F
FelixC
I just went through the painful process of getting a new WinXP machine
to network with my old Win98SE desktop and Win98SE laptop at home. I
thought I was pretty experienced at these things, but it still took me
hours to get it running. Maybe my experience and the things I learned
will help others, since I didn't see my problems mentioned in other
Usenet postings.
When I first set up the network using the default WinXP Wizard
settings, the Win98 laptop and the WinXP machine could see each other
and access files, but my Win98 desktop and the WinXP machine could not
see each other. The Win98 desktop and the Win98 laptop could still see
each other. In other words, one side of the triangle was missing
(unfortunately, the one I really needed).
I enabled the ADSL internet connection for the WinXP machine and
verified that it worked too. But nothing I could do would get the
WinXP machine and the Win98 desktop to see each other. I ended up
re-installing WinXP and trying again. This time, the internet
connection still worked, but now the WinXP machine couldn't see either
of the others. In fact worse than that: when I ran the Local Network
Wizard it would always fail at the end with the very helpful message
"An error has
occurred. Check your network settings." (Thanks Microsoft - nice to
see that nothing changes.) Internet access across the network still
worked.
I eventually realized that part of the problem was due to NETBEUI.
WinXP doesn't support the old NETBEUI protocol by default (although
you can still install it manually when you want). It always uses
TCP/IP. My Win98 machines have both TCP/IP *and* NETBEUI installed,
and were defaulting to NETBEUI to communicate with each other.
Therefore it was possible for the two Win98 machines to be
communicating over the LAN just fine, but not with the WinXP machine.
That's the explanation for some of the symptoms I saw.
My ADSL internet connection supports 2 independent IP addresses, so I
can only have 2 of the 3 machines enabled for internet access via the
hub (not a router) at once. The one machine out of the three which did
not have internet access enabled was of course failing to get a valid
dynamic IP address via DHCP. When that was one of the Win98 machines,
it could still communicate with the other Win98 machine using NETBEUI,
but not with the WinXP machine using TCP/IP. (Strangely though, the
WinXP machine appeared to initially get a dynamic IP address using
DHCP even before ADSL access was enabled. Still don't know how that
happened!)
None of this was the explanation for my problem, of course, just some
of the confusion factor in various tests.
Next problem came from the firewalls. I naturally tried using Ping to
check that the machines with valid IP addresses could see each other,
only to discover that both the WinXP default firewall and ZoneAlarm on
the Win98SE desktop were blocking Ping. I experimented with allowing
Ping specifically to bypass the firewalls, and also with adding each
computer's IP address to the "Local LAN zone" of the other, but in the
end I had to turn off both firewalls completely to get Ping talking.
The computers still didn't see each other, but now I was able to get
the WinXP machine to admit that the local workgroup was working again
(not sure exactly why!). I then tried using Find Computer instead of
waiting for them to
see each other, something which often works for no apparent reason. In
this case, it finally did work, and the the WinXP computer and the
Win98SE desktop could finally access each other. Not sure why this
worked suddenly. I'm sure I tried Find Computer much earlier when both
computers had valid IP addresses and both firewalls were turned off -
but who knows? There are so many variables that maybe I missed one.
I saved the nework shortcuts to each other on both machines, then
turned the firewall back on. This cut off contact again, so I
experiment with settings until I found that it would work if each
machine's IP address was in the Local Zone (for ZoneAlarm) or LAN zone
(for WinXP) of the other, and the Local security setting was Medium in
ZoneAlarm. For some reason the later version of ZoneAlarm on the
laptop (2.6) seemed to have different characteristics from the older
version 2.1 on the desktop - with the same settings as the desktop, it
did not block access when the desktop version did (another confusing
factor).
So in summary:
1. Make sure that both machines have valid IP addresses, either from
your router, from your ISP, or static values set manually if you do
not have an internet connection.
2. If one machine is running Win98, make sure that TCP/IP is working
on that machine and File Sharing over TCP/IP is enabled, because it
can't talk to WinXP using NETBEUI (unless you go to some trouble to
install NETBEUI manually on WinXP)
3. Turn off firewalls on both machines completely while you are trying
to establish contact initially. After establishing contact, you can
experiment with selectively turning the firewalls back on (try adding
each machine to the other's Local/LAN zone). Using Ping to check if
the two machines can talk using TCP/IP, because nothing else is going
to work until that works.
4. Try using the Find Computer function to shortcut waiting for the
two machines to see each other.
5. Don't waste your time looking for help from Microsoft. I've never
once seen a single useful error message from Microsoft's neworking
software, or a single useful point of advice from Microsoft's
Troubleshooting guide.
