This section provides some technical notes for specific network adapters and briefly describes changes to network adapter driver support as compared to Windows for Workgroups 3.11.
NDIS 3.0 network adapter drivers that worked with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 do not work under Windows 95. You must use an NDIS 2.x real-mode driver, an ODI driver, or an updated NDIS 3.1 protected-mode driver for the network adapter. The driver must have a Windows 95 INF file. Many real-mode drivers, updated protected-mode drivers, and supporting INF files are included with Windows 95.
If the network adapter does not appear in the list of adapters in the Network option in Control Panel, you can use information for a Windows 3.x adapter to install it under Windows 95. If you have an OEMSETUP.INF file created for an earlier version of Windows, you can use that INF file by clicking Have Disk in the Select Network Adapter dialog box to install that older network adapter driver.
The major reason that the INF file format has changed for all types of Windows 95 network adapter drivers is that INF files are now used to add information to the Windows 95 Registry. The INF files created for earlier versions of Windows do not contain this kind of information.