xp box won't connect to w95 lan

Hi,

I have two w95 computers networked together very nicely and have just added an xp (home edition sp1) to my office and want to add this to the network too.

I've been through the wizard a bunch of times, it sets up the workgroup supposedly but even though it's the same name and the hub light is on it looks like there is no connection whatever.

IOW my two networked machines don't know about the xp box and vice versa. I'd try and add protocols and services etc.. by hand on the xp machine like I'm used to doing on the w95 boxes but xp doesn't seem to work that way.

So now what?

Marty

 

XP certainly should allow manual setting of NIC values.

What IP addresses & subnet mask are you using?

What protocol(s) running?

 

Hi Newt, thanks for writing back.

I'll start with one of the 95 boxes for now which is set up with a proxy server for the other using ProxyX.

ipx/spx
ndiswan
netbui
netbios support for ipx/spx
tcp/ip dial up
tcp/ip dial up #2 (vpn support)
tcp/ip netgear pci adapter

ip addr 10.0.0.1 (other w95 box is set as 10.0.0.2) and subnet mask on both 95's is 255.255.255.0

The XP box is currently configured with

nwlink netbios
nwlink ipx/spx/netbios

I've disabled tcp/ip on the xp machine for now reading somewhere to set up local networking w/o it first and then work on the internet sharing.

So where to from here?

Marty

 

Weird. I got one 95 box and the XP box communicating with each other over the lan, but the other 95 box isn't seen by the XP box. However /that/ 95 box does see the XP box. Any ideas?

 

Marty - sorry for the delay in responding but I fished all weekend. Back now with enough time to look things over.

I'm not familiar at all with ProxyX. I assume it is a software proxy server but then the question is why you need a proxy server with a 2 PC setup. Unless maybe it is a program to allow modem sharing.

More basic - how are you networking the internal machines? Hub, switch, what? And how connecting to the internet? Sounds like dial-up from some of the settings you have.

Once you post that information, I think I can give you a fix that will work and probably a little better than you were running before. I'll be back on tomorrow after 1600 EST.

 

ProxyX allows me to use the internet with one dialup connection and the three computers on my office network.

The three machines run 95 on two of them and XP on the third and they connect with nics through a hub. I am having some weirdnesses esp. one directory on one shared 95 disk that the xp box just refuses to read, and a hard time accessing the windows directory on the xp box from a 95 box.

Am now looking into d/ling and installed socks to let proxyx do more for me. I'd like to have my old w95 box be the internet connection and keep that off of the xp box. My thinking is that the network will be more stable overall if I distribute tasks as evenly as possible.

Hope you caught some nice ones Newt.

Marty

 

Marty - first thing I'd try is switching over to XP as the host for modem sharing. The ICS that ships with it works pretty well.

ProxyX is evidently old enough that it may do manipulations that NT systems (NT4/2K/XP) don't like very much. Especially if the app wants to make direct hardware calls, it will run into problems.

And thanks for the fishy thought but all I caught this past weekend was lots of fresh air. Partly my doing since I was determined to fish for large carp & catfish, nevermind what else might have been biting.

 

Hi Newt,

On the XP to 95 networking question I have another but kept this thread since it's relavant to my particular setup.

Here it is... one of the 95 boxes has a hd with two partitions. One of those partitions has two directories on the root. The other 95 box can access everything no problem, but the XP box can't access one of the directories on that one partition.

Unlike some access problems from the XP which seem to come and go this is a consistent issue and I can't see what the problem is.

Any ideas?

BTW we got skunked last year in Maine. The year before mackerel were jumping up on the dock right into our laps before we even baited the hooks, this summer we got wind burns and that was about it.

Marty

 

I fixed the problem with that one directory on my network. The partition was named apps and so was the directory, and though I could connect to the partition and see another directory on it from the xp box I couldn't connect to the apps directory.

After renaming the partition it works fine now. Weird. Accesses in the old way from another 95 box but not from XP.

Marty

 

95 was and is a little "network stupid ". As a result, it can sometimes do things more network aware operating systems know are not legal so can't/won't do. Go figure.

Have you had a chance to try using XP as the ICS host and internet connecting that way?