Keep losing the network

I have a wired plus wireless network. My wireless network is plugged into my wired network ... no problem. Problem is with one computer. A Win98 that uses a DLS connection at another location which means enabling and disabling connections which we do. But when this computer comes back here, often I can't get the ie window to hold the "never dial a connection" setting. I change it, hit apply, and 2 minutes later it resets itself. Not all the time, just some of the time. Also, the network disappears. This computer can still access the internet, but can't access the other computers on the network. Anyone have any ideas why this is happening? I usually can make the network appear after messing around, but it won't hold. Please help.

 

My first fix attempt with a 98 system having one-off problems is always the same. Free, easy, often effective.

System cleanup
- dump all temp files, temp internet files, cookies
- delete any files in c:\ that are named filennnn.chk where nnnn is any number
- empty the recycle bin
- boot to DOS and run
.. scanreg /fix
.. scanreg /opt (yup, I know you could do both at once but it works better this way)
.. scandisk with whatever switches (and I don't have a system to look at right now) are needed to auto-repair any problems found and to do a surface check
- boot to safe mode and do another scandisk (the DOS version won't fix long filename problems if any exist) followed by a defrag (and do it regardless of any message saying it isn't needed).

The above may or may not fix the issue but they will certainly make the thing run better and we can proceed to look for other issues knowing it's a clean machine.