The old Windows Networking problems.. Revisited! 1

[Kutter]

Hi all, appologies for this being long, but I need to get as much info in here as I can to properly express my frustration, and of course the problem

Someone please has to help me with this, I am spending a ridiculous amount of time on this issue and it HAS to stop! Ive spent enough of my life sorting out network problems to shame most network engineers, but this is confusing as hell!

I have a very simple network. 6 machines, a network hub (not a router) and 4 have XP and 2 have 98se.

Until Friday the network worked absolutley perfectly. All machines on the network share an internet connection through ICS and this has always worked fine.

Now, I am in the process of upgrading these machines one at a time. The first to be done was the main one with the internet connection.

EVERYTHING is set correctly, from IP addresses to the colour of the damn cables! The network works perfectly, ALL machines see ALL machines... but will the windows 98 machines share the internet connection?

NO NO NO NO!! (sob)

Yes ICS is turned on on the internet capable machine. Not only this but the new machine was setup while not connected to the network. The machine names were made the same, the IP address was made the same, the data was put on the same drive letters in the same folders. The ISP information is EXACTLY the same, the network name is the same etc etc... Please help me!!! LOL..

If this were you, and I know the people that read this have had similar networking issues (thats why were here right?), what process would you follow to sort this issue? Believe me I really have tried everything, now I am thinking about formatting the machines and reinstalling fom scratch to make sure everything is set correctly (even though i KNOW it is) this is something I dont want to have to do if I can help it.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thx in advance,

Kutter.

 

[bcastner]

There are some subtleties to manual configuration of IPs with ICS.

I hope the notes here about Workgroup name and HOSTS entries gives you a sufficient clue to resolve the issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q309642

Make sure that TCP/IP is bound to both adapters:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en;Q230070

Be carefull of MTU issues with XP as ICS Host and PPoE DSL:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319661

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q308006

 

[Kutter]

Thank you for your help Bcastner, your post was instrumental in helping me sort out my problems

I have a couple of further questions however that you may be able to help me with.

Firstly is just an interest thing, you listed 3 seperate Microsoft KB articles... What's the trick on finding them? I have used Microsoft KB for years, but unless you know the exact syntax to put in a search it all becomes pointless. I did actually search for this problem myself, but only saw one of the above articles... Whats the trick?

Secondly regarding the fix, although again just out of interest...

I looked through all the info in the 3 files and took the most relevant suggestions out to try first. The first one i tried, and the one I thought would have most effect was adding a DNS and WINS to the 98 machines. This solved 2 problems I was having. Immediately they saw the Internet connection, and I was also allowed to map a network drive (which previously I could not because it kept asking for a password that didn't exist! - go figure)

My question is... 'How come it worked before without The DNS and domain name etc?' I cant get my head around it at all. Whats your thoughts? (or anyone elses thats reading )

Thx again my friend, you helped me out no end.

Kutter.

 

[bcastner]

I agree that finding things in the MS KB area has become harder and harder. As an MS-MVP I have access to different search engines, including the subscription TechNet, which helps. I also look for "collections" by Microsoft; for ICS for example, see:

http://support.microsoft.com/common...et Connection Sharing&CDID=EN-US-KB&LCID=1033

As for your second question, why did it work before? I do not have a good answer other than that ICS is fussy. It is truely wonderful that broadband router prices have come down in price so that users can have something less difficult to setup and maintain compared to small proxy servers.