Hope this helps someone.
to network with my old Win98SE desktop and Win98SE laptop at home. I
thought I was pretty experienced at these things, but it still took me
hours to get it running. Maybe my experience and the things I learned
will help others, since I didn't see my problems mentioned in other
Usenet postings.
When I first set up the network using the default WinXP Wizard
settings, the Win98 laptop and the WinXP machine could see each other
and access files, but my Win98 desktop and the WinXP machine could not
see each other. The Win98 desktop and the Win98 laptop could still see
each other. In other words, one side of the triangle was missing
(unfortunately, the one I really needed).
I enabled the ADSL internet connection for the WinXP machine and
verified that it worked too. But nothing I could do would get the
WinXP machine and the Win98 desktop to see each other. I ended up
re-installing WinXP and trying again. This time, the internet
connection still worked, but now the WinXP machine couldn't see either
of the others. In fact worse than that: when I ran the Local Network
Wizard it would always fail at the end with the very helpful message
"An error has
occurred. Check your network settings." (Thanks Microsoft - nice to
see that nothing changes.) Internet access across the network still
worked.
I eventually realized that part of the problem was due to NETBEUI.
WinXP doesn't support the old NETBEUI protocol by default (although
you can still install it manually when you want). It always uses
TCP/IP. My Win98 machines have both TCP/IP *and* NETBEUI installed,
and were defaulting to NETBEUI to communicate with each other.
Therefore it was possible for the two Win98 machines to be
communicating over the LAN just fine, but not with the WinXP machine.
That's the explanation for some of the symptoms I saw.
My ADSL internet connection supports 2 independent IP addresses, so I
can only have 2 of the 3 machines enabled for internet access via the
hub (not a router) at once. The one machine out of the three which did
not have internet access enabled was of course failing to get a valid
dynamic IP address via DHCP. When that was one of the Win98 machines,
it could still communicate with the other Win98 machine using NETBEUI,
but not with the WinXP machine using TCP/IP. (Strangely though, the
WinXP machine appeared to initially get a dynamic IP address using
DHCP even before ADSL access was enabled. Still don't know how that
happened!)
None of this was the explanation for my problem, of course, just some
of the confusion factor in various tests.
Next problem came from the firewalls. I naturally tried using Ping to
check that the machines with valid IP addresses could see each other,
only to discover that both the WinXP default firewall and ZoneAlarm on
the Win98SE desktop were blocking Ping. I experimented with allowing
Ping specifically to bypass the firewalls, and also with adding each
computer's IP address to the "Local LAN zone" of the other, but in the
end I had to turn off both firewalls completely to get Ping talking.
The computers still didn't see each other, but now I was able to get
the WinXP machine to admit that the local workgroup was working again
(not sure exactly why!). I then tried using Find Computer instead of
waiting for them to
see each other, something which often works for no apparent reason. In
this case, it finally did work, and the the WinXP computer and the
Win98SE desktop could finally access each other. Not sure why this
worked suddenly. I'm sure I tried Find Computer much earlier when both
computers had valid IP addresses and both firewalls were turned off -
but who knows? There are so many variables that maybe I missed one.
I saved the nework shortcuts to each other on both machines, then
turned the firewall back on. This cut off contact again, so I
experiment with settings until I found that it would work if each
machine's IP address was in the Local Zone (for ZoneAlarm) or LAN zone
(for WinXP) of the other, and the Local security setting was Medium in
ZoneAlarm. For some reason the later version of ZoneAlarm on the
laptop (2.6) seemed to have different characteristics from the older
version 2.1 on the desktop - with the same settings as the desktop, it
did not block access when the desktop version did (another confusing
factor).
So in summary:
1. Make sure that both machines have valid IP addresses, either from
your router, from your ISP, or static values set manually if you do
not have an internet connection.
2. If one machine is running Win98, make sure that TCP/IP is working
on that machine and File Sharing over TCP/IP is enabled, because it
can't talk to WinXP using NETBEUI (unless you go to some trouble to
install NETBEUI manually on WinXP)
3. Turn off firewalls on both machines completely while you are trying
to establish contact initially. After establishing contact, you can
experiment with selectively turning the firewalls back on (try adding
each machine to the other's Local/LAN zone). Using Ping to check if
the two machines can talk using TCP/IP, because nothing else is going
to work until that works.
4. Try using the Find Computer function to shortcut waiting for the
two machines to see each other.
5. Don't waste your time looking for help from Microsoft. I've never
once seen a single useful error message from Microsoft's neworking
software, or a single useful point of advice from Microsoft's
Troubleshooting guide.
Hope this helps someone.