Win98 clients cannot copy/paste or drag/drop files from Win2k server

[eselk]

We've been running Win98 clients connected to a Windows 2000 server for
years, with no problems. Just a few days ago all of the Win98 systems
in the office can no longer copy/paste or drag/drop files from the
server. They can't copy to another location on the server, or to their
local hard-drives. We have another Windows 2000 server in the office,
and we can copy/paste from that one just fine. So something happend on
just this one Windows 2000 server. Whenever a Win98 user trys to
copy/paste or drag/drop a file from this one Windows 2000 server, it
just beeps (when they select Paste). They can copy the same file from
a DOS prompt. They can also rename the file, read the file (open it),
etc. Other WinXP and Win2k workstations can copy/paste from this
server, so it is just the Win98 clients which cannot copy/paste, and
only from this one Win2k server (other Win2k servers work fine, and
also a Novell server, and XP server, and a Windows 2003 server). Yes,
we've got a bunch of different servers and workstations in our office.
The Win98 clients can copy/paste from other servers, and also from the
local hard-drive or CD.

Really weird! Please help! The Win2k server does have
live/auto-update setup, so it could be related to a recent MS update.
I really don't want to go to the trouble of uninstalling the updates
though, to see if that fixes the problem.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

We've been running Win98 clients connected to a Windows 2000 server
for years, with no problems. Just a few days ago all of the Win98
systems in the office can no longer copy/paste or drag/drop files
from the server. They can't copy to another location on the server,
or to their local hard-drives. We have another Windows 2000 server
in the office, and we can copy/paste from that one just fine. So
something happend on just this one Windows 2000 server. Whenever a
Win98 user trys to copy/paste or drag/drop a file from this one
Windows 2000 server, it just beeps (when they select Paste). They
can copy the same file from a DOS prompt. They can also rename the
file, read the file (open it), etc. Other WinXP and Win2k
workstations can copy/paste from this server, so it is just the Win98
clients which cannot copy/paste, and only from this one Win2k server
(other Win2k servers work fine, and also a Novell server, and XP
server, and a Windows 2003 server). Yes, we've got a bunch of
different servers and workstations in our office. The Win98 clients
can copy/paste from other servers, and also from the local hard-drive
or CD.

Really weird! Please help! The Win2k server does have
live/auto-update setup, so it could be related to a recent MS update.
I really don't want to go to the trouble of uninstalling the updates
though, to see if that fixes the problem.

Do not enable auto update on servers - just download & notify. You need to
control your server updates carefully.

I'm not sure what to say about your Win98 issue specifically - but more info
might help someone help you (do you use AD? WINS? Are these mapped drives,
in Win98? etc). Do your server event logs report any errors?

I'm not a big fan of running Win9x-based operating systems on corporate
networks, and Win98 is out of support now - if at all possible, you ought to
be getting rid of those and replacing them with XP Pro boxen. But that's OT,
of course.

 

[eselk]

Do not enable auto update on servers - just download & notify. You need to
control your server updates carefully.

Yes, we do have the settings set to download only, but then of course
we do the updates when it is a good time. Maybe not as carefully as we
should though, but when most of them are labeled as possible security
issues, it is hard not to want to install them.

I'm not sure what to say about your Win98 issue specifically - but more info
might help someone help you (do you use AD? WINS? Are these mapped drives,
in Win98? etc). Do your server event logs report any errors?

No AD. Not sure about WINS, I don't think so. They are mapped drives,
but the same thing occurs if we use the UNC path. The only server
event log entries are for a failure to load IISADMIN, which I'm not
sure how to fix, but we don't run IIS on that server anyway, so unless
that may be causing this problem, it doesn't bother us. Server has
TCP/IP and NETBuei (sp?) installed, but I think most workstations only
have TCP/IP, so that is probably the protocol in most cases. We don't
have any real security settings on the server, pretty much everyone is
setup as an admin user, but the problem also occurs for non-admin
users. "Everyone" has full access to the shared drive.