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Windows ME networking troubles


TmEE

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I have been experimenting with WinME and I will be switching over to in from 98SE for sure, mainly because it takes much more effort on ME to get large blits fail than it does on 98SE and TCP/IP does not go through some form of corruption after a while that makes it drop new connections.

Anyway I have this one weird problem around accessing network shares from my 98 based server :

I cannot access any share until I have accessed a share that is not password protected through Network Places by going to workgroup->computer->share. Accessing a password protected share prior to that will make windows yell share is inaccessible or nothing happens altogether, sometimes password is asked but nothing happens beyond that. Also none of the shortcuts will work prior to accessing a share by going to it through Network Places as I described earlier...

I only get "share/computer is not accessible" type error messages. When I do get such an error I need to hit refresh in the workgroup window and after that I can attempt access again.

On my 98SE computers there's no problems around this, I access the share from shortcut and it will ask me password or show the share directly, no errors ever (unless network cable in unplugged :P)

Has anyone ever experienced something similar ?

What settings can I change in the server and/or the ME computer ?

EDIT:

Solution :

get driver version 6.64.0.0 if you have Broadcom NetXtreme 5788 NIC and experience the issues described.

I will host the versions I found on my site sometime, I need to reorganize some stuff first.

Edited by TmEE
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Seems the problem is related to the laptop itself in some way, when it has ME on it.

I set up ME on my other computer and all was fine and dandy, no weird issues.

98 on the laptop, with latest driver from broadcom works fine, no weirdnesses... except hang on shutdown when IP is not released (but installing microsoft IPSec thing fixes that).

ME on that laptop, with same driver as 98, the weirdnesses described. No hang on shutdown in any case.

Only thing left to do is to try older drivers and hope one of them behaves better.

Edited by TmEE
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Seems the problem is related to the laptop itself in some way, when it has ME on it.

I set up ME on my other computer and all was fine and dandy, no weird issues.

98 on the laptop, with latest driver from broadcom works fine, no weirdnesses... except hang on shutdown when IP is not released (but installing microsoft IPSec thing fixes that).

ME on that laptop, with same driver as 98, the weirdnesses described. No hang on shutdown in any case.

Only thing left to do is to try older drivers and hope one of them behaves better.

Is the driver a 98 driver or a Me driver, for trying to use 98 drivers on a Me system could be a pain in the butt.

Edited by Flasche
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There's not a whole lot else to think of. Hardware is most certainly fine (no issues with 98SE, XP, Vista and Win8).

A PCMCIA NIC I got works just fine too, but it is 100M and onboard is 1000M, and I have got very used to the higher speeds...

Is the driver a 98 driver or a Me driver, for trying to use 98 drivers on a Me system could be a pain in the butt.

The driver is 98/SE/ME.

Most just 95 or 98 drivers work fine, though I experienced a problem with one RAID card driver, that made shutdowns hang. I will have to see if there's other driver versions for that.

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I mean the issue sounds like it is ME not being able to resolve host name. You are basically having to search for computers on the windows workgroup then once your network browser does name resolution. Then you can connect. I think your problem would be solved as a work around just to edit the Host file on the computer and manually add the IPs names of the other computers on your network to the host file.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_%28file%29

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/network-administration-the-hosts-file.html

Edited by oldskool
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That did not work. Or...

192.168.0.32 TPC-PIII1400-03

...Or...

192.168.0.32 TMEE.TPC-PIII1400-03

...is not the proper syntax. Computer named TPC-PIII1400-03 in workgroup TMEE that sits at static IP of 192.168.0.32

Using any other NIC I have (PCMCIA and internal WiFi) will work correctly on first try using any shortcut or going through network places. Same install on different hardware also works correctly.

ME itself seems to have no trouble locating the shares when I connect to the LAN, but accessing will be the problem...

I have also ruled out the problem being with installation. I have been to some 10 installs on the hardware trying different things and the LAN issue presisted with the integrated LAN which is Broadcom Netlink 5788.

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The problem here is that this machine is a laptop. If it was a desktop with PCI slots I would just look into my stash of computer parts haha.

Plus I need it to be 1000Mbit. The Broadcom chip in the laptop is. WiFi or the PCMCIA/Cardbus stuff I got is not...

Edited by TmEE
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  • 3 weeks later...

I found TWO half fixes :

1. Change link speed from Auto to 10half/10full/100half/100full in card driver settings page.

2. Enable file sharing from network control panel.

By half I mean I no longer have to browse to the shares or access unprotected share first, but I do have to go to the already found share from the network places icon. Shortcuts on desktop or elsewhere do not seem to work on first try... but sometimes they do...

This stuff is not working. Just maybe once out of 10 reboots...

I managed to gather a bunch of versions of the driver, one even newer than the one on broadcom site ! I will be going through them one by one and hope one of them actually works.

EDIT: Oldest driver I found works consistently across multiple reboots. I shall try the newer ones and report back the point where things seem to break !

EDIT2: The oldest I found is the only one that actually works. Version 6.64.0.0 works, next one I found which is 7.35.00 does not, nor do 8.27.1.0, 10.24.0.0 (one on Broadcom site) and 10.26.0.0.

Edited by TmEE
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