Windows 98 networking question.

[teledude66]

I set up a home network last week and so far I have my laptop, and desktop ( both XP ) working on it fine. My son has our old 98 machine and it's talking to the network, but it's not seeing the internet. I'm thinking I have to type in some kind of address from the router or something, can anybody give me a quick tutorial on it?

I first bought the Linksys router and cards and I had some troubles with the router, I bought a Belkin, and with the Linksys cards 15 mins later I was surfing wirelessly. I'm guessing that the XP machines link to the network automatically.... thanks in advance.

[rdchapman]

The XP machines will use DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol) toi find thier way by thenselves as you thought. In 98, you will need to set the gateway address in the network properties to the routers internal IP address. This will most likely be That will allow it to see the way "out" to the net. If your router is using its default address, it will most likely be 192.168.0.1
Richard

[popthree]

are you using WEP ?

[teledude66]

Thanks for the help ...

No not using WEP yet, I know it's crazy, but trust me when I say I live out in the sticks, but any help along those lines is appreciated. I think thats where the linksys fried me. What happened was I tried to set it up and things got crazy so I put it away til the Christmas break, well I went back through and tried to reset the router, but it was no use, it wouldn't reset, I tried like 9 times. thanks again....

[popthree]

you may need to get into your routers configuration...this can be accomplished from a browser session on one of yoru already connected XP machines. in the browsers address line, put in the IP address of your router (your default gateway, ...ipconfig from a command prompt will give you this information...as someone else said, it may be 192.168.0.1...but that can vary) you'll be prompted for credentials, something that you may have manually set, or a default, like... admin with no password or admin with a password of admin perhaps.

perhaps your router is set so that it does not broadcast it's SSID. if that is the case, you will need to manually enter the SSID (basically, the name of your network). this is a value that is configurable on the router, or could be a default of something like 'LINKSYS', for example.

another possibility, is that you could be doing MAC address filtering, which would only allow certain network adapters access to the router. if that is the case, you will need to put your workstations MAC address in the router's allow list. the easiest way to do this is in the router configuration, just disable MAC address filtering, allow your machine to connect to the wireless network, then re-enable the MAC filtering option.

[Tremo]

I also have a Win98 box on the home network. Works just fine with DHCP. Just tell the thing in the TCP/IP properties box to use DHCP.

[popthree]

you say the 98 box is 'talking to the network' ...what have you done to validate this statement?

to get IP information on a win9x box, you'll need to use this command WINIPCFG rather than the aforementioned IPCONFIG (which you'd use on a NT/2kx box)

[teledude66]

Originally Posted by popthree

you say the 98 box is 'talking to the network' ...what have you done to validate this statement?

to get IP information on a win9x box, you'll need to use this command WINIPCFG rather than the aforementioned IPCONFIG (which you'd use on a NT/2kx box)

It gives a status type box, it shows the adapter, the router, and the Inet icon, it shows connecting waves between the adapt and router, and a red no connect symbol between the router and Inet. When I do the site survey it shows my network available, it actually shows packets recieving, and I'm showing a signal strength of between 63-67%, the router is probably 20 or more feet away and going through walls. I tried sevral things that everybody has suggested, but I think it's setup to the old router maybe, it did show a MAC address. So I uninstalled it, but we're doing some remodeling and I boxed up the disc and couldn't find it last night, but when I find it I'll reinstall it and see if that gets me in a better situation...thanks again for all the help, it's nice to have friendly, helpful people in a site like this.

[popthree]

a good test is to run the WINIPCFG command and see if you are getting an ip address. should look something like 192.168.0.5

then go the one of your xp machines and from the 'command prompt' run the IPCONFIG command. you'll get an answer of the xp machines ip address. the 98 and xp machines should have the same ip addresss up to the 4th octet.... the 192.168.0 will be the same, but replace a 5 with 6 or 7 ...something like that.

if everything is working right, you should be able to 'PING' from one set to the other. again, from the command prompt type this

assuming you are at the XP machine and the IP of the 98 machine is .5

PING 192.168.0.5 and you should get an answer that looks like this

Reply from 192.168.0.5: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.5: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.5: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

if you are unable to do the above, it may be necessary to delete your network adapter and all associated protocols and rebuild the stack.

it is possible that you are connected at the link layer, but are not getting an IP address for some reason. the ip stack is fragile with win9x systems...gets goofed/corrupted easily.

[neocaster]

+1 to popthree. Troubleshooting 9x or ME, I very frequently had to reinstall networking components AND card drivers. I occassionally had to resort to manually deleting driver files, then removing networking components, then reinstalling network components and drivers. This is why I ended up wth a habit of reinstalling 98 from scratch every 6 months. If the processor is adequate and you only need more memory, I suggest you upgrade the memory and install a more stable OS like Windows 2000.

[Chimp #6]

Microsoft support for the Windows 98 platform (98, 98se, Windows ME) ended in June 06. That means they will no longer supply patches and critical security updates.

I would upgrade that machine to XP now for the sake of security and easier networking.

Since the new MS OS (Vista) is comming out, the price for XP is droping.