DUN stops win95/98 networking 1

[DougHalstead]

I have a 2 PC network: one running win95 the other win98. Each PC can ping its own IP address and the IP address of each other - everything is fine. However when the win98 machine dials up the IPS, the PC's can't ping each other (though they can still ping their own IP).

Any help appreciated, thanks

Doug

 

[edemiere]

Hi there. I had a similar problem at my old job as I did field support for customers via dial-up and also had to access the trouble ticket system on the LAN.

What is happening is once you dial-up to an ISP, Windows tries to route any and all traffic through that dial-up connection and it kind of "forgets" about the NIC in the PC and any LAN information that it has stored.

To get around this "glitch" in Windows 9x you can do the following on the PC that needs to dial-up:

1. Create a batch file
2. In the batch file put the following:

route add 192.168.1.2 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 METRIC 1

3. Save the batch file and have it launched automatically through your startup group or create a shortcut on your desktop that you can launch manually.

What that route add is doing is adding the 192.168.1.2 (which is the other computer on your network) to its routing table, and you are telling it to use your subnet (assuming its 255.255.255.0) and telling it to route any requests for the 192.168.1.2 computer through your 192.168.1.1 NIC on metric 1. Metric 1 will be your initial network configuration when you boot up. Once you dial-up to an ISP, the dial-up connection becomes metric 2, etc.

Understand what I am saying?

This will take care of your problem once you get the batch file setup correctly as it solved my problems in the past.

I know this is a little vague and I did make assumptions on your IP and SUBNET masks, but if you plug in your correct information you should be all set.

Let me know if you have any trouble.

Good luck!

 

[DougHalstead]

edemiere,

Many thanks for you reply. I fully understand what you are saying and it looks like a very reasonable solution. It will be a couple days before I'm on site to try it out, but I will report back the outcome.

One question though, is this a common problem? I can't think that I've seen this reported on before.

regards

Doug

 

[edemiere]

Yes, because once you established a dial-up connection, it tends to get dumb about the other metrics.

It's always been a bit of a glitch in the Win9x stack.

By doing what I have given you, you can get around this problem from occuring again.

Good luck!

 

[DougHalstead]

edemiere,

Well, not there yet. I used the Route Add command, substituting the IP addresses I use (ie. 192.168.16.xxx) with the mask 255.255.255.0) which gave the error message "The route addition failed: 87".

Many thanks if any help

Doug

 

[edemiere]

Hi again Doug.

Try it this way.

route add 192.168.1.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 METRIC 1

The 192.168.1.1 is the IP of the NIC on the PC you are adding the route on.

Once it accepts this (and it will, trust me, I tried it), then you should be able to dial-up and still access the other PC on your LAN.

Let me know and good luck!

 

[DougHalstead]

Hi edemiere,

OK, I'll try that when I get back on site. I assume this command adds a route which routes everything with the same network address (ie 192.168.1.xxx) through the gateway. Is this right?

Many thanks for your help and I do appreciate you patience.

I will report back when accomplished.

Doug

 

[edemiere]

Yep, you are basically telling it to route all those requests to that IP set through your NIC card and not the DUN card.

It's been a while since I fooled with it, but I did this at an old job of mine, and I still have my batch file at home that I used to use.

I did send myself a reminder e-mail to my house to dig that out for you in case this doesn't work this time. Because once I get that out I will remember.

Getting old is rough!

Cheers!

 

[PeterUser]

Thanks edemiere and doughalstead for this thread, I was just battling the same problem and decided to read back a ways to see if anyone had said anything about this and sure enough, there it was.

Thanks again, my problem solved.

 

[edemiere]

Hi Peter, glad to hear it helped you Not sure if it solved Doug's problem, he never really said.

Cheers!

 

[DougHalstead]

edemiere & Peter,

Peter - Glad it solved your problem.

Edemiere - Sorry for delay in getting back to you, I amended the "route add" command" and I left it a few days to see if it was stable. It does seem to be fine.

Many thanks again

I will report back after I next visit the site to give final verdict, but I'm sure that it will be OK.

Best wishes
Doug

 

[DougHalstead]

Well still not quite there, I'm afraid there's another twist. I've just been back on site to test if it is working OK.

Both PC's ping each other OK until the Win95 PC dials up. Following that all pinging times out until after 3 or 4 minutes of repeated tries (i.e. pinging) they start responding again. Then everything is stable until the next dail-up.

The "route add" as described above has certainly improved things as the "dailing up PC" would have needed rebooting beforehand to get it working.

I wonder if Peter's setup does the same?

regards, Doug