Modifying the PROTOCOL.INI stub to install an NDIS driver for DECNet

Installing DECNet using the "Other NDIS driver" option from the setup menu requires two files:

* NDIS driver for the NIC adapter
* PROTOCOL.INI stub

During the installation, after selecting "Other NDIS driver" you will be prompted to specify the path and name of the NDIS driver. Then you will be prompted to enter the path of the PROTOCOL.INI file. Be sure to enter only the path (for example, A:\), not the file name. Setup will continue and then you will be prompted to insert the diskette that contains the PROTOCOL.INI file (A:\PROTOCOL.INI).

After inserting the diskette, you may see the following error:

It is not a valid stub. The stub should not contain any section names, i.e. names in bracket "[ ]". Press any key to continue.

You will be prompted again to insert a diskette with the correct PROTOCOL.INI file, and then the error message will appear again. This error is caused by the headers in the PROTOCOL.INI file.

To solve the problem, follow these steps:

1. Cancel the current setup operation.

2. Make a copy of the original PROTOCOL.INI file.

3. Modify the working copy by:

* Deleting everything except the section defining the adapter
* Deleting the square brackets and everything in between "[...]"

To understand what to delete, see the sample PROTOCOL.INI file below.

4. Restart the setup program. When prompted for the PROTOCOL.INI file, use the copy you just created, with the headers deleted.

Now you should be able to continue and a new PROTOCOL.INI file will be created. The new file will have the adapter information included and the NDIS driver will be added to the CONFIG.SYS file.

Here is a sample PROTOCOL.INI file, showing the modifications you need to make to allow it to work with DECNet:

; 3Com 3C501
[ETHERLINK] <------------ (delete this line)
DRIVERNAME = ELNK$
INTERRUPT = 3
IOADDRESS = 0x300
DMACHANNEL = 1

; 3Com 3C505
[ETHERLINK_PLUS] <------------ (delete this line)
DRIVERNAME = ELNKPL$
INTERRUPT = 3
IOADDRESS = 0x300
DMACHANNEL = 1

; 3Com 3C503, 3C503-TP, 3C503/16 & 3C503/16-TP
[ETHERLINKII] <------------ (delete this line)
DRIVERNAME = ELNKII$
INTERRUPT = 3
IOADDRESS = 0x300
XMITBUFS = 1

; 3Com 3C523, and 3C523-TP
[ETHERLINK/MC] <------------ (delete this line)
DRIVERNAME = ELNKMC$

; 3Com 3C507 and 3C507-TP
[ETHERLINK16] <------------ (delete this line)
DRIVERNAME = ELNK16$

; 3Com 3C509 and 3C509-TP
[ETHERLINKIII] <------------ (delete this line)
DRIVERNAME = ELNK3$