i use multiple operating systems on my computer, the ones involved in this post are xp home, suse linux professional 9.2, and dos 6.22 with wfwg 3.11. in xp and suse i have network and sound. but heres where it gets complicated. in win3.11, i only get one or the other, depending on which OS was last booted. if i last used xp, 3.11 has fully working network but wont allow me to play sound. if i last used suse, 3.11 gives me fully working sound but gives me this message: "The following errors occurred while loading protocol number 0: error 58: the network has responded incorrectly. You may need to reconfigure the protocol using network setup". no network access is then possible from wfwg until i boot xp. ive looked this error up on google and it seems to be connected to using novell products. that explains the link with suse, but how do i get round it so i can have sound AND network in wfwg 3.11? i dont use any novell software with windows. this only affects windows, dos has sound all the time.

I think it's because of your Plug'n'play cards..whenever you boot into a P&P enabled OS (all except WfW311) The interrupts etc. are all set at that time..if there's a conflict between the soundcard and network card the P&P OS's will sort it out, but w31 won't..it looks as though the other 2 OS's arrange your interrupts differently from each other, which is why the net card and soundcard alternate... Basically, it's almost surely an IRQ conflict between the two cards, it's just that it only becomes obvious with a non-P&P OS (i.e. w31). One of the cards needs to have it's settings changed , perhaps by booting directly into dos and using software adjustments, or perhaps by reversing the assigned IRQ's in one of the PnP os's..i think you'll just have to fool with the interrupts until all works.. HTH

thanks for the advice, that does make sense. how do i go about changing IRQ's then? ive always stayed away from this stuff before, it scared me ;)

ok i just changed the slot that my sound card was in, that apparently did the trick cos i now have sound and network! thanks for the insight dominicus. do you have an any idea why there was a conflict? i have onboard network and a pci soundcard so why was there any conflict?

I think different PCI slots would variously be assigned different interrupts by windows, seeing as there's both master and slave type slots..but that's just a guess, however. Just glad it all works now, anyways...