The other day I tried to add an internal modem to my computer. Windows 95 automatically picked the modem up when I turned on my PC, however on that occasion I did not proceed with the installation and removed the modem. A few days later I wanted to install the modem so I went through the process again but this time Windows did not detect the modem. I then selected the ‘Add New Hardware’ option via the Control Panel but this returned a message ‘Detection Manager Error: Failed to hook ring 0 code… Did not find any new devices on your system’. I made several attempts to reinstall the modem but got the same response. I tried to manually load the modem but the brand name wasn’t on the list and so I could not proceed further. When I experienced a similar problem in the past, it was fixed by reinstalling Windows. Could you advise me on any alternatives please. My PC is a 586 with an early version of Windows 95.

Windows may not recognise your modem as it may have already installed the modem even though you cancelled the installation. You can check this by going to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Settings’ > ‘Control Panel’ and opening the ‘System’ control panel. In the ‘System Properties’ window that appears, click the ‘Device Manager’ tab. In the list of devices which appears, (and if it is possible) expand ‘Modems’ and see if any modem devices are listed. If there are, and you don’t have any other modems connected to your computer, delete the modems which the computer thinks are installed. Click ‘Ok’ to close the window and restart your computer. Windows should now recognise your modem. However, if there are no modem devices listed under ‘Modems’ or you couldn’t expand ‘Modems’ (which means there are no devices under it) then you may have to manually install your modem. You mentioned that the manufacturer of your modem wasn’t listed. This doesn’t matter as you can use a generic type modem driver. Go back into the list from where you can manually install your modem and click the ‘(Standard Modem Types)’ option under the ‘Manufactures’ heading. In the ‘Models’ list, select ‘Standard bps Modem’ (replacing with whatever is the speed of your modem). Click the ‘Next’ button and your modem will install with the generic modem drivers.