For some reason this particular problem has me stumped and I need your help because my brain isn’t clicking with this.
Win 98 connecting to Win NT – working fine yesterday. I added a network printer to the machine and the user was able to sign on the network no problem yesterday afternoon.
Today, no login for the domain, it goes directly into Win 98.
Ping PDC, see it (realize I forgot to ask the user to tell me about the packet confirmation.) So I had him ping the gateway (also our firewall and also where you get the IP address) No problem, have him ping my Terminal Server after unplugging and plugging the network cable back in, no packet loss.
I ping his IP address, it’s within the scope of our network so I know it’s not the Win 98 IP assigned, I can see him on the network.
I had him reboot several times through out this, still no login window. Via Network Neighborhood he can not see any other machine on the network but he can ping them.
I also had him go through and read me all the critical network information (aka Network Properties) and all looks good.
Any ideas? I just can’t seem to come up with a solution. Microsoft’s KB is about worthless on this matter. I will be heading into the office in a bit but will check the boards when I get there.
I don’t have win 98 right now, so I’m going from memory. I would double check that the “log into NT domain” box is checked in the Client for Microsoft Networks service. As well, check the the Primary Network login is set to Client for Microsoft Networks. Assuming those are correct, I would check his LMHosts file, and possibly add an entry for the PDC if there isn’t one already.
Try reloading his NetBios cache: nbtstat -RR from the command line.
Been sticking primarily to NT and Linux.
Few WAGs.
What group does this machine think it is a part of?
In the network control panel, what is the primary network logon?
What gateway is it using?
I can only offer possible avenues of investigation. Also, Kyberneticist said exactly what I would have said, down to the NT/Linux thing.
Does Win98 have a ‘remember my password’ option? He may have logged in as some other ID and locked himself in that way.
Did some network component get de-installed by a clueless user? If you are using NetBEUI or whatever the heck that protocol is but it got de-installed, that could be a problem.
Along with what douglips said, if they do have Windows set to remember passwords, it might have logged on to the domain automatically. Try deleting all the .PWL files on the machine. When I’ve run in to that problem, it’s usually either that, or a DNS problem. If you’re actually using DNS, then a host file might be over-riding those settings, (or is that the LMhost file for DNS? I can never remember).
Ah, the nightmare of Windows networking. I’ve seen this type of thing before, and usually I try looking the network config of one that’s working correctly.
My PC is on Win 98 (I’ve not felt the need for NT yet, please don’t think less of me) and I log into our NT network, so I’m probably pretty similar. A couple things that may have been overlooked… From the Network settings, Configuration Tab, my Primary Network Logon is set to “Microsoft Family Logon”. It’s possible this may have been changed. I also have “Client for Microsoft Networks” in the “components are installed” list. When I go to properties on “Client for Microsoft Networks”, I have the “Log on to Windows NT Domain” box checked, and I’ve got my domain name below that.
If all else fails, the PWL deletion trick will probably work.
From what I have seen of TechChick’s posts in the past, she knows her stuff … so I will skip the kiddy solutions.
Rebuild the whole network stack for that machine … go into the network settings and scrag the whole freaking thing! Reboot the machine … let it come up with no network settings. Then add the settings the way you want them, and I trust that is way below your current tech level, and then reboot.
Has worked for me in the past. When the TCP/IP stack got nastily corrupted. Still pinged but would not do much more …
I recently set up a Win98 machine on an NT domain (God, I hate doing that), and I noticed that when the “Enter network password” dialog appeared, with the username, password, and domain edit boxes, if I logged on with a valid user name and password for that domain, the logon script executed, Network Neighborhood appeared normally, and everything worked as it should. If however, I clicked cancel, instead of logging on with a username and password, the network would still work in the manner you described, but without things like Network Neighborhood, etc. I know that Win98 has a way to skip that password dialog and go directly into Windows. It may be doing this (effectively automatically hitting the “cancel” button). The web, pings, etc. will work, but not Network Neighborhood. I’ve also noticed that this causes the machine not to appear in Network Neighborhood for the NT boxes on the domain, also.
I do that a lot when I don’t have an account on a network, but don’t care about authenticating for windows services, but just the ability to telnet out n such.
Didn’t even occur to me that possibly the user might be cancelling the dialog.
If you boot in safe mode the same thing will happen.
I usually just use the START menu items. FIND has a selection for ‘finding a computer on a network’ & START then ‘H’ has great info on networks & how to make them work.
Your handle is rich with irony, sir. techchick, perhaps you already use it, but in case you don’t, I highly recommend Ghost. Create an image of a successful install & configure and use it to restore dead machines. I used this religiously as a tech support guy. It got to the point where I dunno how I would function without it. On a decent-speed network, it’s often faster to copy the image than to tinker around trying to find the problem…
For the record…some people seem to think I am a complete idiot when it comes to the issue that was described.
Okay people, (not trying to Pit this at all) I have been dealing with networks, PCs and the like for 6 years now (not including my years in UNIX) and I am NOT an idiot. I don’t get paid the money I do for not knowing my way around computers and a network.
I know how to troubleshoot. I know the cause and effect of certain issues that happen within the confines of a computer. I ran into a problem that was not asking for kindergarten resolve to the problem – I even described my steps, many of which were repeated by other posters throughout this thread as a resolve. This means, READ the post would ya?
I went through all the normal steps to eliminate the obvious and ended up with a not so obvious problem, thereby needing to see if some of the other professionals on the board had a good resolve. Sometimes those that have dealt with an issue in the past have found an easy way around the issue at hand.
By reinstalling Win 98 I resolved the problem as the typical solutions were clearly not going to work as described above.
The case is closed and no further comment on the matter is needed.
< not to sound snotty, but sheesh, I thought I did a good job of explaining what I had done and why I was stumped >
