I'm at the proverbial brick wall with this 'puter!

[Dave]

I was using Firefox to try and access the net. But why would that have

anything to do with, say, a newsreader (Agent) accessing the net? Does
it also need a newer IE to be able to access?? I have IE 5.5 and IE 6
burned to a CD that I could use to upgrade 'em, but I thought by using
Firefox v1.5 that I would not even have to mess with IE!

Well you only need to mess with IE to get the initial connection. Most
computers I have tried to set up on a LAN (wired or wireless), there will be
no data packets flowing until after IE is fired up, even if all settings are
correct. That's one of the problems with having Microsoft so tightly
integrate everything into the OS. It seems that some setting gets tweaked
when you fire up IE the first time. -Dave

 

[johns]

Can't say .. but ping your dns server and see. If you
can get there that way, then your hardware is fine,
and you need better software.

johns

 

[David Maynard]

I had to upgrade IE constantly to get out at all .. on
about 1200 machines. All we ever got was "page
not found" until we did. I'm guessing he's installing
nearly the original version of IE, and Microsoft will
not let that version run on the net at all. It is not
compatible with modernday protocols. He can
test it with ping to his dns server. If that server
answers, then his system is OK, he just needs
to find a way to upgrade IE. I use to be able to
ftp the upgrades .. probably dead now.

johns

Well, I don't know what you installed on those 1200 machines but just to
make sure I pulled out an old test machine with a 200 meg disk and
installed original Win95 plus the "Internet Explorer Kit" that adds IE 3.0,
since the original Win95 didn't have IE.

First run tries to go to the Microsoft IE start page, for back then, and
Microsoft says it ain't there no more but it DOES work. It's a pain in the
patootie on many web sites because java is out of date and MSN is a
complete mess, or rather you get pretty much nothing but text, but Google
looks perfectly normal.

And so you know this isn't 'made up' look at the message headers. I don't
really know what they'll say for v3.0 "Internet Mail and News," because I
never looked, but that's what I'm posting from and surely it won't say
Outlook 6 something or Netscape.

Want me to test the I.E. 4 upgrade?

 

[Randella]

What are your IP address settings Seabat?

Last time I checked 255.255.255.255 was not a valid IP address or
subnet mask.

-Randy

 

[Jim]

I was using Firefox to try and access the net. But why would that
have anything to do with, say, a newsreader (Agent) accessing the
net? Does it also need a newer IE to be able to access?? I have IE
5.5 and IE 6 burned to a CD that I could use to upgrade 'em, but I
thought by using Firefox v1.5 that I would not even have to mess with
IE!

Grab a Knoppix disc and give it a try. Won't fix a thing but will help
confirm whether or not a hardware issue might be at fault.

 

[johns]

Want me to test the I.E. 4 upgrade?

Sounds like Dave knows more about it than I
was willing to pursue at the time. Indeed, it
could have been our lan protocol. I think the
upgrade I used was IE4+, but pretty quick
I talked everybody on my subnet into installing
W2k and be done with the hassle. Also, I
think I remember we could get to a few
web pages, so it probably was java ..
because many of the professors were
writing their own web pages, and getting
to them was mandatory. Early W98 just
would not do it, plus cdrw drives had not
been invented yet, and my only recourse
was ftp to Microsoft .. which I did. That
is why I recommend pinging your dns
server to see if your hardware is working.
If it is, you would do well to install W2k
at least.

johns

 

[Randella]

While your at it why not grab a hammer and beat it into submission, it
works for me!

-Randy

 

[The Seabat]

Update: I took all of your suggestions and tried them all and nothing
seemed to work. I finally completely wiped out all TCP/IP, removed the
dial-up modem completely and its drivers, removed the drivers to the
NIC card and then re-installed TCP/IP and the drivers for the NIC
card. Now in Networking it says I have the D-Link adapter but only the
TCP/IP is listed with nothing after it.

But it now works!!!! Not sure what was wrong or exactly what I did
that fixed it, but it works and I'm going to take it next door and
plug it in and check her email and then I'm going to get out of Dodge
and hope I never see this machine again!

I want to thank everyone for all their help. I'm sure one of the
suggestions was responsible for the success, but I couldn't say which
one of you it was. Sorry!

I think I'm going to go get myself a barley pop and call it a week!
Thanks again all.

 

[David Maynard]

Update: I took all of your suggestions and tried them all and nothing
seemed to work. I finally completely wiped out all TCP/IP, removed the
dial-up modem completely and its drivers, removed the drivers to the
NIC card and then re-installed TCP/IP and the drivers for the NIC
card. Now in Networking it says I have the D-Link adapter but only the
TCP/IP is listed with nothing after it.

It's normal to have only one TCP/IP entry when there's only one NIC as
there's no need to have 'separate' instances for setting the individual
TCP/IP parameters since there's but the one. But if you look in properties
for TCP/IP and the NIC the bindings will be there.

If you added a dial-up adapter back in you'd get the two TCP/IP-> entries
(so you'd know which one had the settings for what).

But it now works!!!! Not sure what was wrong or exactly what I did
that fixed it,

Ripping it all out and re-installing fresh in a valid order is what got it.

Piecemeal repair doesn't always work because Windows has a tendency to
'save' the old data (one reason why registry cleaners exist) and if the
exact same thing comes back, in a recognizable form, it can end up reusing
the old data so if you started with a mess you often end up with the same
mess again.

One time I had to go into the registry and manually clear out the
networking entries because, if memory serves (long time ago), an errant
firewall grabbed some things that confused Windows, and left them when it
was removed.

but it works and I'm going to take it next door and
plug it in and check her email and then I'm going to get out of Dodge
and hope I never see this machine again!

Hehe. I know the feeling.

I want to thank everyone for all their help. I'm sure one of the
suggestions was responsible for the success, but I couldn't say which
one of you it was. Sorry!

I think I'm going to go get myself a barley pop and call it a week!
Thanks again all.

Success always deserves a reward

 

[Randella]

Congrats on the fix and drink a barley pop for me!!!

-Randy