win98 not resolving name outside own subnet

[born2bl8]

I have a simple routed IP network made up of several lans.

My win98 machines will not ping outside of their own subnet when using a machine name but will ping if I use the IP address.

The win98 machines will ping inside the subnet using host names.

Other machines e.g XP W2k will ping outside the subnet using both host names and IP addresses.

I am entering the names in the local 'hosts' file and not using a DNS server.

thanks in advance for any help

 

[Ntr0P]

If the hosts file is configured correctly on the W98 machines and you can ping the remote stations via IP address, then I can't think of any reason you would be having a problem.

 

[Serbtastic]

Are you sure your hosts file on your Win98 machine has no 3 letter extension?

Open a command prompt, and check. By default, in Win98 it has a .sam extension.

 

[Accessdabbler]

The .SAM extension is short for SAMple. Serbtastic is right, the HOSTS file should have no extension.

 

[born2bl8]

Thanks a million for your help NtrOP, Serbtastic and Accessdabbler.

I renamed hosts.sam to hosts and the problem was resolved