Missing Network Drives in Common Dialog Boxes in Windows 3.1

• Microsoft Windows operating system versions 3.1, 3.11

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:

   subst a: c:\user

REFERENCES

For more information on the SUBST command, see page 571 of the version 5.0 "Microsoft MS-DOS User's Guide and Reference."