Win98 can't connect to Win2k PC

Gutted, the issue at hand is definitely due to something "stopping" the network communicating. The network busy error is very common on older hubs where collision management was absent.


I hope you do not get confused with various techs debating your problem, we will get to the bottom of it.

The fact that you are getting through to the default hidden shares means that occasionally the collision or "blockage" is not happening - that is the good news!

So what we need to do is test the connectivity between the 2 machines and the router. Tools provided with windows such as "ping computer ip -t" (without the quotes will constantly ping the other machine, you can leave this going while you test things like the cable, by replacing it with a known good and/or check and change settings.

If you would be good enough to set up the 98 machine to ping the other and then do this first test of changing the network cable we can go from there.

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Originally Posted by TripleRLtd

Does that not mean something?
Anything with a dollar sign was NOT created by the enduser!!!
Plus, I am not arguing, I am trying to help solve a problem for gutted.
We finally got something of a clue.
So lets go with it.
Until we here from him we don't know if this has anything to do with it, does it? So why argue amongst ourselves (except for pure pleasure, of course).
And, I thing there are other issues as well, like you state, with the connection.
Irrelevant?
Nothing in PC troubleshooting is irrelevant.
Especially when we can't be in front of the PC's ourselves.https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2006/04/1.gif

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Ok, Anything with a $ sign is NOT created by the user?!? What about the 3 folders on my FTP site that I CREATED with the $ to hide it? What about the numerous folder shares on my internal network I created with a $?!? Those are all Pre-created?!? I think not.

Secondly, The error message does NOT indicate that it's a permissions issue (as i've stated many times before), but a connectivity issue. Browsing the network would hide the share, giving the error that there are no shares available, NOT a network busy error. Get your facts straight.

Thirdly, I stated in my posts that it might be a connectivity issue, you tossed that off as "If he can game and get online, I think he can ping." Speaking from experience, i know better. Ping uses ICMP packets for connectivity tests, gaming usualy uses UDP, seperate sections of the TCP/IP stack. Network shares use netbios over TCP/IP, yet another section. The ping is being done for 2 reasons. 1. to make sure another aspect of the stack is working correctly, investigating a possible bad stack. 2. Make sure there are no firewalls on EITHER system or any other software blocking the connection.

Wich brings me to another point. You, like many other people probably run a firewall, allowing for HTTP, FTP and other traffic to flow through it, yet blocking ICMP, hence that statement "If he can game and get online, I think he can ping." is in no way accurate to any degree.

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Originally Posted by Matridom

Ok, Anything with a $ sign is NOT created by the user?!? The ping is being done for 2 reasons. 1. to make sure another aspect of the stack is working correctly, investigating a possible bad stack. 2. Make sure there are no firewalls on EITHER system or any other software blocking the connection.

Wich brings me to another point. You, like many other people probably run a firewall, allowing for HTTP, FTP and other traffic to flow through it, yet blocking ICMP, hence that statement "If he can game and get online, I think he can ping." is in no way accurate to any degree.

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Thanks for the lesson Mat.
Now back to my original responce:

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Ah, a clue!!!
Are you sure you gave the drive or folder and actual share name with permissions established?
On the 2k PC right click a drive in My Computer and choose sharing.
You will probably see "default share), which is IPC$Share.At the bottom of the window click on "New Share" and name it and establish permissions for the account you created.

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Of course you can create your own hidden shares.
That, as you say, is the purpose of the $.
Gutted's ability to finally see this default/hidden share named IPC$ (unless of course he himself named the share on the 2k machine this..yeah right), gave a real clue to the possible problem.
He has indicated that he already rebuilt the stack and disabled the firewall, and this is a fairly new Belkin router not an old hub.
So, make this real clue meaningless if you so choose.
It looks like the only thing he hasn't done is actually swap cables, as NooNoo suggests he try, swapping out the cards, which may or may not help.
Honest, he seems to be able to do everything which a working network should allow him to do: internet access and gaming, and probably pinging.
Everything, that is, except one 98 workgroup pc accessing files on the 2k machine.
So, let us wait until he gets back to us, huh?

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Originally Posted by TripleRLtd

Thanks for the lesson Mat.
Now back to my original responce:
Of course you can create your own hidden shares.
That, as you say, is the purpose of the $.
Gutted's ability to finally see this default/hidden share named IPC$ (unless of course he himself named the share on the 2k machine this..yeah right), gave a real clue to the possible problem.
He has indicated that he already rebuilt the stack and disabled the firewall, and this is a fairly new Belkin router not an old hub.
So, make this real clue meaningless if you so choose.
It looks like the only thing he hasn't done is actually swap cables, as NooNoo suggests he try, swapping out the cards, which may or may not help.
Honest, he seems to be able to do everything which a working network should allow him to do: internet access and gaming, and probably pinging.
Everything, that is, except one 98 workgroup pc accessing files on the 2k machine.
So, let us wait until he gets back to us, huh?

