Sharing with WFWG / XP

[Andy Baker]

A customer of ours has a small network consisting of a Win2000 server, 3 DOS
PCs, running Windows for Workgroups as the networking software, 3 XP
stations, and 2 Win98SE stations. My problem is with sharing resources on
the XP stations. All PCs can log on and share the server's resources OK, and
the Win98 PCs can use resources that are shared by the XP stations, but the
DOS PCs cannot - every time I try to connect to a resource on an XP station,
I get the error message 'The computer name specified in the network path
cannot be located'. The XP PCs are running TCP/IP, and the DOS stations are
running Netbeui - the server is obviously running both. I have tried
installing Netbeui for XP, and TCP/IP for Wfwg, but with no success. I tried
unloading Netbeui, as I read in the MS knowledge base that loading TCP/IP
and Netbeui can cause a problem for Wfwg, but I cannot get the network
software to load if I only have TCP/IP running on the Wfwg PC, I get the
error message "IPX must be running to load the network services", but if I
then type Win to go into Wfwg, it logs on to the server successfully.
Unfortunately, the DOS PCs have a custom piece of hardware that only
functions under pure DOS, so I cannot load the networking software by going
into Windows. I get the same message if IPX is loaded with TCP/IP. I cannot
ping between the Wfwg stations, the machine appears to hang up if I do so.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, as I think I am a little out of my
depth here.

Regards,
Andy Baker

 

[allan grossman [ms-mvp]]

Gee, Andy - you're making me work today

The DOS machines are most likely running Netware VLM
drivers to get network connectivity - that's the reason
the WFWG machines are demanding IPX. No IPX, no
network

To run TCP-IP in true DOS your best bet would be to
follow the instructions below to create a network boot
disk for the DOS workstations -

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=252448

Please note that you'll need an NT 4.0 Server CD to
complete the task. Microsoft quit providing the
ncadmin.exe utility we used to create DOS network boot
disks but the utility still runs under Windows 2000.

If you can get the machines connected you can copy the
pertinent files to the DOS machine's hard drives and use
the config.sys and autoexec.bat files on the floppy disk
as a starting point to get the machines connected to a
TCP-IP network in DOS.

It won't be much fun but it can be done.

good luck!