dear lazyweb
Jan. 14th, 2006 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chronovoreI have a friend with an ancient Windows 98 / Pentium (with MMX!) laptop that has Outlook Express mail on it that she wants to move to her new laptop. Quite old. The laptop's battery is dead; if it gets unplugged it just immediately turns off. It has a floppy drive and a CD-ROM (read-only) but no USB ports. There is not ethernet port; the laptop has a PCMCIA (PC Card) slot which hosts an ethernet adaptor card, but it is unclear from the Hardware Manager if the OS knows that the PC Card is an ethernet adaptor.
It was working fine, but very slowly, at her house. I brought it home, plugged it into the router, and (wah-wahhhh) it doesn't want to connect.
The broadband service she used at her house requred some kind of connection program. I thought that was just her provider, but it appears to be a necessary step. Is networking under Win98 some kind of spit-and-bailing-wire affair? Windows 2000 and Windows XP both seem to support plugging an ethernet cable into the machine and the other end of it into a router, ans VIOLA, INTARWEB goodness. Without going through the Fletts (service provider) connection application, it says it is looking for something having to do with a proxy, and eventually gives up. I can't use the connection application; it is trying to do something that it probably doesn't need to do, since it's theoretically already getting internet through the ethernet (through the PC card).
Am I missing something dirt simple about networking in Windows 98? I'm trying to navigate this shit from memory, since it's all in Japanese, but I never did anything other than Dialup PPP connections in the Win98 era, and I've never worked with PCMCIA cards before. Assuming the driver's in place does it work pretty much like USB, in terms of knowing what it is? It seems to be like USB at least as far as the "Hey, don't unplug that shit without using the icon in the taskbar to put it away first!" type warnings.
Moreover, isn't there some simple way to plug an ethernet cable into each of the laptops, and then be able to see the other computer, or is that just the Macintosh that facilitates that?
It was working fine, but very slowly, at her house. I brought it home, plugged it into the router, and (wah-wahhhh) it doesn't want to connect.
The broadband service she used at her house requred some kind of connection program. I thought that was just her provider, but it appears to be a necessary step. Is networking under Win98 some kind of spit-and-bailing-wire affair? Windows 2000 and Windows XP both seem to support plugging an ethernet cable into the machine and the other end of it into a router, ans VIOLA, INTARWEB goodness. Without going through the Fletts (service provider) connection application, it says it is looking for something having to do with a proxy, and eventually gives up. I can't use the connection application; it is trying to do something that it probably doesn't need to do, since it's theoretically already getting internet through the ethernet (through the PC card).
Am I missing something dirt simple about networking in Windows 98? I'm trying to navigate this shit from memory, since it's all in Japanese, but I never did anything other than Dialup PPP connections in the Win98 era, and I've never worked with PCMCIA cards before. Assuming the driver's in place does it work pretty much like USB, in terms of knowing what it is? It seems to be like USB at least as far as the "Hey, don't unplug that shit without using the icon in the taskbar to put it away first!" type warnings.
Moreover, isn't there some simple way to plug an ethernet cable into each of the laptops, and then be able to see the other computer, or is that just the Macintosh that facilitates that?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 05:25 pm (UTC)as far as the network settings go, it's just like the holy-mac world, ip via DHCP, turn off proxies. dns servers would be helpful (for getting somewhere on the interweb), but if you have *any* set, they'll prolly work. i've not encountered 'authenticated' dns servers yet.
but, in the end it will prolly be much easier to pick up a firewire or usb2.0 pc card and use the corresponding external (or flash drive). if the new machine doesn't *have* usb2 already, it will need it anyway and flash drives are really cheap and handy to have around.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 09:56 pm (UTC)I agree with the final recommendation. Save yourself the trouble and use a flash drive.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 01:39 am (UTC)You're helpful as always! I didn't even think to look for a PC Card USB adaptor. That's going to be how to do it, for me. I don't understand "enet" and the network settings are like some arcane list of demonic demands to me. Even if they were in English, I'd be baffled, but the descriptors are in Japanese.
Thanks for the tip!