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Windows 3.11 - can’t change to uk keyboard layout

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First post, by urbancamo

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Hi

I’m running Windows 3.11 on an IBM 340 Thinkpad with a UK keyboard. Under MS-DOS the keyboard layout is fine.

The machine came with Windows 3.11 installed on a Compact Flash. When I try to to change the keyboard layout from US to UK it asks for Disk 2 to load kbduk.dll but doesn’t find the file (it is there as a compressed file).

If I copy a version of kbduk.dll into a directory it is happy but then I can’t get out of the dialog - it says I already have the driver installed and do I want to use the new one, but that proceeds in an endless loop and my only option is to cancel.

I also tried editing system.ini to set keyboard.dll=kbduk.dll but that doesn’t work either.

Thanks for any help, Mark

Reply 1 of 2, by urbancamo

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Ok so I had another idea that worked. I had all the windows disks in an archive folder on the hard drive. I copied disk 02 to a floppy disk and then tried switching to British again and it read the disk and installed the driver without any issues.

Reply 2 of 2, by arth_lud

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I think almost all Windows 3.1 installation files came packed — you would need to use the expand tool from the Win3.1 Disk 1. Use it like this:
expand.exe kbduk.dl_ kbduk.dll
This DLL file must be placed in the system folder.

There is an option to use primary and secondary keyboard layouts, but that requires an application called ruslat.exe — it was included with the Polish version of Windows 3.1. It helps switch between keyboard layouts.

However, you can only use two layouts: the primary and the secondary one.

Super cool that you managed to get it working!

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