I have a 4-computer Windows 98 SE network established at home. I’m using Diamond HomeFree Phoneline 10MB NICs to connect 3 client computers to a Main PC with a DSL internet connection. Despite numerous issues encountered when setting everything up, the network is currently working properly.
I want to replace one of the client computers (running Win98) with a brand new state-of-the-art PC running either Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional. I know Microsoft has info explaining how to connect a Win98 machine to a Win2000 network, but nothing about connecting a Win2000 machine to a Win98 network. Assuming that I’ve got the necessary drivers to do so, can I connect a Win2000 (or WinXP) machine to a Win98 SE network?
Also: The NIC I am using is no longer supported by Diamond. I have Win2000 drivers, but no WinXP drivers. Are Win2000 drivers typically useable under WinXP?
First, I am assuming you are running plain old peer to peer networking (since you don’t have anything that could serve as a domain authentication agent).
If this is the case, Win2000 and XP both support dropping into that environment no problem.
Win 2000 brings some nifty (but not backward compatible) ideas to Domain security, but in a peer to peer environment you should be able to ignore all that.
As to the NIC, if you are getting a “state of the art” pc, it will probably have a new NIC in it with drivers available. Also, I would not be terribly surprised if one or both of the proposed OS’s could properly detect and include workable drivers for your existing NIC if you do choose to recycle it.
Personally I would opt for a machine with an Intel motherboard with Intel Pro 10/100 integrate NIC. In fact, I did opt for that in my recently purchase new machine.
Well, I got a new computer with XP. Connected the network cable to the old PC running ME. Ran the network setup thingy, it said put the XP disk in the other computer & run the network thingy, so I did that,
then restarted the ME machine & presto! Network. I thought it would take all afternoon, but it only took about 4 minutes. Course, I also had to turn off the XP firewall. Which took another two minutes.
Well, I got a new computer with XP. Connected the network cable to the old PC running ME. Ran the network setup thingy, it said put the XP disk in the other computer & run the network thingy, so I did that,
then restarted the ME machine & presto! Network. I thought it would take all afternoon, but it only took about 4 minutes. Course, I also had to turn off the XP firewall. Which took another two minutes.
I’m using Deerfield’s WinGate software to facilitate the internet connection sharing. I’m pretty sure it’s using Network Address Translation to share the DSL connection. I don’t think that qualifies as peer-to-peer, though I’m certainly not a networking expert.
I don’t really have a choice as to the NIC I’m using, since I need one that is compatible with the phone line network I’m using. Connecting the computers using anything but the phone lines isn’t really a viable setup at this time.
handy:
Your success with Windows XP and Windows ME suggests that I may be able to get this to work.
ChrisW, I would suggest using the Internet Connection Sharing option of Windows 2000/XP instead of WinGate to do connection sharing, if you go to Windows 2000 or Windows XP. This, of course, requires that you use 2K/XP on the machine that has the connection to the Outside World.
XP networking will not work with 9X/Me without installing software on the 9X/Me machines. Fortunately, XP comes with the necessary software, and the wizard will tell you what you have to do to set it up.