I just installed it a few hours ago from the disks mentioned on this messageboard..thanks. Now I have entered the wonderfull world of Win 3.1 and am going to be here a lot to get the fullest potential out of it. First of all let me say that it is really fast, I was amazed at the Compaq Prolinea 486dx 66mhz , 12MB ram performance. It seems almost the same as my p3 800mhz, Win XP. I also like the simplicity of it. Ok, now for the business at hand. This computer is not for me but for a niece of mine who is 7 yrs old. I would have preffered to have Win 95, but this is better than dos which confused the hell out of me . My first question is concerning Drivers. I noticed that I am not getting any sounds . I opened the media player and it tells me that I need to go to Control panel and to do something called "MCI DEVICE DRIVERS", no clue what this means or what to do. I definetley want audio. I want to be able to play all types of sound files as well as sounds from games and appps. Help me out guys, need all the latest ones. Next thing is concerning my CD-ROM drive, it is not there. I see the A: and C: drives,but none for my CD in "File Manager" Need your help figuring this out. Third thing is INTERNET ACCESS, can I actually do it with 3.1? If so , I need your help to figure out the whole modem, browser and Ip info. Lastly, I need to know which are the best or "must have" programs to have for Win 3.1.( ie. word processing etc.) Also the main user of this computer, at least until I get it all revved up and going is going to be a 7yr old, so I am going to need the best learning and fun applications that are available out there. I would appreciate any information you guys can give me. Thanks

First thing you need to do is open the box and see how the CDROM is organised. Is it attached to a port on the soundcard ? Or is it attached to a IDE port on a controller card ? Or is it attached directly to a IDE port on the motherboard ? Then look at the sound card and find a make and model number. Same for the cdrom - look at the label on the top to find a make and model. You will need all this information to track down the appropriate drivers. Have fun - and post back with what you can ascertain...Krystyna

Edy, To get sound, you need to determine what soundcard, if any is in the computer. You can get play some wav files, with limits, without a sound card just using the PC speaker but it isn't very good sound and will only play wav files for a matter of seconds. So if you have a sound card you will probably have to open the computer and look at it to get the model number. Opening the case usually involves unscrewing about 5 screws along the back of the case, then sliding the cover off. You may even want to pull the sound card out of the slot to be able to see it. Make sure you touch the metal frame of the case to discharge static electricity before fooling around inside. Write down the brand and model number. If these aren't apparent, write down the info from the largest chip on the sound card. Since the computer is open, check to see if the CD-ROM drive is hooked up to the sound card or a special controller card. The CD-ROM drive will hooked up with a ribbon cable about 2 inches wide. It could be hooked up in a number of ways; 1) connected to the sound card, 2) connected to a dedicated CD-ROM controller card 3) connected on the same ribbon cable as your hard drive. 4) connected straight to the motherboard on a separate IDE channel If you already have the computer open, you may want to get the make and model number of your CD-ROM drive. Since you already have the computer laying around in bits you might as well get the information for your video card too. Most likely there won't be any obvious make and model number on the video card so write the info down off the largest chip on the video card. You will want to install drivers for this also so you can get more than 16 colors. If this computer already has a modem, get the info also. So put the computer back together. You will need to get drivers for all the components now. I usually try www.driverguide.com first. Register there for a username and password (free). Forget the computer's message about MCI drivers for the most part. If you have a sound card and get the drivers and install them, you will probably only need to install the MCI drivers for the CD-ROM drive to be able to listen to audio CDs. The sound card driver installation should install all the needed software to get sound. If you don't have a sound card, I would suggest buying one. I find used ISA sound cards in a local shop for $5 US. You could also find used cards on ebay and other online auction sites. If your CD-ROM drive is attached to your sound card and you find the sound card drivers for win 3.1, You may get asked during installation if a CD-ROM drive is attached and if so, you want to install it now. If this is not the case you will want to look for the CD-ROM drive DOS drivers. The installation usually involves finding the right driver, downloading the file to a temporary folder, double clicking it to expand all the files, then copying them to a floppy disk.. After that you can normally go into DOS, type A:install and the installation starts up. The installation program normally installs files in the right place and edits the needed system files. Windows 3.1 driver installations are similar, except that usually you will find a file called SETUP.exe for windows 3.1, which you can double click to start. For a browser try Internet Explorer 3.03. Try Lightspeed's reference page and download the full version service pack 1 (with dialer) for 4 floppy disks. http://www.geocities.com/yblightforme/lightspeed.html At the same site you will also find a link for Winzip 6.3 and the freeware antivirus F-PROT. That should be enough to get you started. Good Luck