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(unless of course he himself named the share on the 2k machine this..yeah right)
What's with that? you assume much here. Seems to me like you don't believe this person is smart enough to do this?

To answer some questions -

(a) both machines can ping each other, on IP and also on machine name. Response comes back immediately (no detectable lag).

(b) no firewall software on the PCs anymore.

(c) As for the IPC$ share, my personal understanding (take it orleave it) is that it is a default Win2k share but is not really a "share" as such. By default there IS a share on each hard-drive (MS call it an "Admin share"). There is a reg hack to disable the default Admin Share - i disabled it soon after I installed Win2k. (I've previously been networked at my old house like this - all Win2k machines - no problems).

I've no idea what the IPC$ share is for, but if my understanding is correct then there is no actual password as such - it shouldn't actually be accessible by users. Maybe am wrong though. I think it's a step forward though, since at least it means that Win98 can see my PC... Got to be a bonus...

So then. Ping works fine on machine name and IP. Gaming works fine. I can do the ping thing if you like, NooNoo? Given this info, do you think it will help? Your call...

For the record I've now set both NICs to be 10baseT and half duplex. There is some more progress, and also a step back. Firstly, I cannot see the "gutted" from my girlfriend's PC anymore (grrrr) BUT!! If I go through Start>Run>"//gutted/shared" I now *SOMETIMES* get prompted for a password for the share. I get asked for a password for the actual share I created - which is great. There is no actuall password on the share, which is not so greate - and my girlfriend's password doesn't let me in. First time I got "password incorrect" second time I got "An extended error has occured". Few a few moments after that, I get error "The network name cannot be found". Then I try again and get a password prompt.

I tried my Administrator password, but it still says "Incorrect password". Not sure which other passwords to try, or even if the problem really *is* related to passwords.

Looks like this is something to do with the NICs or router not being able to handle full duplex at 100baseT.

Summary:

both NICs at 10baseT
Now I occasionally get a password prompt (although it doesn't accept good passwords), "network name cannot be found" or "extended error has occured" - I've not seen "network is busy" since changing NIC settings.

The joys of networking :D

Thanks again, though, for all the help so far. Very mcuh appreciated!

Dan.

Ok. More info.

After a few minutes, now I can see my machine in "Network Neighbourhood" from Win98. If I double-click, I get asked for the IPC$ share password again. If I keep trying, I am now seeing the "network is busy" error again. AND YET from Win98-DOS (Start>Run>//gutted/shared), I still get prompted for password for the share I created.

WTF?!

Ok. Time to create a new share. I have a theory. The share is called "shared" although the actual folder is called "My Shared Folder". I'll try creating a new folder (with no spaces and less than 8 chars) and then sharing that to see if I fare any better....

Maybe I should just use a cross-over cable :D Come to think of it - I actually have a cross-over cable. That would be a good way to remove the router from the equation.... Hmmmm.... I'll report back...

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Originally Posted by gutted

Ok. More info.

After a few minutes, now I can see my machine in "Network Neighbourhood" from Win98. If I double-click, I get asked for the IPC$ share password again. If I keep trying, I am now seeing the "network is busy" error again. AND YET from Win98-DOS (Start>Run>//gutted/shared), I still get prompted for password for the share I created.

WTF?!

Ok. Time to create a new share. I have a theory. The share is called "shared" although the actual folder is called "My Shared Folder". I'll try creating a new folder (with no spaces and less than 8 chars) and then sharing that to see if I fare any better....

Maybe I should just use a cross-over cable :D Come to think of it - I actually have a cross-over cable. That would be a good way to remove the router from the equation.... Hmmmm.... I'll report back...

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If it's prompting you for the user/pass it means that the user account you created is not setup correctly, but it's progress of sorts. Re Follow my instructions on how to create the user accounts, make sure case matches. I've never liked pre created shares, i had thought that you made this share your self.

I created a new folder and called it "My Shared Folder". I'm a bit sad when it comes to conventions. I've got loads of folders in "My Documents" called "My Music", "My Resources", "My Downloads" etc etc.

