Having had a LAN card fried I replaced it and the hub but now I can;t get the Win98 PC back on the LAN. My problem is the appoarent absence of Network Connections under Win98. The etehernet card appears functional under devices and I've configured its TCP IP addresses to the previously working ones. How in Win98 does one access the equivalent of Netwok Connections in XP? ControlPanel|Network just gives network components, not connections. Is it not supported? Is there a downloadable freeware equivalent? Thanks in Advance.

Since you configured TCP/IP I assume you checked bindings. Are the PCs on the same subnet mask? Can you ping another box by IP? Try running winipcfg ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Ah, Renew in winipcfg seems to have restored connectivity, even though it generated an erro (DHCP Server unavailable:Renewing Adaptor). Either that or my third attempt at the TCP/IP address change actually took to the extent of surviving windows restart. LAN connectivity restored, thanks. However my question stands. No Active Network icon has appeared on the Win98 taskbar and there is no way to check the status of the connection within Win98 that I can see. Is there a Network Connections equivalent in Win98?

Hi ibell, M2, hi everyone To go short on your standing question, assuming you mean the network icon in the systray, nope. At least I have never seen or discovered it within Windows 98. :-( Maybe LanSpeed2 suites your needs. (http://members.chello.nl/~m.vanosta/orcasoft/) Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

Thanks for lanspeed2 link. I've not installed it yet because another problem has come to light. The Win98 PC now has LAN access but occassionally freezes up. Run with the LAN cable disconnected it is robust but when on the LAN, The WIn98 crashes after an hour or so. This may or may not be connected with an inability to connect to the internet from Win98 PC through a router modem connected to the lan, even though the modem DNS IP addresses can be succesfully pinged from the WIn98 PC and the (firewalled) modem is functioning OK for other PCs on the LAN. I am forced to conclude that some occassional event on the LAN, possibly web related, is hanging the Win98 PC, even though filesharing works fine. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Hi ibell, M2, hi everyone Your welcome, and I hope it meets your needs. It is hard to tell with the little information at hand about your network configuration/set up what would be a possible reason for the Win98 PC to freeze up when connected to the LAN. It shouldn't! Win98 is perfectly well capable of connecting to a LAN or WAN (Internet) through a router. I am convinced that I am not the only one around here with a similar set up; :-) Internet <=> Modem <=> Router with the firewall enabled and acting as DHCP server as well for Win98, Win2K, WinXP client(s). All clients are perfectly well capable to share files and folders among each other (inside of the LAN), and all can get connected to the Internet at the same time. One remark though, accessing shared files/folders from Win98 on the WinXP box(es) has not been achieved yet by me. :-( (The other way around works fine.) In my case all PC's are set to DHCP in TCP/IP properties, obtain a IP-address automatically (from the DHCP server, which is my router). They receive, aside of a (dynamic) IP-address, both the Gateway and DNS information from the "DHCP server". Maybe the Win98 PC has a 10Mbit/s NIC set to Auto for Port Speed and gets flooded by the other PC's, with 100Mbit/s NIC's set to Auto for Port Speed as well, in your LAN? Maybe you are using fixed/static IP-addresses in your LAN and your router is still assuming the earlier assigned IP-address, now assigned to the new NIC, to be assigned to the fried NIC it's MAC address (hardware address)? Chances are slim the latter would be the case, nor would it be logical. Again since the set up of your network and PC's is unknown, it's almost impossible to give you proper directions for where to look or adjust your settings. And also you might be better of in the Networking section, this doesn't mean we aren't willing to give it a try to help you out. (http://www.computing.net/networking/wwwboard/wwwboard.html) Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

"Maybe the Win98 PC has a 10Mbit/s NIC set to Auto for Port Speed and gets flooded by the other PC's, with 100Mbit/s NIC's set to Auto for Port Speed as well, in your LAN?" Where do I find this setting? The WIn98 does have an old etherner card (Realtek RTL8029(AS)) so speed swamping is I suppose a possibility.