To get Win95 to leave hardware alone

Sometimes you might need to tell win95 to stop using a particular range of i/o addresses or an irq. Occasionally you might have to do this for an ethernet card or COM port. What follows are methods for doing so for first, the ethernet cards, and second, the COM ports.

Changes to hardware configuration are done in the Device Manager.

Reserving ETHERNET cards


Click on:
Start --> Settings --> Control Panel

Click the  icon.

You will see the "System Properties" window.

Click "Device Manager" found at the top of the window.

Click on "Computer."  You will get the Computer Properties window.

Reserving the IRQ


To reserve an IRQ, click on the Interrupt Request (IRQ) button,
then click on "Reserve Resources"

Click "Add."

You will get the "Edit Resource Setting" asking for "Value."
Enter the IRQ value you want to reserve, such as 11 for IRQ11.
Click "OK."

Reserving I/O addresses


To reserve an Input/Output address, click on the Input/output (I/O) 
button, then click  "Reserve Resources." 

Click "Add."

You will get the "Edit Resource Setting" asking for "Start value," and 
"End value." 

Enter the start value you want to reserve, such as 300 for an ethernet 
card set to 300H. Tab, then enter the end value, such as 31F for the last 
address you want to reserve.  

Click "OK."

Then click "OK." to exit.

To get Win95 to leave COM ports alone

If you are using a COM port to link to another computer you must tell Win95 to leave the COM port alone, otherwise it will assume control of the port and will kill the network. You must go through this cumbersome process: 

Click on:
Start --> Settings --> Control Panel

Click 

You will see the "System Properties" window.

Click "Device Manager" found at the top of the window.

Scroll down and Click "Ports (COM & LPT)" (appropriate COM port).  

On the "General" window, click OFF the tiny "Original 
Configuration (Current)" box found in the "Device usage" area. 
(There should not be a "X" in the box) 

Click the "Resources" button at the top of the window

You will see Resource Settings something like this:

        Input/Output Range  03F8-03FF
        Interrupt Request   04

...and underneath this click OFF "Use automatic settings."

You will see "Basic configuration 0" turn on.

Write down the Input/Output Range and Interrupt Request for later 
use.  

Click on "OK."

You should now be back at the "System Properties,"
"Device Manager" window.  Scroll the selections back to the top 
until you see the "Computer" line.  

Click the "Computer" line in the scroll box.

You will see the "Computer Properties" window.

If the "Interrupt request (IRQ)" button is not ON (has a dot in 
it), then click that ON. Then click "Reserve Resources." 

You will see the IRQ resource window. Click "Add."

You will see the "Edit Resource Setting" window, and it will be 
waiting for you to enter an IRQ value. With the keyboard enter the 
IRQ your COM port is using.  This is from the information you 
wrote down earlier.  

Then click "OK."

You will now be back to the IRQ resource window. Now click on the 
"Input/output (I/O)" button, then click "Add." 

You will see another "Edit Resource Setting" window, but this time 
it will be waiting for you to enter a start value and an end 
value. With the keyboard enter the range your COM port is using. 
This is from the information you wrote down earlier. An example 
would be COM1 starting at 3F8 and ending at 3FF, or COM2 starting 
at 2F8 and ending at 2FF.  

Click "OK."

You should now be back at the main "System Properties,"
"Device Manager" window.  

To be sure these changes "took,"

Scroll down and Click "Ports (COM & LPT)" (appropriate COM port).
(This COM port should have an "X" overtop its icon.)

Click "Resources."

The conflicting device list should say something like:

        Input/Output Range 02F8-02FF used by:
           System Reserved
        Interrupt Request 03 used by:
           System Reserved

This should do it.







IMPORTANT NOTES




Make sure these two items are clicked off:

   (Go to the "Communications Port (COM?) Properies."  You have 
   already been here by going to "Device Manager," and selecting 
   the appropriate COM port.) 

   1) "Original Configuration (Current)" found in the "General" 
      window 

   2) "Use automatic settings" in the "Resources" window.

It is very important that these be off even when the hardware is 
properly reserved elsewhere.  

ALSO,
If you are using COM3 or COM4, and if this COM port is using the 
same IRQ as COM1 or COM2, you must resolve this conflict by 
setting the hardware for another IRQ (if possible), or you must 
also disable the conflicting COM1 or COM2 port.  





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