Installing Ethenet card fails causing VXD tbl and loss of connectivity

"T. Duprex" tduprexATlandmark.net wrote in message
...
Gary:

I found DUN. Have several more questions.


3. It's in the "Communications" section, I believe. (Don't have a 98
machine here in front of me.)


Yes it is, have to click "Details". Is DUN the only one I uncheck?

Yes. Only that one, then reinstall it. I don't think it's your main problem,
but as I said, it was long ago discovered that this trick rebuilds the
TCP/IP stack properly, so we even recommend it to people who don't even have
DUN installed, only a NIC that they're having problems with. I thank Steve
Cochran, MS-MVP, for turning me onto that, actually quite recently. I've
generally kept as far from networking as I can during my MVP career, s.


“Now that everything is cleaned up, shut down, reinsert the card, then
start up. If prompted for the INF file, browse to the location."

1. I'm not sure I've ever seen an installation disk/program specifically
ask for an INF file. Is this what Windows looks for on a normal
installation and gets from the installation CD?

Yup. That's what almost all hardware uses. It's simply instructions for
which files to use, what settings, Registry entries, etc. In most cases,
there's also one or a few other files, SYS files, mostly, that need to be
put into the system, but most NICs already have everything they need in the
system. That's why I had you uninstall whatever software you installed.
99.999% of it was unnecessary crap.

(In this is the case I would direct Windows to the Win98 folder and it
would pick it up. Right?)

Yes, to the WIn98 folder that belongs to THAT piece of hardware.

2. When I insert the new D-Link card, there will have been no drivers
installed. Just so I'm clear here, the Installation Guide accompanying the
card instructs you to run the setup cd rom (I assume installing drivers),
powering down then installing the card and powering up. Then when Windows
detects the card it completes integration of the card.

Yeah, but it didn't happen that way, did it? It's like ISPs that want to
install their own special browser, which in a few cases IS necessary (like
AOHell, for instance), but in most cases is unnecessary crap. Or EarthLink
that want's you to install Total Access, when all you need to know are a few
settings, nothing more. The software that came with the NIC probably
includes some kind of monitoring junk, and also drivers for other OSes and
other files *in_case* your system doesn't already have them like it normally
should, or updated files in case you've never updated your system. In your
case, my goal is to get you back to square one and THEN if still having
problems, we can look more closely, using a back and forth dialogue.

My question is; Instead of shutting down, reinserting the card, then
starting up, should I first run the installation CD, then power down
install the card, then power up?

DO NOT run the installation CD. Use the downloaded version I gave you a link
to.
ftp://ftp.dlink.com/NIC/dfe530tx/Dri...r_10152001.exe
It will by default want to unpack everything into the TEMP folder. Tell it
to put everything into a special folder that's easy for you to find. Make
the folder ahead before running the EXE, name it something like C:\DLink. It
WILL NOT automatically "Install" anything, and all you want is the Win98
folder that's inside (you can actually delete the rest of the stuff when
you're finished and we're certain we don't want to look for some other file
in that mess.) Once you know the path to that folder, when asked for the
location of the "drivers files", browse to that location. Only if it sees an
INF file will it even show you anything in the upper pane, since if you'll
look at the bottom, you'll see that it's only looking for files of type
*.inf. When you click into the Win98 folder from the downloaded, unpacked
files, the correct file will automagically appear in the upper pane.

Or does it make a difference?

Makes all the difference in the world. Installing that software is probably
what got you into trouble in the first place.

--

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User

Gary:

some progress but I've hit a snag.


Got to the point that I powered down, installed the D-link DFE-5300TX PCI
card. Powered up got past the installtion windows that said You have an old
version of VIP/386, said use the one on the system then got to the New
Hardware Wizard.

I've had no illegal operations thus far, could be because of no startup
stuff.

THE PROBLEM NOW: the New Hardware Wizard asks for new drivers, I specify
the location of the unzipped file on my desktop C:\WINDOWS\Desktop
\Driver_File which was unzipped from:
ftp://ftp.dlink.com/NIC/dfe530tx/Dri...r_10152001.exe

Windows then says it was unable to locate a driver for this device.

Also when Windows found the card it identified it generically not as D-Link
....

Your thoughts?

Gary:

some progress but I've hit a snag.


Got to the point that I powered down, installed the D-link DFE-5300TX PCI
card. Powered up got past the installtion windows that said You have an old
version of VIP/386, said use the one on the system then got to the New
Hardware Wizard.

I've had no illegal operations thus far, could be because of no startup
stuff.

