windows 98 and XP network compatibility

[rdr2]

At my office they installed windows XP on some computers. The computers that remained with windows 98 are unable to acces the network or be seen on the network. Why is that so?

 

[Hainley]

I had this same issue on my home network. I have XP Pro on one machine and 98SE on the other. I was able to resolve it by installing the IPX/SPX Protocol on the 98 machine (it was already installed on the XP machine) and then enabling NetBIOS over IPX/SPX. I can now see both directions on the network.

Cheers!

 

[kestrel1]

If you have TCP/IP installed you should be able to use Win 98 on a network. I have various machines on our network running Win 95, Win 98, Win NT4, Win2K, & Win XP (Pro & Home). They all use TCP/IP for comunication. IP addresses are setup manually. IPX/SPX is used for Novell networks, so enabling NetBIOS over IPX/SPX you are just using NetBIOS.
Win 98 machines won't be seen on the network, because Win 98 isn't a networking operating system. But you can still connect to a network & use all the resources available.

 

[nuxalktech]

Can the 98 machines access the network at all?

If so, Can the 98 machines see the other 98 machines?

Do the 98 machines have proper IP addresses?

Answering these questions will assist in providing quicker answers...

 

[jmd0252]

When you say that the 98 machines are unable to access the network,,, do you mean they cannot "logon",,, or you cannot browse the network and "see" the XP machines,, or they have lost their mapped drives?? As I understand it,,, and I have been know to be wrong at least once a year,, hee hee. The ability to browse and see other machine is based on the machines having netbui enabled. When everyone started going to TCP/IP,, and either assigning the address, or having them assigned thru DHCP,, sometimes they stop enabling the netbui protocal,, or enabling name resolution via TCP/IP. so the answer to your question depends on,, if the 98 machines cannot logon,, or browse, or both.. There are so many different variables,,, it it difficult to give a concrete answer.

 

[ceh4702]

There is no reason Win98 Machines and WinXP machines can not exist on the same network and share folders and printers with each other. This is probably simple to resolve. I use Win98 computers and WinXP computers on my network at home and just used the netwroking wizard to connect them together. You might have to confirure them with your netwroking client you use at work differently. They are completely compatible.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[kestrel1]

Also check that your NIC is working correctly. Have a look at the LED's on the back plate of the NIC.
Have you got the most upto date driver for the NIC?

 

[ceh4702]

Sometimes you have to give the win98 machines the same password as the xp machines. This may be some bug in your netwrok operating system that there is a patch for.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[jh3016]

I know operating systems after Win2k have the option to operate in either of two modes; native mode or mixed mode. Once in native mode earlier OS can not access files from that particular machine because they operate on the fat32 file systems, whereas native mode machines only recognize ntfs file systems. Possibly during installation of the new WinXP computers, they were placed into native mode. check to see if that is the cause of the problem.

good luck!

 

[PeterGriff]

Normally in this situation you need to run the networking wizard on one of the XP machines, create the floppy and run it on the 98 machines.

I would like to extend the question - what changes does the floppy disk make - I am presumimg it gives security clearance of some sort to access the XP machines (I have tried in vain to do it without the floppy). Also the floppy will only run on Win98 or better, so for Win95 a manual method would be required.

Peter G