NDIS stands for Network Device Interface Specification. It's pretty complicated but, very basically, it's a "wrapper" that allows different NIC's to be accessed by a common API. If that's not confusing enough, go here for a more detailed description.
I usually only see this problem on W95 and W98(1st ed.) machines that are using SPX as a network protocol. MS implemented support for the Novell protocol very poorly (intentionally?) and this isn't extreemly uncommon. The best fix, I've found, is to pull all adapters and protocols and reload them. Verify what protocols are being used and only reapply what you need.
I recommend removing all protocols (Control Panel/Network - you might want to write down what settings are in place for TCP/IP,) then remove all network adapters in Device Manager. The NDIS Adapter usually only shows up if there's a problem with the driver, (I don't think I've ever seen a card show up as an NDIS Adapter and still work) the card is showing as NDIS Adapter instead of what it is supposed to be showing up as (ie: 3COM 3C90x, etc.) The OS likes to redetect the card as an NDIS adapter instead of whatever the card actually is when it is redetected - if that happens, there are several things to try:
I usually only see this problem on W95 and W98(1st ed.) machines that are using SPX as a network protocol. MS implemented support for the Novell protocol very poorly (intentionally?) and this isn't extreemly uncommon. The best fix, I've found, is to pull all adapters and protocols and reload them. Verify what protocols are being used and only reapply what you need.
I recommend removing all protocols (Control Panel/Network - you might want to write down what settings are in place for TCP/IP,) then remove all network adapters in Device Manager. The NDIS Adapter usually only shows up if there's a problem with the driver, (I don't think I've ever seen a card show up as an NDIS Adapter and still work) the card is showing as NDIS Adapter instead of what it is supposed to be showing up as (ie: 3COM 3C90x, etc.) The OS likes to redetect the card as an NDIS adapter instead of whatever the card actually is when it is redetected - if that happens, there are several things to try:
- The best solution is to change the network card - it's the only solution that works every time. Any card that is different than the old one will force the OS to start from scratch and eleminate the possibility it will redetect it as an NDIS adapter. Admittedly, this is easy for me since we have stacks of cards at work, but it's a pain. We usually try these other options first.
- Force a driver update using the driver software from the manufacturer. Update the driver, specify "Have Disk" and either use the software provided with the card or drivers downloaded from the manufacturer's website.
- After removing all traces of the current Networking setup in Device Manager and Network Properties, shut down, remove the card from the PC, boot all the way back up, shut down again, reinstall the card, boot up and let it be detected. This is the least likely to work, but if you don't have a spare card lying around and are having problems with the adapter redetecting as an NDIS Adapter, it's an option that works about 65-75% of the time.
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Good Luck!
edit: auto parse messed up the url that I had manually parsed.
