I have a windows 95 PC with an ISA ether card installed and am trying to connect it to our LAN. The network connection I am using is active (have confirmed it with a laptop that logs in fine to the network). The card is also confirmed good, and installes fine showing no conflicts in device manager. Now the only things required in the network neighborhood properties to connect to our LAN is (1) client for microsoft networks, (2)TCP/IP protocol, (3) the adapter. I only get the client's 3 log in box if Netbeui or IPX/SPX is installed with TCP/IP, and when TCP/IP is the only protocol I don't get the client box (the primary network log on is always set to "Client for Microsoft Network" and the bindings are always with TCP/IP. Is this a problem with the TCP/IP? Because it installs from the operating system, and is there another way to install TCP/IP from another source other than the operating system? I would like to keep from reinstalling the operating system if at all possible. I am a student PC worker really struggling, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Go to Settings/Control Panel/Network on each of your machines.
Check the following:

1) That all your cards are set to the same speed i.e. 10MBit/half duplex
2) Under tcp/ip propeties that each machine has the correct address should all be something like 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2 etc and that the subnet mask is the same on each machine, 255.255.255.0
3) Check under the Identification tab that each machine has a unique name and all have the same workgroup.

Be aware that when you make any changes to any of these settings Windows will prompt for the Windows 95 cd.

hope some/ any of this helps....

All of my TCP/IP entries are correct: DHCP, subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, we use DHCP for Wins, plus the workgroups and domain names are correct also. The network only ask us for our username, password, and domain (the client for microsoft network log on box) when an additional protocol (such as Netbeui, IPX/SPX is installed along side TCP/IP). But I should be able to log into the LAN using only TCP/IP. This is just on one single pc. Is TCP/IP not loading correctly? Is there another way of loading TCP/IP than through the operating system?

It sounds like it's not bound. Go the net neighborhood/properties, double click tcp.ip and in the bindings tab make sure Client for MS Nets is checked. (If it's not in there at all, remove and reinstall client.)

you haven't said if the client for msnetworks properties is set for log onto domain.
also try using a lmhosts file containing an entry for the dhcp server.

Verify that the Win95 PC is set to log into the domain. Right-click on Network Neighborhood. Choose Properties. Double-click Client for Microsoft Networks. Verify that "Log on to Windows NT Domain" is checked and verify that the "Windows NT Domain" is entered correctly. If all is setup correctly and still no domain prompt, try uninstalling TCP/IP, then reboot, and reinstall.