Internet on one floppy for win3.1/dos. Go here and download arachne 1.70 http://home.arachne.cz/ When you quit windows and return to a dos prompt, that is where you will run Arachne, which can surf the web and get email fairly well. If you use another machine to download it, to a floppy, place the floppy in your a:\ drive on the Windows 3.1 machine, and then at the C:\> prompt, a: (enter). then type archn170 (enter) and arachne will be installed. This is not as easy to work with as Internet Explorer, but will work on one floppy. Arachne is not, however, running in Windows 3.1, but I do use it to quickly get a machine up and surfing in record time. You might reserve this item for another machine that you set up DOS/Windows on rather than the one for the 7 year old. Arachne takes a little getting used to. I got my daughter going years ago on an ADAM machine, and now she is in Medical School, and is a wiz on the computer, using a 3 in 1 printer to produce papers for class.

Hi EDY, You have lots of questions, so a good site to visit when you have lots of question about win31 is: "Getting Windows 3.1x ready for the present and (near) future ..." http://home.t-online.de/home/jgrossklass/w31mm_en.htm Visitors to this site have varying opinions about internet access. The setup I use is Trumpet Winsock 2.0b (dialer and TCP manager) and Netscape Communicator 4.04. There are later versions of both these programs for the Win31 platform, but these versions seem to be the most stable for me. 12Mb is a little low for Communicator; 16 would be better. If you install Netscape, disable Cascading Style Sheets (Edit/Preferences menu). Web pages written with MS Front Page often crash Netscape 4.0x when CSS is enabled. There was a ton of commercial software written for Windows 3.1 and you can probably find most of on the Web if you hunt for it. Your niece might enjoy the old entertainment packs (there were 4). I've seen links posted here in the past. If you want to filter out advertising on the internet, and maybe some other things you don't want your niece to see, try a proxy auto-configuration file: http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/ A must have for Windows 3.1 is the update patches: 1) file manager y2k fix 2) 3.11 kernel update 3) OLE 2.0 I don't have the links handy, but I will post back with them after I dig them up. In the meantime if someone else has them . . . An Intellimouse wheel mouse will work in win 3.1! -but you need a third-party mouse driver which is no longer available on the internet. If you niece's system will have a wheel mouse, I can mail you the driver. Post back if you want it. Hope this gets you started. Ken.

O.K., I'm back with those links and they're all in one handy location: 1) file manager y2k fix: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/W31FILUP.EXE 2) 3.11 kernel update: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/peropsys/windows/public/WW0981.EXE 3) OLE 2.0: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/PW1118.EXE The last one is Win32s v.1.30c which has the OLE files plus will give Windows 3.1 some 32-bit functionality. Ken.

You had plenty of responses for your other problems, so let's concentrate on your getting on the internet problem. You should get IE3sp1 on that system. It's way faster than arachne, and comes along with it's own, self installing, dialer program. If you have an external modem, or an internal hardware modem (meaning a modem with it's own controler chip), IE should detect it and configure it for using the internet on it's own. You'll be ask a few simple questions, like your ISP's server number, user name and pass. Then off you go. There is also a lot more stuff you might like to check out on my page, which is dedicated to Win 3.1 stuff (mainly). Have a good time with Win 3.1, it has a lot of possibilities for an older OS