Wireless network adding new XP machine

I have a wireless network at home connected by Intel Anypoint. Two pc’s both running Windows 98 (I think not 98SE - certainly the server pc does not appear to have Microsoft internet connection sharing available). I don’t have a router, just a peer-to-peer set up with two adapters. The server pc has a broadband internet connection. The server pc is therefore subscribed to McAfee personal firewall. Both pc’s are subscribed to McAfee Virus Scan. I set this all up ok myself a couple of years ago and the pc’s happily share all files and the broadband connection.
The client pc has more or less died and I have bought a new pc which has Windows XP Home. I’ve found the drivers for XP for the Intel Anypoint from the Intel website. But because Intel have stopped making this product, they have also ceased all help. I just can’t make the two pc’s network. I’ve read the other emails in this thread on similar topics. Sadly I’m completely new to XP (it’s all 2000 at work) and I don’t follow the instructions on user groups etc. I’d be really grateful for very simple step by step advice on what to do!
With many thanks if you are able to help.

 

There are only 3 options I can think of that would allow all your present PCs to share a broadband modem. Need to know which one might fit.

- Software modem sharing application like ICS (which you say you don't have) or sygate/wingate/other but some app that allows this.

- Each PC has it's own account with the ISP and an IP address assigned by the ISP.

- Hardware modem sharing device - router/switch.

And to clarify on the next part plus some info on Anypoint (not a system I'm familiar with), are you connecting the PCs directly to each other with the wireless xmit on one and a wireless receive on the other? If not, are both PCs (and are there a total of 2) both connecting to a hub or switch?

FWIW, the networking part of XP is fairly similar to 2K.

 

Thanks for looking at this.
The Intel Anypoint came with its own software which shares the internet and maps drives, printers etc. It all worked fine with two Win98 pc’s.
Each pc has a wireless adapter which both receives and transmits, There is no router.
One pc is designated the "server" and it is this one which accesses the internet via ADSL. The other pc, designated the "client" (up to 8 I think but I only have 1 other pc) shares that connection (as allowed by the ISP for home users). The client pc can access the internet only when the server pc is switched on (but for us that is not inconvenient).
Hopes this helps you advise me ! Thanks very much for your help

 

That helps. Now to ask for still more information.

On the 98 PC, do start~run~winipcfg and when the window pops up, click the button for details. You will need to copy all the information presented and type it into a response.

On the XP PC it is a bit easier.
start~run~cmd then
ipconfig /all > c:\ipconfig.txt then copy the contents of the c:\ipconfig.txt file and paste them into the same response.

That will give a good indication of how far along the networking piece on XP has gotten and very possibly show a problem setting that you can change to get things going. If not, we dig some more.

If the command on XP fails, give the exact failure message since it will probably mean networking isn't set up quite right on the XP system.

 

Thanks, Newt, I really do appreciate your help

On the Win98 machine, this is what I see (as you say quite laborious to capture):
Host Name: STUDY
DNS Servers: 213.120.62.97
Node Type: Broadcast
and then
PPP Adapter
Adapter address: 44-45-53-54-00-00
IP address: 81.128.47.165
Subnet mask: 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway: 81.128.47.165
DHCP Server: 255.255.255.255

On the XP machine, (had to write this out, but there isn't any failure message, the dos screen just goes back to the prompt c:\documents and settings\new user>) I see:
Host Name: PLAYROOM
Node Type: Broadcast
IP routing enabled: No
WINS Proxy enabled: No
Ethernet Adapter wireless network connection 7:
Media state: media disconnected
Description: Intel Anypoint Wireless II network
Physical address: 00-90-4B-05-5F-7A

On the XP machine, device manager recognises the Intel Anypoint and says it is working properly.

Hope this helps pinpoint the problem.

 

The string I gave you is designed to send the info to a file rather than to the screen. So normal behavior on the screen is to just return to the command prompt. But the file should have the exact contents.

As to your specific problem - the "media disconnected" is saying the PC is not connecting to the network. On a wired system, it would probably mean no network cable connection or a bad cable.

I'll try to help you troubleshoot it but will be hampered by the fact that I'm not familiar with your hardware and the older stuff was made before there were "usual" ways of doing wireless and did some interesting things.

Try this one. DOS window again. And always use start~run~cmd to start DOS on an XP system rather that start~run~command as you would on 9X.

ping 127.0.0.1

That address is the loopback address for your network card and if it is installed and TCP/IP is working, it should give you a return. The ping signal never leaves the PC but simply goes to the card and back.

You should get a response something like
Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
etc.

 

Hi Newt
Really grateful for your help on this.
Here is what has happened. I decided that the Intel equipment just wasn’t going to work - particularly with the kids nagging like crazy - and so I went out and bought a router (SpeedTouch 570), connected the Win98 machine to it by ethernet wire and bought a new wireless client adapter (Speedtouch 120) for the Windows XP machine. This is working fine except for one thing: if I have encryption disabled, the XP machine can access all websites but if I have 128 bit encryption enabled, the XP machine can see only certain websites and refuses to access others, for example it will go to hotmail.com but it won’t then log into a hotmail email account
. Do you have any idea what that is about and whether there is a workaround? I could have 64 bit encryption and don’t know whether the same problem would occur.