Recently, I established an ad-hoc wireless network between my desktop PC and my laptop, using the Microsoft home network and Internet Connection Sharing facility. Everything works well, except that I am only able to access a limited number of internet sites from the laptop. The Laptop is set up for the IP and DNS addresses to be allocated by the Desktop PC as host, and accesses the internet through the host’s TransAct broadband connection. Those internet sites that are accessible, which include the Microsoft sites, are found and displayed very quickly, but a large number of sites cannot be found. When they are called from the laptop, the desktop host sends and receives data to the ISP, presumably to the DNS server to obtain the sites IP address (I can see the data transfers from the network connections status pages on the host computer), but Internet Explorer on the laptop hangs up waiting for a ‘website found’ response, which never arrives. I thought of trying to connect to some of the websites that I cannot locate by using their numerical IP addresses directly from the laptop, thus avoiding the need to access DNS servers, but I do not know how to find the IP addresses. Internet Explorer 6 running on the desktop host works very well and quickly finds all websites. Do you have any ideas about how I should isolate this problem? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. The desktop is running Windows XP Home and the laptop is running Windows 98 SE with Internet Explorer 6. (more…)

Recently I replaced an older Pentium PC running Windows 98 with a new HP 534a running Windows XP Home Edition. I also have a 3 year old HP4509 running Windows 98. Prior to this replacement I had a successful 2 computer local network with a computer to computer direct link. I have not been able to set up a similar network with the two HP computers - although I follow the network set-up wizard (Windows XP) and thence a set-up disc on the other. Running the ‘Repair’ program under the ‘Control Panel’ > ‘Networks’ > ‘Network Connection’ > Repair facility brings up the following message ‘The following steps of the operation failed: Renewing the IP address. Contact your network administrator or ISP’. Hope you can help. (more…)

My two computers are a Pentium 4 desktop computer running Windows 2000 and a Toshiba Notebook 430cds running Windows 95. I would like to communicate between the two computers. Windows 95 has a cable direct facility which allows communication by serial or parallel cable. I have the cable but how do I make it communicate with a Windows 2000 machine? (more…)

I am attempting to network a Windows XP host computer to a Windows ME client computer. Both computers are PIII or better and have plenty of RAM and hard disk space available. The XP host is fitted with a Realtek RTL 8139/810X Family Fast Ethernet NIC Adapter and the ME client is fitted with an Realtek RTL 8139(A) PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter. The symptoms are varied and despite repeatedly checking and going through the complete procedure, I cannot make the network work. After setting up, the host indicates that the network is connected but the client cannot recognise the Entire Network. Clicking on the ‘Entire Network’ icon in ‘My Network Places’, I am told ‘Unable to browse the network’, and ‘Windows is unable to gain access to the network. This may be for a number of reasons. For more information click HELP’. Going to HELP and following all the possible steps provides no explanation. I have tried using a Network Set Up Disk with files copied from the host, and also setting up the client using the Windows XP program disk. During my attempts to network, a Residential Gateway icon made its appearance advising me to click on the icon for more information. When I do this I am told that it is ‘A device that is available on your network’. I understand the problem is a common occurence when combining Windows XP and Windows ME on a network. Therefore, I went to the Microsoft Support site for help and found the article ‘A Residential Gateway Device That Cannot Be Controlled Is Displayed on a Windows ME-Based Client (Q298757). However, I do not understand what is meant by ‘connectoid’ or ‘a presentation page’ which are both mentioned in the above article. The ME based computer has a modern mother board and is plug and play. So I am completely puzzled. Can you please help? (more…)

When browsing the web, occasionally a message appears that ‘An exceptions OE has occurred at 0028:C15A1E09 in VxD AFVXD (01) + 00001649. This was called from 0028:C18406F4 in VxD PPPMAC C04+000079B4. Press any key to attempt to continue or Ctrl-Alt-Del to shut down your machine’. On pressing a key the machine returns to normal. Can you tell me how to stop this message appearing as it is annoying. (more…)