Neworking 2 machines question

[Culpeper]

Hello Tech Guys. Long time no see.

I recently acquired a new XP machine and moved my Win98SE machine to a different room. I have a wireless router connected between the two machines. An ethernet cable goes to the XP and the PCI wireless adapter is installed on the Win98 machine. Everything seems to being working fine. I have good internet access on both machines. I have a home network set up as well between the two machines. The only thing that concerns me is that sometimes the two machines do not see each other on the Microsoft Client Network. Sometimes I have to open the Network Neighborhood shortcut on the Win98 machine a couple of times before it lists both machines on the network. I have also noticed that if I reboot the XP machine, I also need to reboot the Win98 machine to reestablish a windows network connection again. I have print and file sharing on both the XP and Win98 machines. Can anyone suggest how to keep the two different machines connect all the time so the Win98 machine doesn't have to search for the XP machine each time I need it?

 

[5mi11er]

I'd like to know the same thing. The problem, I believe, is M$'s terrible networking implementation and the fact that they've modified things a bit in the various OS versions. That keeps things from working as smoothly as they should; especially between different versions.

Even at work the occasional 3 minute delay when just trying to open a file dialog to "save as" or "open" just drives me insane. Yeah, it's "just" checking on my network drives, but why must I wait for that if I plan to save it locally? Why not "check" that ONE drive if and when I actually go to use it? Sorry, not really productive to answering your question, but it feels good to rant once in a while

 

[Rockn]

5mi11er:

http://www.freepctech.com/pc/xp/xp00059.shtml

Duante: I have seen this issue before but don't have the link at my fingertips. This is also an issue with dropping of shared drives on a LAN.

 

[5mi11er]

5mi11er:
http://www.freepctech.com/pc/xp/xp00059.shtml

Awesome. Applied, we'll see how much of an effect it has. Thanks!

-Scott

 

[Culpeper]

I wonder if changing the auto assign IP to manually assigning an IP will shorten the delay or lack of Win98 to connect to XP the first time. The auto assign IP assigns the same IP for each machine each time anyway.

There is little or no delay with XP finding the Win98 machine.

 

[JohnWill]

The reason the machines don't see each other right away is the browsing scheme used for workgroup computers.

If you only have two or three computers, and the network configuration doesn't change, you can put entries in the HOSTS and LMHOSTS files for each system for all of the system names and IP addresses on the network, that will allow quick name resolution without browsing coming into the picture.

 

[Culpeper]

I am a novice and need examples of these hosts and lmhosts entries. The HOSTS file in my Win98 folder seems to have a list of advertising sites to block while using Internet Explorer.

 

[Bob Cerelli]

The format for the HOSTS and LMHOSTS files is pretty much the same...IP address followed by the computer name.

E.g. 192.168.0.2 comp_name

 

[Culpeper]

Boy, did that make a big difference. The single entry in the HOSTS file did the trick. What a difference.

 

[Bob Cerelli]

You know sometimes you can waste hours trying to solve this other ways. At some point I just go for the easy solution and get it working. Glad it solved the problem for you.

 

[Culpeper]

 

[Culpeper]

Also, discovered that it is a good idea to have a user account on the XP machine with the same network name and password (if one exists) as the one on the Win98 machine.

 

[Bob Cerelli]

Pretty sure you are going to need that unless you enable the guest account.

Also, for XP Pro, the default setting is to require a password for network access.

 

[clarke123]

Bob- What's the diff between Hosts and LMHosts?

 

[Culpeper]

I think LMHOSTS is for NetBIOS instead of TCP.