The description indicates it's a Windows driver, not a DOS driver. When you
run the EXE that you downloaded, what happens?

Standard implementations of Win98 do not need AUTOEXEC.BAT
and CONFIG.SYS.  Rename these and boot without them unless
you want to do something non-standard.

Tweaks to run DOS programs under Win98 are discussed in
PROGRAMS.TXT and possibly other MS documentation.  E.g.
you can manipulate memory or load special drivers via / Properties
for each DOS EXE (without rebooting.)  In general, common functions
like audio are better handled via Win98 rather than DOS drivers.

[ NGs alt.win98,alt.comp.os.windows-98se removed from your multipost.]

If the computer has a sound card, please repost with the manufacturer and
model number.

Ben

On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 22:04:07 -0500, SlickRCBD <slickrcbd@hotmail.com>

Ah - this is where one realizes how much better things now are...  :-(

Release Title:  Audio: Analog Devices AD1881 Integrated Audio, Driver,
Windows 98, English, OptiPlex GX110, GX200, v. 5.00.2231, A02
Release Date:  05/01/2000
Description:  Analog Devices SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio
                   (AC97 AD1881) Driver, Version 5.00.2231, A02

OK, that skips a number of questions!

Sure, I'll get to that in a moment.

OK - the downside is, there's a lot to learn; the upside is, you have
a wide range of "unrelated" experience that makes learning easier!

"DOS sound drivers" is a trick question - in the DOS era, most games
interacted directly with the sound hardware, without DOS or drivers
playing any role at all.  Your hardware was either compatible, or it
wasn't - and that's what gave rise to Creative Sound Blaster's
dominance as a de facto standard, to be copied as closely as
litigation and patents would allow.

There are two basic sound functionalities that a DOS-capable sound
card (or integrated sound) should support in hardware.  The first is
FM music synthesis, with the old "Ad Lib" card as standard, and the
second is digitized sound, to Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro (and
Pro 2) and (rarely) Sound Blaster 16 levels of compatibility.

An old PC would or should have this capability.  You'd go to DOS mode,
and it would work, period.  If in Windows, you'd have to use Windows
drivers to get support there.

However, your PC is newer than that, from an age when Windows and
DirectX were becoming more important than DOS compatibility, and when
central processing power made it possible to use minimal sound
hardware with software drivers doing all the work.  That's what the
"AC97" item tells me; that this is more modern "soft" sound hardware
built to the AC97 spec to work in Windows, with DOS needs typically
being catered for via Windows drivers emulating the old hardware.

So you may need "DOS drivers" after all.  You may get sound support
for DOS games only while in Windows, or you may need to add DOS
drivers or TSRs (resident programs) to emulate the hardware in DOS
mode (where there are no Windows drivers in effect).

There is a LOT of detail on this stuff; I'll type what I can manage
for now, but be advised there may be more info you need as you go
along, so feel free to post back for that.

There are three ways to run DOS apps and games:

1)  In Windows 9x GUI, as a "console session"

When you do this, the DOS game gets Windows driver support that
provides a LOT of stuff...
 - XMS, EMS, DPMS memory management, including paging to HD
 - network, file share locking, disk caching, CD-ROM support
 - VESA SVGA, sound, mouse driver support
...so often the best way to run DOS games, is to run them within
Windows!  Out of 50 or so DOS games, the only ones I had to run in DOS
mode were: Indy 500, the Jill of the Jungle series, Lemmings, and...
that's about all I can think of right now.  It's not like Win3.yuk !

2)  In "Use with current..." DOS mode

You've discovered "Restart in DOS Mode" from the Shutdown menu, and
I'd use that as a single point of entry for any apps that need DOS
mode, rather than set individual .pif to run each one directly.  If
there are conflicting memory management etc. needs, I'd use [Menu] in
Config.sys via "Specify a new..." instead of "Use with current..."

"Restart in DOS Mode" uses "Exit to DOS.pif", which basically runs
Command.com in DOS Mode.  This is controlled via the Properties of the
.pif, and this defaults to "Use with current configuration" once you
select the option to "Run in DOS Mode".

In "Use with current...", the system exits Windows without booting,
and runs DOSStart.bat on the way to running your program (or
Command.com, in the case of "Exit to DOS.pif").  When the DOS session
is done, Exit will restart Windows without a reboot, unless some
resident DOS drivers or programs were loaded in the course of the DOS
mode session; if so, then it reboots into Windows.

What the DOS app sees, is whatever was loaded under the Windows boot,
plus whatever changes DOSStart.bat can add.  Generally, you don't want
to pollutre Windows with DOS drivers, so you'd typically have
HiMem.sys providing XMS and DOS=High, no Emm386.exe providing EMS or
DOS=UMB, no CD-ROM support, and no mouse.  You'd add mouse via
DOSStart.bat, but it's more difficult to add CD-ROM support, and
impossible to alter the memory management.

3)  In "Specify a new..." DOS mode

This is far more powerful than "Use with current...", because you can
set up your own private Config.sys and Autoexec.bat that will be
extracted from the .PIF and into effect, when the PC reboots to run
the "Specify..." DOS mode session.  DOSStart.bat is not processed in
this mode, and Exit reboots the system back into Windows.  

Unlike "Use with...", if you reboot while in the DOS mode session, the
same DOS mode session runs again, and will continue to do so on every
boot until you Exit the session.  This I see as desirable behaviour,
e.g. when troubleshooting sick PCs where you don't want Windows.

Because you have full cotrol over Config.sys (where memory management
is done and DOS drivers are loaded) and Autoexec.bat (where you can
automate things you'd normally do from the command line), you can get
exactly the settings you want without affecting Windows.  You can also
use a Config.sys [Menu] to select alternate setups at boot time.

When it comes to sound support, some modern sound chipsets require
Plug-n-Play initialization to work.  This can be done by BIOS (PnP OS
set to No) and is generally (re-)done by Windows.  It stays in effect
until the system is reset; sometimes it persists across soft restarts,
other times not.  What this means is that you may find you have "no
sound" in DOS mode if you use "Specify a new...", if the soft reset
clears the PnP state, or when powering directly up into DOS mode to
restart a "Specify..." session or via F8 menu, if the hard reset
clears PnP state that you need to use the sound.

If the above applies, then it may be worth trying "Use with
current..." after all, as that may preserve the PnP state as the
session doesn't restart the PC when it runs.

  I'm baaaack!