Missing Network Drives in Common Dialog Boxes in Windows 3.1 (83609)
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Windows 3.1
- Microsoft Windows 3.11
This article was previously published under Q83609 SYMPTOMS
Network drives may not appear in some common dialog boxes under Windows 3.1
if one or more floppy disk drives are disconnected.
CAUSE
If a computer has a floppy controller card installed and the CMOS settings
are set, BIOS indicates the presence of one or more floppy disk drives;
however, if the floppy disk drives are not connected, the common dialog
boxes do not show network drives. You can see network drives when you try
to open a file from Word 2.0 for Windows or Microsoft Excel 3.0 for Windows
because these applications do not use the common dialog boxes. You cannot
see network drives when you try to open a file from Microsoft Windows
Notepad, Write, or any of the other Windows 3.1 programs because they all
use the common dialog boxes (COMMDLG.DLL).
NOTE: This affects all functions supported by the common dialog boxes:
File Open, File Save, Find, Replace, Color, Font, and Print.
WORKAROUND
You should be able to correct the problem by reconnecting the floppy disk
drives to the floppy controller card or by removing the floppy controller
card from the system and reconfiguring the CMOS settings for no floppy disk
drives.
The common dialog box dynamic link library (COMMDLG.DLL) relies on BIOS
information to determine the number of drives and their types. When a
remote boot system starts from drive A, the network treats the connection
as drive A. But if the actual computer BIOS doesn't report the existence of
a drive A (and it shouldn't since there is no physical drive), the common
dialog box DLL can't determine the number of drives.
If you are unable to correct the problem using the preceding methods, try
to work around this problem by using the SUBST command before starting
Windows. The following example creates a virtual drive A that points to the
USER directory on the network drive C:
Do not add or remove "substituted" drives while running Windows 3.1. If you
change the state of the substituted drives from MS-DOS Prompt within
Windows, Windows 3.1 will NOT work properly.
REFERENCES
For more information on the SUBST command, see page 571 of the version
5.0 "Microsoft MS-DOS User's Guide and Reference."
| Modification Type: | Major | Last Reviewed: | 10/10/2003 |
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| Keywords: | KB83609 |
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