Internet connection sharing with XP

I'll make this question as simple as I know how. I have a home network, 5 computers all running windows 98se until one of my sons decided to purchase XP Pro. He installed XP on his computer, got the updates and it runs well. He shows up on the network, seems to be able to do everything over the network, except he can not use internet explorer over the network. The internet connection sharing host computer is running 98se, his client computer is running XP pro. Should he be able to use the internet under these circumstances? Is this configuration possible? I know you will need further info, so let me know what you think. Thanking you in advance for any help.

 

It should work fine.

First, make sure the XP firewall is turned off.

If it is and still no joy, do the following from the XP PC:

start~run~cmd
ipconfig /all > c:\xpconfig.txt (nothing much will show on the screen)

Then from a working 98 PC (not the ICS host though)
start~run~winipcfg /all and provide that information as well. No way I know of to send it to a text file though so my suggestion is to make a copy of xpconfig.txt, leave the headings but remove the data, and copy the 98 stuff there. It will save you a bit of typing.

And then post the contents of the two text files here. Just copy and paste it in a reply.

 

Thanks for your reply. I hope this is the information you asked for.

Windows 98 IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter :

IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

Windows IP Configuration

XP computer xpconfig.txt

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : theclit

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139/810X Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-E0-18-29-6E-35

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.2

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

 

If the very bottom line of your post above
DNS Servers . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
isn't a typo then it could easily cause the problems you are seeing.

It should be the same as your gateway entry of 192.168.0.1 or else the same as the real DNS server your ISP uses which won't be any 192.168.x.x number at all. There is no way a PC on your home network could see that address (192.168.2) without some really fancy and unnecessary footwork.

The winipcfg /all should have shown you the same information from the Win98 PC and it would be interesting to see what that is.

If it was a typo and it is really the same as your address, it should be working fine unless the XP firewall is active.

One other possibility (even if all the numbers should be correct) is a problem in the DNS Cache on the XP PC. To speed up surfing, the XP networking is set to keep local copies of any DNS records it sees. Problem is, by default it will keep bad ones as well as good ones. And a bad entry could keep you from seeing the internete at all.

Easiest way to check is
start~run~cmd
ipconfig /flushdns
and then try.

 

Hey Newt

Thanks for your help. The XP firewall is not on, forgot to mention that on last post, and there is no spelling mistake on the last post. That was copied and pasted directly from the xpconfig.txt file. So we have found the problem? What do we do now? Looking forward to your reply. I'm off to bed now, will be late tomorrow before I get back on. Thanks again.

 

Hey Newt

I changed the DNS server address on the XP machine and everything works perfectly. Thanks again Newt for all your help. You and all the other people on this Help BBS are gods. Keep up the good work!!!

 

Really glad to hear you got it fixed.

No idea why the number was assigned wrong. If it never happens again, then who cares?

For future reference, when using a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, all the PCs must have exactly the same numbers in the first three octets so xxx.xxx.xxx.nnn where xxx has to be the same and nnn can be any number from 1 to 254.

Otherwise they can only see each other if a router is passing information from one subnet to another.

192.168.0.1 and 192.168.1.1 are as different as
192.168.0.1 and 24.211.34.22. They simply can't see each other unless a router knows where they both are and "routes" the packets.