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General discussion

Limited connect-ability with Vista & Win98 on same LAN

Jul 23, 2007 9:24AM PDT

I have a LAN setup with computers equipped with various operating systems. The LAN was working well until a Win98 computer was turned on first followed by a Vista computer. The Vista computer had limited or no connect-ability and could not identify the network. With the help of another LAN user, I was able to determine that as long as the Vista was booted up first (before any Win98 computer), it would then have full access. I made the following assumption, the Vista OS was blocking connect-ability because the Win98 computers were not part of the its recognized network. Vista indicated that the firewall was not set to allow computer discovery. My co-LAN user and I decided to try looking into the firewall settings. So we opened Norton?s firewall settings on the Vista computer and found a button called ?trust?. We typed in the computer names and IP addresses of all the other LAN computers and hit okay. This fixed the problem and now it no longer matters what computer is turned on first.
----------My question is.-----Is there a better way to fix this?
I plan to switch the Vista computer to McAfee and want a heads up if anyone has another work around/fix. Due to printer incompatibilities with the Vista OS, I must maintain the Win98 computers so please don?t suggest dumping the win98 computers, at this time it?s just not an option.

Discussion is locked

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How many machines on the LAN?
Jul 23, 2007 11:50AM PDT

Windows 98 and Vista have limited shares. You may need to research this since I'm going to pull from memory but it's something like 5 or at most 10 connections. The remaining machines may start to report issues.

"We typed in the computer names and IP addresses of all the other LAN computers and hit okay. This fixed the problem and now it no longer matters what computer is turned on first.
----------My question is.-----Is there a better way to fix this? "

No. This is how it's done.

Bob

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At present 5 machines with 2 more to be added
Jul 23, 2007 9:47PM PDT

1 Vista, 1 XP, and 3 Win98 machines with 2 more to be added being 1 XP and 1 more Win98. The LAN is for sharing Internet connection from router cable modem. The router(Linksys BEFSR41) has 1 Vista and 1 Win98 computer connected in 2 of its 4 LAN ports and a hub(Asante 1012) is up-linked in a second location which connects the XP and 2 other Win98 computers. No file sharing or printer sharing has been enabled. Files are transfered via on-line email for later printing. This LAN was put up as a repair for failed cable modem and Belkin wireless router caused possibly by thunder storm damage.

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Limited connect-ability Vista Problem Continued
Aug 13, 2007 8:47AM PDT

Limited or no connect-ability occurred again 07/26/07

All seemed fixed until the morning of 7/26 when the Vista computer failed to connect. I made the following assumption, Norton?s firewall trust control was not working possibly due to a yet unknown compatibility problem with Vista. I removed it and installed McAfee anti-virus with the hope that using Vista?s firewall would correct the connectivity problem. The install went well except for Windows Defender showing up during the process. McAfee anti-virus and Vista?s firewall are the Vista computer?s defense system. This seemed to fix the connectivity problem but only for a few days.

Limited or no connect-ability occurred again 07/29/07

After doing a web search on ?Vista limited connect-ability?, I found a lot of possible answers. Some did nothing, others made matters worse and some patched the problem for a short time and required a repeat when the problem reoccurred. The most common answers were to power cycle the router and modem and reboot the computers, coming in second was to run commands that would flush the IP addresses then reboot the computers, and last was to wait till Microsoft fixes it.

I found a link to what I hoped would be a real fix. A Microsoft article, KB92823 titled ?Windows Vista cannot obtain an IP address from certain routers or from certain Non-Microsoft DHCP servers?. I followed the article which disabled ?Broadcast Flags?. This seemed to fix the connectivity problem but after a few days the problem returned.

To say the least, I was very frustrated on 08/03/07 with its return, I felt very much on my own to find a solution. The problem was intermittent and gave the impression of a setting being wrong. So I went to my ISP and confirmed my LAN settings and check with Microsoft's Vista help page for LAN settings. All were as they should be. I began to try looking on my own using the ipconfig command. I had to use cmd.exe to use the ipconfig command. I did a lot of re-boots while observing the IP addresses of the computers on the LAN and saw that the Vista computer was not getting a new IP address. It was retaining the same one every time or not getting one and then it could not connect to the Internet. What I saw on the Windows IP Configuration screen got me to feel that Vista was some how not releasing its router assigned IP address and when it could not get the address it wanted it failed to connect to the Internet. I saw the word preferred just after the IP address on the Windows IP Configuration screen. None of the Win98 computers on the LAN had the word preferred associated with their router assigned IP address, nor the XP computer. This left me with the problem of how to get my Vista computer to give up its lock on one IP address.

I did a search on ?preferred IP address Vista? this lead to a post with general instructions on ?Setting up IP Addresses in Windows Vista?[http://www.techduke.com/2007/06/25/setting-ip-addresses-in-windows-vista/ ]. After reviewing the section on ?Alternate IP Configuration?, I decided to try convening the Vista computer that its was being used on different LANs and therefore it must sometimes accept an un-preferred IP address. I followed the post and set up a static alternate IP address for my Vista computer. I did a best guess as to an un-used IP address and put in the other needed info per the post (I used the following IP address, 192.168.1.105).

It has been ten days now and even though the Vista computer takes even longer to connect then it did from before, it has not failed to connect with full access to the Internet. Strange but true, I have found it connected with the following IP addresses, 192.168.1.103, 192.168.1.104, and 192.168.1.105.

I'm just reporting what I have done to get my Vista computer to work on my LAN. If anyone knows a better fix or sees a flaw in my work around please reply. I hope that a service pack from Microsoft fixes this or at least a KB article with a solution is made available. Till then I will live with it.

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Check these out
Aug 22, 2007 8:10AM PDT