How to disable route discovery

[Cotton213]

I have Windows 98 computers on my network that keep automatically discovering new routers. These "routers" are Unix machines used for development in the lab that need to run routed. These lab machines are on the same network as the Windows 98 machines, and I have windows 98 configured for the correct gateway.

How can I make windows *not* discover these extra routers - they just screw up the network traffic.

 

[paulwood]

How do you mean 'discovering' and how is the routing information messing up the network. Do they route traffic to the wrong place or just lengthen the time it takes. Would it be possible to put them on a different subnet?

 

[Cotton213]

The windows 98 computers "discover" the other engineering unix stations because those unix stations are running routed in server mode (I believe). We are trying to fix this up so that they don't broadcast their router-ness to the entire network. Putting these systems on a separate subnet would be the best solution, but a big problem at this time.

The problem with these extra routers showing up (they show up when you do netstat -nr in a command window with a metric of 1000) is that they don't route anywhere useful - especially the internet, which is where the users want to go. When trying to get out on the internet, the users' computer seem to just pick a random router to use, and if it's the wrong one (there is only one "right" one), then the whole operation fails. Surfing becomes a hit or miss event.

I was hoping that there was a way on the windows side to say "just use the one router I told you about - stop picking up these other unsavory gateways".

Thanks for any input.

 

[paulwood]

If it's just a matter of the Internet access, have you 'hard-wired' the tcp/ip gateways and specified the ip address of the proxy server (assuming you're using one). If you're using Internet Explorer, is the Automatically detect settings selected in Tools > Internet Options > Connections > Lan settings?

Hope this helps