SBC/Yahoo DSL down after Win98se upgrade.

I'm such a rusty fool. I upgraded a friend's PC
from Win98 to Win98SE using the upgrade CD that
came with the tower (it's a late-'90s Compaq) and
since then, the computer hasn't been able to find
the modem.

With my own network, I've got screenshots and
printouts of all my settings in the event that I
need to reinstall, but I forgot to do that before
this upgrade, and I have no idea what he might
have had on there. The only connection in Dial-Up
Networking was for WAN Miniport (atw) 1, and that
gave us an Error #752.

As of today, we uninstalled and re-installed the
Dial-Up Adapter, Dial-Up Networking (he's
currently running 1.3), the Linksys NIC, and the
Enternet 300 software, which reinstalled the PPPoE
adapter.

My question is, do I need to tell him to reinstall
the IPX/SPX and NetBEUI protocols and VPN? Those
are on my set-up, but not his. Also, he has no
NDISWAN protocols in Network>Configuration.

I'm not familiar with Enternet 300, but it's all
he's got right now until he can get back online.

The Enternet 300 profile wizard can't locate a
server, it doesn't look like the PPPoE adapter is
disabled in System Info and the modem is working,
because his wife's mac can connect using their
router.

(Which is another thing: I'm not familiar with
routers and have no idea if this one needs to be
reinstalled. I was told there's no software for
it.)

Any help or ideas would be appreciated, and if I'm
missing something from Control
Panel>Network>Configuration, please let me know.

dylan

 

1. DSL has nothing to do with Dial-Up Networking. You can uninstall DUN
completely and it will not affect your DSL situation.

2. No, you do not need anything besides plain old TCP/IP on your NIC to use
the DSL Modem.

3. You do not need *any* third-party software except the basic NIC drivers.

4. If the wife's machine can connect via the router, then the router is set
up properly and all you should need to do is make the NIC work. If nobody
can get through the router to the modem, then that would indicate other
problems. For now, forget about that.

What I recommend is to go into Network applet in Control Panel, and delete
everything that is there. Then go to Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab,
Communications section, click Details, and uncheck everything. OK your way
out to Add/Remove Programs and uninstall any NIC or SBC-related software. DO
NOT restart whenever prompted.

Next, you'll want to restart in Safe Mode. To make sure you go directly to
Safe Mode, because restarting in Normal Mode may automatically reinstall
some things, I recommend first running MSCONFIG from the Start\Run box.
Click on Advanced button at lower right, then put a check into the "Enable
Startup Menu" box. Click OK, restart when prompted. At the Startup Menu,
choose Safe Mode.

In Safe Mode, right-click My Computer and choose Properties (or go to
Control Panel, System applet.) Remove all Network Adapters. Also take stock
of what's listed there, looking for devices that are no longer part of that
system (old printers, etc.) and for duplicated entries. Some duplications
are normal, particularly in the System and USB sections, but otherwise, the
rule is one entry per device. Duplicate entries are common and can cause
Windows much confusion. You won't see these duplicates in Normal mode
because it only shows what's loaded, whereas Safe Mode Device Manager shows
all of the device installations that exist in the Registry, even if they're
obsolete or otherwise useless. Make a list of duplicated items, and any
other questions you have about what you see there, post the list back here
for advice later. The typical response to duplicated items is to delete them
ALL (we don't know which is the most recent or the most correctly
configured.) But there can arise issues of "parent/child" relationships that
might suggest that removing other devices is also necessary in order to make
sure things are configured correctly when the devices are reinstalled.

Restart and, with luck, the NIC will be automatically reinstalled properly.
The NIC installation should provide the necessary support for the DSL
connection. If the people want to see each others' computers, that requires
a bit more configuration. But the basic NIC installation should provide
everything necessary to get online. In the Network applet, you should see
Client for Microsoft Networks, the NIC itself as an Adapter, and TCP/IP.

If that doesn't work, we'll need to dig deeper. Also, SBC's tech support may
very well be able to lead you through procedures. Again, UNINSTALL all the
support software that relates to these devices, including the SBC software.
Believe me, none of it is necessary to make this work. In most cases, that
stuff just causes more problems. The only thin you need are the NIC drivers
themselves, and Windows should already know where those are. (If the phone
modem isn't going to be used for anything else, like faxing, I'd disable it
in Device Manager as well. Just to free up resources and prevent confusion.)

 

Thanks, I'm going to try this, but before I do, is
there anything I should tell him to backup, before
he might lose messenger settings or mail? I'm not
familiar with SBC/Yahoo, and I don't want to do
more damage than I've already done.

dylan

 

I don't know what he's using for email, so I can't say if that would get
messed up if you uninstall the SBC/Yahoo applications. But it isn't typical
for data files to be deleted when programs are uninstalled. It's rather
expected that uninstall/reinstall operations may need to be performed in
order to repair things. Doesn't make sense to delete data stores during
those operations. You can ignore Yahoo! Messenger and leave it in place.
That's a separate app.