THE PROBLEM NOW: the New Hardware Wizard asks for new drivers, I specify
the location of the unzipped file on my desktop C:\WINDOWS\Desktop
\Driver_File which was unzipped from:
ftp://ftp.dlink.com/NIC/dfe530tx/Dri...r_10152001.exe

Windows then says it was unable to locate a driver for this device.

Also when Windows found the card it identified it generically not as D-Link
....

Your thoughts?

Gary:

I did an explore on the install CD and there are no ini files. Apparaently
there are cab files used for each operation system.

Gary:

I did an explore on the install CD and there are no ini files. Apparaently
there are cab files used for each operation system.

Gary

More Success, different adapter, but still not there.

At this point it seems what ever was causing the illegal operations has,
for the time being looks like its been handled.

Because Windows didn't like the D-link ini file and I couldn't locate one
one on the installation CD I brought out the new Airlink 101 Fast Ethernet
Adapter I initially bought and thought might be the problem. It had a
floppy with an ini file on it for Windows98.

I got it to install without incident. However when I try to go out on the
internet, I am not getting out for some reason. However I can communicate
on my home network (after I went to Control Panel/Network/configuration and
turned on print sharing.)

What could be keeping me from going out on the network?

Gary

More Success, different adapter, but still not there.

At this point it seems what ever was causing the illegal operations has,
for the time being looks like its been handled.

Because Windows didn't like the D-link ini file and I couldn't locate one
one on the installation CD I brought out the new Airlink 101 Fast Ethernet
Adapter I initially bought and thought might be the problem. It had a
floppy with an ini file on it for Windows98.

I got it to install without incident. However when I try to go out on the
internet, I am not getting out for some reason. However I can communicate
on my home network (after I went to Control Panel/Network/configuration and
turned on print sharing.)

What could be keeping me from going out on the network?

Gary:

Trouble has reappeared.

I hadn't touched any of the Clean Boot setup while doing the install. I
still can't go out on the internet but can indeed communicate on my home
network. I then went to MSCONFIG and turned on "Load startup group items"
and rebooted, the machine came up in a light blue low resolution screen (I
have my backgroud that color normally). I've never seen low resolution
comeup like this before. In retrospect it was coming up normally but in
this low resolution mode. Just for kicks I did a restart, hit f8 and said
Normal, again it came up in this very low resolution screen, this wasn't
the safe mode. While in this low resolution mode I went back to MS Config
and turned off Startup. rebooted and system came up okay.

While in the low resolution mode I began getting all the illegal messages
flow that was my initial problem.

It appears something startup is screwing up any new network hardward
additions.

What would you suggest?

Is the inablity to go out on the network a trouble or a setting issue?

Gary:

Trouble has reappeared.

I hadn't touched any of the Clean Boot setup while doing the install. I
still can't go out on the internet but can indeed communicate on my home
network. I then went to MSCONFIG and turned on "Load startup group items"
and rebooted, the machine came up in a light blue low resolution screen (I
have my backgroud that color normally). I've never seen low resolution
comeup like this before. In retrospect it was coming up normally but in
this low resolution mode. Just for kicks I did a restart, hit f8 and said
Normal, again it came up in this very low resolution screen, this wasn't
the safe mode. While in this low resolution mode I went back to MS Config
and turned off Startup. rebooted and system came up okay.

While in the low resolution mode I began getting all the illegal messages
flow that was my initial problem.

It appears something startup is screwing up any new network hardward
additions.

What would you suggest?

Is the inablity to go out on the network a trouble or a setting issue?

"T. Duprex" tduprexATlandmark.net wrote in message
...
Gary:

some progress but I've hit a snag.


Got to the point that I powered down, installed the D-link DFE-5300TX PCI
card. Powered up got past the installtion windows that said You have an
old
version of VIP/386, said use the one on the system then got to the New
Hardware Wizard.

I've had no illegal operations thus far, could be because of no startup
stuff.

THE PROBLEM NOW: the New Hardware Wizard asks for new drivers, I specify
the location of the unzipped file on my desktop C:\WINDOWS\Desktop
\Driver_File which was unzipped from:
ftp://ftp.dlink.com/NIC/dfe530tx/Dri...r_10152001.exe

When you unzipped teh file into \Driver_File\, there should be another
folder inside that one called WIN98. THat is where the INF file is located.
You say something later about an INI file. That's not an INF file.


Windows then says it was unable to locate a driver for this device.

Also when Windows found the card it identified it generically not as
D-Link
...

Your thoughts?