But regards username, I've specified username as "<first name> <last name>" with a space in the middle. I'll try just "<first name>" with no spaces. I'll also try creating a new folder called simply "share" or something - no spaces.

Definitely getting close though. I can almost taste it :D

(Just got back from collecting my girlfriend from work - will try cross-over cable in a bit, too).

Ok. So I can't get it working with a cross-over cable either, after shifting PCs around and setting both IP to fixed. It's a pain in the ar$e that you need to reboot Win98 every time you make even the smallest network config change!! I'm getting angry with it now - tempted to just give up!!

With cross-over cable, I get exactly the same symptoms. Either "network is busy", a password request for IPC$ share, a password prompt for the correct share (which does not accept any password, including Admin), or "An extended error has occured.

While using cross-over, I created a new folder called "shared", then shared it and gave everyone full control in botn permissions and security tabs. I also changed the user name from "<first name> <last name>" to just "<first name>" (no spaces). I reset password to verify that it was same as the Win98 logon, and the logged on to Win98 with that account.

I'm mightily annoyed! I've set everything back to default settings on both cards again (100baseT, full duplex).

I'm failry sure the router *isn't* the problem anymore. That leaves either my NIC, my girlfriend's NIC, or a Win98 config prob, or a Win2k config prob.

Win2k can still connect fine to Win98 - it's just the other way round that doesn't work.

Ping is still great both on IP and machine name from both PCs.

Any ideas left to try...?

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Originally Posted by gutted

Ok. So I can't get it working with a cross-over cable either, after shifting PCs around and setting both IP to fixed. It's a pain in the ar$e that you need to reboot Win98 every time you make even the smallest network config change!! I'm getting angry with it now - tempted to just give up!!

With cross-over cable, I get exactly the same symptoms. Either "network is busy", a password request for IPC$ share, a password prompt for the correct share (which does not accept any password, including Admin), or "An extended error has occured.

While using cross-over, I created a new folder called "shared", then shared it and gave everyone full control in botn permissions and security tabs. I also changed the user name from "<first name> <last name>" to just "<first name>" (no spaces). I reset password to verify that it was same as the Win98 logon, and the logged on to Win98 with that account.

I'm mightily annoyed! I've set everything back to default settings on both cards again (100baseT, full duplex).

I'm failry sure the router *isn't* the problem anymore. That leaves either my NIC, my girlfriend's NIC, or a Win98 config prob, or a Win2k config prob.

Win2k can still connect fine to Win98 - it's just the other way round that doesn't work.

Ping is still great both on IP and machine name from both PCs.

Any ideas left to try...?

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It's a lot of work to do fully, but you can redo your TCP/IP stack. STart with removing tcp/ip, reboot, install tcp/ip, reboot again. that may resolve the issue, If not, I have the link at home for a full netwroking reload for 98 i can link to later

I smell corrupt profile....

Have you ever had linux on either machine?

omg check the time on both machines and the dates Make sure the bios agrees.

...but no resolution. Omn my PC, I can set the time to a remote server on the 'net somewhere. (I didn't know that - that is quality :D). So I set mine up, but Win98 won't let me do the same - you can only set the time with a server on the same workgroup - I tried setting to IP of a remote server, but it couldn't connect (even though ping was fine). I tried setting Win98 to use my PC as the time server, but it couldn't connect to my PC :angry: Similar error message - "Error 54 - the network resource is busy, try again later" (or something like that).

The times were out by a few minutes, so I set them as close as possible. The BIOS are now under a second apart, same as the Windows clock.

I never knew about SNTP before though - cheers for that :D

Matridom - next on the list is to uninstall/reinstall the TCP/IP stack. Shouldn't take all that long - I will have to contend with about a hundred Win98 reboots, but that is par for the course (until I can upgrade girlfriend to Win2k or XP...)

But in the meantime, I'd be interested in any info on a Win98 networking reinstall... If you can find the info, send me a link if poss. Or PM me for me email addy?

Thanks for all suggestsion so far. Even though it's truning into a pain in the ar$e, it's good to know that there are people around to help out ;)

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Originally Posted by gutted

Matridom - next on the list is to uninstall/reinstall the TCP/IP stack. Shouldn't take all that long - I will have to contend with about a hundred Win98 reboots, but that is par for the course (until I can upgrade girlfriend to Win2k or XP...)

But in the meantime, I'd be interested in any info on a Win98 networking reinstall... If you can find the info, send me a link if poss. Or PM me for me email addy?

Thanks for all suggestsion so far. Even though it's truning into a pain in the ar$e, it's good to know that there are people around to help out ;)

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