Then again, a full backup at this juncture would be a very good idea. If you
need to figure out where the email stores are, you can always run the email
app, download messages, send one or two, anything to update the databases,
then use Find to locate files that have changed in the last day. Sort by
Date and the most recent ones, the ones that are likely to be the email
stores, will show up at one end or the other of that list of files.

I'm interested, however, in what application they use for email.

 

Okay, we did all of that to the letter, and still
he's getting "Page cannot be displayed" messages
in IE6, Netscape and Mozilla Firefox. I had him
run ipconfig, and it showed that his IP was
192.168.1.3 and that the default gateway was
192.168.1.1. I had him ping the router, and that
responded, but there was no response from
www.yahoo.com or www.google.com.

He's tracing the wires to his router now, and he
said he might give SBC a call if we can't figure
this out soon.

dylan

 

I found out that they both use Yahoo's web mail,
so that saved having to back up any mail settings,
and he doesn't use Yahoo Messenger, so we
uninstalled that as well.

dylan

 

Oh, there's a router involved... I didn't realize that. What make/model? The
router needs to be set up. Try this test -- Attach the DSL modem directly to
the computer. Give it several minutes, just to make sure that the computer
manages to obtain its new IP address. Then see if you can't get online.

Setting up routers manually is easy for some people. I find it simpler to
just use whatever app is provided by the router manufacturer to configure
the router. Again, what make/model router? Typically, you are instructed by
the setup program to first attach the computer directly to the DSL modem and
making sure you can get to the internet. The program then reads all the
needed data from the computer and the modem, and then has you change the
wiring to connect the modem to the router and then the router to the
computer. It then proceeds to set up the router and connect the machine.
Routers vary, with some needing to be set up every time you lose power to
the modem or the router, or the DSL is dynamic IP and gets changed. Others
are better in this regard.

 

I'm not sure that the router is involved, as his
wife's mac can connect via the router and this
problem only started after we upgraded from Win98
to Win98SE. You had said earlier that because she
could connect, it meant the router was set up
properly. She can get through, and they don't
want to disconnect her computer from the router,
because both computers were connected to the
router when the router was first installed.

I believe it's a Belkin router, and that it's
configured on her mac. The router software was
never run on this PC before now and the computer
always just worked.

I also had him ping google.com and he received an
"Unknown Host" error, but when I had him ping
216.239.37.99, he received the usual four replies
with no loss.

dylan

 

Sorry, I'm getting blitzy today. I *thought* there was another machine
involved but in my re-reading, I missed that.

Perhaps it's time someone else took over, <sigh>. I'll think on it while I
finish some other stuff, but I don't have high hopes for my brain at this
juncture. Sorry.

I think it would be a good idea for the guy to call SBS. I've called them
before on such issues, and they walked me through certain steps, and even
connected me to LinkSys (my router manufacturer) when it was determined that
the issue was router setup. But he might want to try the router setup from
his machine, first, and see if that gets him connected. If so, then find out
whether his wife can also connect.

 

Then it's clearly a dns problem. This information is usually passed on
to the pc along with it's ip address as part of the dhcp process. You
will need to rebuild the winsock as follows

1. Un-install Dial-Up Networking. Don't reboot.
2. Delete registry key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock2
3. Re-install Dial-Up Networking. Reboot.


Jim.

 

This is not a DUN issue. DUN is not in any way involved in DSL connections.

 

I know it's not a DUN issue. It's a DNS issue which is a sign of a
damaged winsock. That's how to rebuild the winsock in win9x.

That's incorrect but a different matter. DSL connections quite often
use dial up networking. Simply substituting a dsl modem for an
analogue one.


Jim.

 

Sorry, I was at the blitzy end of a blitzy day. You're right, of course, but
there are also other issues that could be involved, and this page includes
not only your WINSOCK repair but also other suggestions pertinent to this
issue.
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1453

 

I've made notes on all the things I print to check
Winsock first in the future--I posted the whole
story in my previous message in the thread, but
the date on Winsock.dll caused a week worth of
hair pulling. It's all running smooth now, so I
guess my friend'll still talk to me.

dylan

 

Thanks, I'm going to keep this for future
reference.

dylan

 

It's okay, after a week of this, we were both
pretty blitzy, too.

Turned out it was a damaged Winsock.dll and all
the uninstalling and re-installing didn't fix it,
because any time we reinstalled Winsock, Windows
would tell us the file being replaced was newer,
so we'd keep it. Eventually we got to renaming
the Winsock files and saw the date on the DLL was
10/7/05--the day we did the upgrade.

Thanks for all your help, his network
configuration is much cleaner now, had we gone
straight to Winsock, we wouldn't have gotten that
done.

dylan

 

Whew!

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User