Win98 Clients Won't Load Web Pages; Outlook Won't Get E-mail

[nerdking]

Maybe this has been addressed before, if so could someone please share their advice once again?

My company has just switched users over to our network from the previous Management Company's network at one of our facilities. The Management Company's network was an NT4 Domain setup using DHCP and ours is a Workgroup with a Samba Server for file and print services, and a Watchguard box providing, among other things, DHCP.

The Win 2000 boxes work just fine after changing the appropiate information (workgroup name, users, gateway, DNS Servers, etc.). They can go out and D/L e-mail form our E-mail server located at our Headquarters location, access the Web through IE and see the local Network/Printer shares.

The 98 boxes (both 98 and 98SE) are another matter. After making the necessary changes, they can see the network/printer shares just fine, but they cannot do anything that access the Internet (e.g.' Web access and e-mail). We can ping web domains and our E-mail Server o.k., but when we try to access Web Sites through IE, the only thing that happens is we reach the DNS (we use our ISP's DNS Servers), but that's as far as we get.

We have tried to uninstall and reinstall all the networking elements (TCP stack, NIC's, etc.), both physically and through 'software' settings and have had no luck. Could there be any settings in any configuration or registry files that could be the cause of our problem, or do we have to bite the bullet and wipe the 98 boxes and reinstall?

Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nerdking

 

[Win98User]

Hi,
The following is an extract from microsofts ICS troubleshooter

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q238135

- the bits shown here are a little more general and my give you another insight into tackling your problem - Let us know how you go on.


Ping IP Address of Host

To use the Ping command to verify the functionality of Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), follow these steps:
Click Start, point to Programs, and then click MS-DOS Prompt.
At the command prompt, type ping 192.168.0.1, and then press ENTER.
At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER to return to Windows.
If you receive a reply, the client computer is able to communicate with the Host computer over the LAN with TCP/IP.

If you do not receive a reply, troubleshoot the issue as a general network connection problem in Windows. For information about troubleshooting network connection problems in Windows, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q192534 Troubleshooting Windows 95/98 Network Connection Problems

Ping IP address on Internet

To ping the IP address of a Web site on the Internet, you first need to obtain the IP address of a Web site on the Internet from the Host. To obtain the IP address for a Web site, follow these steps:


On the Host computer, click Start, point to Programs, and then click MS-DOS Prompt.
At the command prompt, type ping <Web site name> (where <Web site name> is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of a Web site), and then press ENTER.NOTE: Some Web sites (such as

http://www.microsoft.com)

may not return a reply, if this occurs, try a different Web site.


If the Web site returns a reply, you should receive the following message:
pinging <Web site name> [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]...
Where <Web site name> is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the Web site and xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the Web site.
Write down this IP address to use later.
After you have obtained the IP address for a Internet Web site, to test the TCP/IP connection on the client, following these steps:


On the client computer, click Start, point to Programs, and then click MS-DOS Prompt.
At the command prompt, type ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address for the Internet Web site), and then press ENTER.
At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER to return to Windows.
If you receive a reply, the client computer is able to communicate with the Internet over the LAN with TCP/IP.

If you do not receive a reply, refer the the Host Configuration section mentioned previously in this article for steps to configure and troubleshoot problems with the Host computer.


Ping Internet Name

If the client can successfully ping the IP address of a website, use the Internet name to test the DNS configuration with ping. To do this, follow these steps:

Click Start, point to Programs, and then click MS-DOS Prompt.
At the command prompt, type ping <Web site name> (where <Web site name> is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of a Web site), and then press ENTER.

NOTE: Some Web sites (such as

http://www.microsoft.com)

may not return a reply, if this occurs, try a different Web site.
If you receive a reply, the Host and client computer are configured and working correctly. NOTE: If your browser is still unable to open a Web Site by name, check the browser's connection settings and make sure it is configured to use the LAN to connect and that no proxy servers are configured.


Open IP Address in Browser

To test the browser by attempting to open a Web site by the IP address, follow these steps:


Click Start, click Run, type

http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

(where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the Web site), and then click OK.
If the Web site is displayed, the browser is functioning properly and there may be a problem with Domain Name Server (DNS) resolution.

For additional information about configuring DNS, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q229974 Connection Error Messages When You Use ICS with an FQDN
If the Web site is not displayed, there may be a problem with Winsock on the computer.

For information about possible Winsock issues, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q188952 &quot;Internal Error Occurred&quot; Error Message Using Internet Explorer

 

[nerdking]

Thanks for the suggestions. We have tried everything mentioned a number of times, but we still cannot access Internet sites.

Let me expand a little concerning our setup. As mentioned in my first post, we are running a Workgroup type of network using a 10.10.xxx.xxx addressing scheme with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Standing between the Workgroup and the DSL router is a Watchguard box configured to provide a firewall as well as providing a DHCP Server and the settings for the VPN tunnel between this remote site and our Headquarters site.

Originally, there were two networks at this remote facillity. One Network belonged to the outside Management Company which ran the day-to-day business of this facility. It was a Domain-type network with an NT Server providing file and print services and DHCP services. This was connected to a router (Cisco, I believe) and the router connected to their DSL router for Internet and VPN access to their mail and AV servers located in Denver, CO. The second network was ours. It was configured as previously described -- complete and seperate from the Management Company's network. Both networks worked satisfactorily, providing their respective LAN browsing and Internet and VPN connectivity without problem.

We have discontinued our relationship with the outside Management Company and are now running the day-to-day affairs of this facility ourselves. As we switched the computers over to our network this problem began to manifest itself. The 98 machines on our network all work just fine; LAN browsing, going to WEB sites and e-mail all continue without a hiccup. It is only the 98 machines from the former network that will not properly connect to the internet. We can ping out of DOS and from the 'Run' command using both internal and external IP addresses and names and see the LAN, but when it comes to reaching our e-mail server via VPN or opening a Web site via IE or Netscape, these machines from the Management Company's won't respond on our Network.

Our 3-man IT department has a combined 55 years of experience, and none of us has ever experienced this kind of behavior. We are out of ideas, and unless someone can share something new that will fix this problem, we are left with the task of wiping every one of these 98 boxes and reinstalling, and with 20 machines, that will take a long time.

 

[nerdking]

Got the problem solved!

As I was sitting at one of these 98 boxes yesterday just staring at it after yet another unsuccessful attempt to fix this Internet access problem, I happened to have the Add/Remove dialouge open. I was checking for previous versions of AV software installed and I noticed a reference to &quot;Microsoft Proxy Client.&quot; We don't need anything related to Proxies in our Network environment, so I thought, &quot;What the hell, maybe this could part of the puzzel.&quot;

I went ahead and removed it, rebooted, and opened up IE. Guess what happened? Yahoo.com appeared! I next went to Google, then to a few other tech-related pages that most normal people don't go to to make sure I wasn't going to previously cached pages and they all camr up without a hitch.

When I showed my colleagues, we all slapped our foreheads and said &quot;WOW&quot; (a classic V-8 moment).

This was our last major hurdle. We now have everyone up and looking at the LAN as well as getting their e-mail and going out to the Internet. This next week will be a whole lot easier for us now that this is taken care of.

I want to extend my thanks and appreciation to Win98User for their suggestions, and to everyone else who -- although they didn't reply -- stopped for a few moments in their day to give this some thoughts.

Nerdking, International Knotted String Consultant and Ex-bagpipe Breeder.