There is no firewall on (what I believe to be) the offending W98 machine and there never has been, so the problem must lie with something else. It certainly acts like it *is* firewalled though, as it will not under any circumstances reply to a ping or connection request from anywhere else.

I switched on IPX to make file sharing work. ICS works fine because the W98 machine is the originator in that case.

It really is as if there is a firewall enabled when there isn't!

the firewall comment was specifically for the WinXP sys, not the Win98 sys. on the Win98 sys, without ipx bindings but with tcp/ip bound to the nic do winipcfg & notate your default gateway. with that do the following:

1) ping 127.0.0.1 - essentially useless for determing whether or not u have a connection, but if it fails either your nic, slot, drivers or OS is hosed;
2) whoops, was gonna have you ping your default gateway, but youre actually P2P & not really on a LAN... hmmm, skip getting the default gateway, but stilll ping as per 1) above. if that's ok then do the following:

1) if at all possible locate appropriate Win98 CD (you don't absolutely have to have it, but there's an ever so slight chance that if you dont have it Win98 wont find the files it needs in the cabs)
2) right click the Network Places icon, left click properties, remove *ALL* bindings, click ok (if u get sys msg stating network not complete click yes to continue) & then No to restart;
3)access network props as in step 2); select your nic, click add, dbl click protocol, on left select Microsoft, then after that on right window pane select tcp/ip (may need to scroll to bottom), click ok, click ok again down & bottom of dialog box, & say yes to restart;
4) thats right, dont rebuild ICS until after u resolve tcp/ip issues;
5) on boot up recheck tcp/ip configs to ensure you have what you want;


if all's well go ahead & rebuild ICS bindings otherwise post probs.

personally i'd set statics on both pcs' if your using ICS through a dial-up - which begs the question, if your not on a dialup ur on a cable/dsl modem & if so, do symptoms persist if u connect Win98 directly to cable/dsl modem?

btw, naturally i dont know the stability of ur sys, nor, with all due respect, ur technical prowse, so obviously this advice is to be taken under consideration and implemented at your own risk - and that of your pc's.

I stumbled across the solution by chance. A previous installation of Zonealarm had not been completely removed and was still exercising some power over my network, but not in any configurable way. Hence ICMP and TCP requests were blocked, as they were not solicited by the Win 98 machine.

Here is how to remove it:

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/conten...stall98FAQ.jsp

Perhaps the original poster's problem is related?

this is more like 2 way ping problem..

recently i bought a wireless network card so i can connect my notebook and desktop together P2P.

I used static IP addressing cos i dont really need ICS on my notebook.

Desktop IP: 192.168.100.1
Notebook IP: 192.168.100.2
Subnet: 255.255.255.0

Workgroup name is same on both comps.

My firewall software has been turned off on my desktop and i havent installed anything on my notebook.

Now on my desktop Im able to see the notebook in network places but not on my notebook.

When I try to ping each other i just get a request timeout.
ping Notebook 2 desktop = request timeout
ping desktop 2 notebook = request timeout

My notebook is running win XP Pro and my desktop is win 2000 Pro..

Ive tried uninstalling networking on my notebook but still not working..

But im pretty sure its my notebook problem because networking doesnt even work on an ethernet LAN as well as Wireless

I'm having a similar problem with win2k3 and linux.

i can connect from various other systems to the linux, including one that uses win2k3 also.

I know for sure my tcp/ip (static ip, gateway,dns) settings are filled in correctly.
Cable is ok and there are 2 onboard NIC's, both don't work so i guess it;s software.

I was on the internet with it, so it worked fine untill i restarted after having installed and removed a few things.

I think i have installed something that blocks or i have removed something that allows incoming pings.

Any suggestions on what could block or is there a tool to see if it's getting blocked?

Any suggestion on how to solve this is appreciated.

jjunn82 states: "Now on my desktop Im able to see the notebook in network places but not on my notebook."

do you mean that you can see the notebook in network places, but that you cannot see it in Windows Explorer?


jjun82 states: "But im pretty sure its my notebook problem because networking doesnt even work on an ethernet LAN as well as Wireless"

please clarify this is i have no idea (well, barely an idea) of what your trying to say.

to get a better idea of what's happening get to a "DOS Prompt"/console window, type in "ipconfig/all" & hit enter and post back everything that you get for both machines.

swiep: post if you havent gotten this resolved

I had a similar problem and it turned out my computers were detecting a nearby access point that i was not using. My desktop is connected directly to the internet and shares the connection over a wireless usb adapter. My laptop connects to the desktop ad/hoc. Make sure you select the correct wireless network to be used for the connection (In my case the ad/hoc network) by disabling any access points that you don't want to use. Hope this helps....

I have similar problem, connecting 2 Windows98 SE machines with crossover cable. No attempt to internet access, just to share files. Works fine with NETBEUI. Won't with TCP/IP. Both machines have clean install of Windows, no firewall (never was). Neither machine can ping the other, but can ping its own address. One machine can see the network members, the other can see nothing. But which machine sees the network and which does not varies depending on which machine last had a setting changed. Both machines have static IP addresses:- 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2 (submask 255.255.2355.0).Both machines in same workgroup and have different names. The machine which sees nothing brings up the message "Unable to browse network, network is not accessible". The Microsoft Knowledge Base article 193938 which specifically refers to this message does not apply to my situation (tried all their steps). The machine which sees the network member gives message \\(computer name) is not accessible. Pings just time out. Settings on both machines identical except for IP address and computer names and check out with everything I have read.

Can the cable work OK for NETBEUI and not work for TCP/IP?

Sorry, typo in my previous post -- subnet is (of course) 255.255.255.0