Network neighbood

If you do not have another "server" in your network, then you need the MS NetBEUI protocol installed in Control Panel --> Network. Without a true "server" there's nothing polling/browsing the other computers locally. NetBEUI is made for small peer-to-peer networks.

Can you access any of the other machines using the run command?

Did you check all your subnet mask and default gateway info so that it is the same on all machines? Are you assigning IPs dynamically or are they static?

Are you using only Windows 98 on your network?

Are you internet sharing? If so, how many machines are sharing the connection? Probably should not be more than 10.

If you are using a router like a basic retail Linksys router, and it is your dhcp server, and if the protocol you are using is a broadcast protocol like Netbui and you have a lot of machines on the network, you might be getting data collisions.

Check some of these things out.

Good luck.

I have found 98 is liable for network dropouts for no logical reason. (working one day not the next). I you have only just set up the networkand it has never run properly then try running winipcfg if the IP address is given as 269.x.x.x then then you may need to reinstall the network card. some of the network card drivers for 98 are incorrect(i.e.Realtek RTL8029). If you have had the network running before then try removing and then adding client for microsoft networks (control panel, network, configuation) works for me most of the time.

Hi Jerry.
May be this is not the full solution for your problem but think it'll help:
First time when you try to browse your network write the address in the "Address" line of Windows Explorer, for example:
If you try to connect to a computer named "server" and it's shared disk "server_c" write the address \\server\server_c and press Enter. If everything is OK with your network configuration (and it's seems it is because you can do ping) you should connect to that computer and also the rest of your network group computers should appear under Network Neighbourhood section.
This should be done everytime when you restart your computer /or may be sometime it should be done just once - after all the Windows system is a mistery :-) /
The overall solution which i'm sure will help is to reinstall all Windows systems... but it's obviously not so good

have luck!

Do you have Client for Microsoft Networks installed? Without that, you could ping other machine, but you wouldnt be able to browse the network.

Jerry

Since everything was working up until recently, ans assuming this is a peer-to-peer workgroup we're talking about, it's possible that this is being caused by a problem with the browse list maintained by the computer acting as the browse master.

If so, you need to find out which computer is acting as the browse master and shut it down. When you do so there will be a browse master election and all the computers on the network will report in and a new browse master list will be compiled.

You can find out which computer is acting as the browse master by downloading the utility that I wrote for the article "Find the masrer browser in a peer-to-peer workgroup"

https://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=t01220011029shu01.htm

From what has been tried it seems very strange that all of a sudden the PC can not see the network. Have you installed FILE and PRINT sharing? I have found that if this is not set then you can not browse the network. Also have you checked the protocols loaded. I have not been able to work out what protocol's you have installed from the question as well as the answers that have benn given.

No master browser reported?

How many computers are on this network?

Have you restarted each and every one since this problem begain?

Can you see the network from any of the other Windows 98 systems?

I don't know about the gentleman's utility but assuming it does what it is supposed to, I'd say you have a problem if you aren't finding a master browser. That is necessary to have a browse list come up in NN. If your network isn't real big you can issue: nbtstat -a "hostname" for each host in your network.

Your master browser should come back with <01> in its table. If you find it, I would restart that machine. If you don't, restarting any machine "Should" cause an election. It still could take a few minutes for all the machines to announce themselves to the MB.

To cut down on that problem you can set your master browser manually in the TCP properties. That will stop elections basically. The one that you specify as master will always have to be on obviously.

All of this depends on the other peoples suggestions that you must have NetBIOS, file & print sharing turned on, same segment, broadcast working.

J

y problebly have to different workgroup names on the machines or 2 different subnet masks/gateways

these have to be the same for all yr pc's

good luck

Try changing the NIC. In a workgroup environment with no main server you really only need NETBEUI. You should uninstall the rest...unless you have a good reason for using them. But, having them installed and not configured right .. will slow down a machine's network speed. I had this same problem 3 years ago with Windows 98...changing the NIC fixed the problem...you can also try installing the latest driver for the NIC

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