Flakey Connection after Win98se upgrade

I've done an upgrade from Win95 to Win98se, by deleting win.com and
installing Win98se into the same directory as Win95 (C:\Windows).

AOL 6.0 was installed under Win95 as well as a couple firewall programs
(Sygate Personal Firewall and ZoneAlarm).

Now I can access the internet as normal through AOL and Internet Explorer
5.5, however Outlook Express will only sometimes connect to the mail POP3
mail server. Most of the time it returns a TCP/IP error as if it isn't
connected. Also, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger fail to connect most of
the time. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to it, but occassionally
they will connect. It also doesn't matter if I connect through AOL, another
ISP with Windows DUN, or even through an ethernet connection - the problem
is the same.

I've tried re-installing all Windows 98 network components, and doing a
manual re-install of TCP according the MS Knowledge base article. Neither
have made any difference.

Has anyone come across this one before?? Any suggestions would be most
appreciated.


Thanks,
Ben.

Hmmm...never had the balls to do that...I only use the 'del win.com' method if I'm reinstalling the same version. I would say you have some problems with file versions personally...

Two firewalls and AOL?

Dialup AOL?

I would suggest you start by uninstalling the two firewalls and see if that improves things.

Also what antivirus do you have? If you have the antivirus for checking email that can cause these problems from time to time, shutting down the email side of it and restarting it often clears them.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I've upgrade from Win95 to Windows 98se this way many times without a hitch. I'm sure it has something to do with AOL though - wish I had removed it before starting.

I've uninstalled both firewalls from Add/Remove programs, but it hasn't made any difference. But I do know that this customer is really paranoid and may have other firewall software that is hiding somewhere!?

AVG Antivirus is installed and I disabled the email scanning. But still the same problem.

Exactly what error is outlook express generating?

What about surfing the net or connecting to the ISP - any problems there?

Two firewalls is not a good idea. Just like with two Anti-virus programs, they compete against each other. Both will try to analyze the traffic at the same time and step on each other.

Is the pop3 server normally responsive? When OE fails, ping the mail server and see if it is connecting.

I shuddered when I saw the two firewall programs, so I've removed both of them for the time being.

The mail server is always responsive. When Outlook Express fails to connect I can still ping the mail server and get replies. The exact error message from Outlook Express is:

A TCP/IP Error occurred when connecting to account xxxx... Error number 0x800CCC15.

Now as if this isn't weird enough... IF I open a program by double-clicking an icon on the desktop, rather than a start menu shortcut, it appears to connect fine. But if I then close it and open it from the start menu, the problem occurs again!? This happens with Outlook Express, Yahoo Messenger and Media Player 7.1.

It really seems like virus behavior, but I've done a complete scan with AVG and the latest virus defs and it found nothing.

I've now returned the computer to the customer, and told her to open any programs needing internet access from the desktop icons. But I'd really like to find a better solution if possible.

From what I can tell, this is still a winsock error

You may have uninstalled the firewalls but there are still some settings running around...

Check this out

I wonder about secure logon for email settings, proxy settings in ie or again the antivirus pop trap...

Did you upgrade ie/oe to 5.5 sp2?