windows 98 unable to browse network

I thought other people might find this useful - it stumped me for quite a
while and the solution is so simple.

Problem: you have 2-4 computers at home all networked on your linksys
router, two xp machines and two windows 98 old ones that you still keep
around for some reason. the two xp machines and your dependable voodoo
windows 98 machine work great and see each other just fine in the network
neighborhood.

however your really old HP pavilion computer doesn't see the others in the
workgroup for some reason. why is that?

ANSWER:
you've got Zone alarm installed on your (not connecting) HP computer running
windows 98 and you've "disabled" it from startup. Hmm, ok that should just
turn it off right? No- WRONG, it's still there and will dutifully stop you
from seeing the other computers on the network even though they can see you.
When you click on the network icon (from settings) the message "unable to
browser network" will constantly be displayed and you'll run in circles for
hours not knowing why.

RESOLUTION:
the best thing is to simply "enable" Zone alarm at startup and magically all
the network neighborhood will be back to normal and working and seeing the
other computers. How dumb eh?

you could also totally uninstall Zone alarm to get the same thing but I had
no idea it somehow blocked outgoing connection attempts (even though it was
disabled on startup) and windows 98 doesn't really tell you that is
happening. It took me a good couple of hours to discover this on another
message board but that is exactly what happened.

xps Duke wrote:
> I thought other people might find this useful - it stumped me for quite a
> while and the solution is so simple.
>
> Problem: you have 2-4 computers at home all networked on your linksys
> router, two xp machines and two windows 98 old ones that you still keep
> around for some reason. the two xp machines and your dependable voodoo
> windows 98 machine work great and see each other just fine in the network
> neighborhood.
>
> however your really old HP pavilion computer doesn't see the others in the
> workgroup for some reason. why is that?
>
> ANSWER:
> you've got Zone alarm installed on your (not connecting) HP computer running
> windows 98 and you've "disabled" it from startup. Hmm, ok that should just
> turn it off right? No- WRONG, it's still there and will dutifully stop you
> from seeing the other computers on the network even though they can see you.
> When you click on the network icon (from settings) the message "unable to
> browser network" will constantly be displayed and you'll run in circles for
> hours not knowing why.
>
> RESOLUTION:
> the best thing is to simply "enable" Zone alarm at startup and magically all
> the network neighborhood will be back to normal and working and seeing the
> other computers. How dumb eh?
>
> you could also totally uninstall Zone alarm to get the same thing but I had
> no idea it somehow blocked outgoing connection attempts (even though it was
> disabled on startup) and windows 98 doesn't really tell you that is
> happening. It took me a good couple of hours to discover this on another
> message board but that is exactly what happened.

and what if you've never used zone alarm? and your win98SE computer
can't see the XP computer... but WinXp sees and writes to Win98SE?

On Sep 4, 12:55 pm, sean bean <sean.b...@wizard.net> wrote:
> and what if you've never used zone alarm? and your win98SE computer
> can't see the XP computer... but WinXp sees and writes to Win98SE?

Same problem here

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
| On Sep 4, 12:55 pm, sean bean <sean.b...@wizard.net> wrote:
| > and what if you've never used zone alarm? and your win98SE computer
| > can't see the XP computer... but WinXp sees and writes to Win98SE?
|
| Same problem here
|

I'll start with: I no longer professionally administer networks, however,
XP to 98 issues were pretty much resolved [now Vista to anything else,,
whoaboy there's potential issues].

As no one else has responded [I normally don't post here, though I
monitor], here is a link to find most of the information.

http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com/re...NETWORKING.htm

If the suggestions and other links do not supply the necessary information,
please post with whatever your specific issue(s) is/are.
Or if a *hands on* diagnostic is necessary, posting your system/network
configuration, ipconfig /all [XP] and winipcfg [9X] information is a good
starting point so others might help.

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com
________