thing.
I don't know why it asks for the soundcard and what it does with this information though, probably just setting some autoexec entries.

If Intel HD Audio isn't backwards compatible with AC97, well that's disappointing I guess. Though I'll admit I have no idea how sound works (i.e. I don't remember how any of that was setup in an old 486 my mom had xD),
I just assumed it was possible because my cousin had sound in the DOS version of NO$GBA, in a Compaq Deskpro, ran on a Pentium II with a dual-boot to a perfectly functional Windows XP. I don't remember any more details, other than both his PC and this laptop use similar BIOS; both come from the same codebase, menus have the same interface, I just got a slightly more updated version.
Yes, selecting an option adds settings into autoexec.bat, i.e. a %BLASTER% variable that some programs (such as Pinball Fantasies' SETSOUND) use to pre-select some options, not sure if any program outright goes to the letter without more option. Just thought a typical Sound Blaster setup needed an additional SYS file or something like that, I think I'm wrong here.

By the way, this MS-DOS 7.1's setup might be unofficial and it's not that much known I think (made by Chinese DOS Union), but IMO it has not only proven to be highly useful (for one it's already more featured than MS-DOS 6.22 + Supp disk), it also features some of the most inspiring batch files I ever read in my life, yet criminally underrated. In fact (and I hope not to look racist), compared to the coding quality from many chinese famicom games, this setup is actually quite stable, and quite polished, like a polar opposite. And I think that's quite interesting.

RetroMaster137 wrote on 2021-05-11, 19:09:

I don't remember any more details, other than both his PC and this laptop use similar BIOS; both come from the same codebase, menus have the same interface

I can't imagine what makes you think the BIOS from a Pentium II should "come from the same codebase" as whatever your laptop is (an i5, I guess?). If the menus look the same then that's just because the appearance of BIOS menus hasn't changed much in the last twenty or thirty years.

Just thought a typical Sound Blaster setup needed an additional SYS file or something like that, I think I'm wrong here.

Different sound hardware requires different drivers. You can see this for yourself by selecting different options in the setup.

it also features some of the most inspiring batch files I ever read in my life

It's nice that you find inspiration in batch files.