HELP! needed from Windows95 Gurus

Sorry for this long post... but I need help (With my computer too!) <VBG>. Heres the problem. Last night I went to log onto the internet and connected to Earthlink just fine. 33,600. However... I cannot use ICQ, PingPlotter, email, news, or browse! I get the error message cannot locate DNS, etc. If I plug in the numbers themselves... it can find the web address. I spent over 2 hours on the phone with Earthlinks Senior Tech Support (Which I commend for their efforts!!). They didnt rush me and even asked other tech supports for ideas. We uninstalled network and reinstalled it in Windows95. They had me go to dos prompt and had me extract 2 files which I have no idea does or what? Their final recommendation was to download Winsock2 from Microsoft because its definitely acting like Winsock is corrupted. I logged into my 2 other ISP connections and same thing. Great connections... but cant find DNS. Now we went through the obvious DNS settings in connections and network setup, etc. Do any of you guys think that the Winsock corruption is a reasonable explanation/problem ? Again... let me stress that the guys at Earthlink were VERY helpful and I did not feel they brushed me off. We tried many things! Cant say that about some tech support center. Thanks in advance for any recommendations and answers. BTW.. everything else on my computer is working just fine. Scott PA-Scott -- Scott B. Husted Marketing and Administrative Manager Riegel Federal Credit Union http://www.riegelfcu.org ICQ# 4395450

Classic DNS troubles. :) either their dns servers are down, or there is some problem in your setup. Is DNS set in both your DUN Connection, and in the Network control panel? Nope, would not say it is. Anyway, reinstalling it shoudl make it work. :) Z.

What version of Win95 are you running? There are a number of things that can cause this problem. When you said they had you reinstall the network did you mean dial-up networking? If you have not unistall it and reboot then reinstall it. Also you may have to remove the TCPIP protocol. Also make sure you have DNS setup proberly for the servers. They should have talked you through that when you called them. Remember when i ever you unistall somthing to reboot before reinstalling. I am a LAN administrator and have this type of problem all the time. 90% of the time it is the users setup that has gotten messed up. But the other 10% is a server issue. Hope that helps you a little, i will check this news group to see if you have any more problems with it and try to help you out. Good luck.

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>Sorry for this long post... but I need help (With my computer too!) ><VBG>. >Heres the problem. Last night I went to log onto the internet and >connected to Earthlink just fine. 33,600. However... I cannot use >ICQ, PingPlotter, email, news, or browse! I get the error message >cannot locate DNS, etc. If I plug in the numbers themselves... it can >find the web address. I spent over 2 hours on the phone with >Earthlinks Senior Tech Support (Which I commend for their efforts!!). >They didnt rush me and even asked other tech supports for ideas. We >uninstalled network and reinstalled it in Windows95. They had me go to >dos prompt and had me extract 2 files which I have no idea does or what? >Their final recommendation was to download Winsock2 from Microsoft >because its definitely acting like Winsock is corrupted. I logged into >my 2 other ISP connections and same thing. Great connections... but >cant find DNS. Now we went through the obvious DNS settings in >connections and network setup, etc. >Do any of you guys think that the Winsock corruption is a reasonable >explanation/problem ? Again... let me stress that the guys at >Earthlink were VERY helpful and I did not feel they brushed me off. We >tried many things! Cant say that about some tech support center. >Thanks in advance for any recommendations and answers. BTW.. everything >else on my computer is working just fine. >Scott >PA-Scott >-- >Scott B. Husted >Marketing and Administrative Manager >Riegel Federal Credit Union >http://www.riegelfcu.org >ICQ# 4395450

Thanks guys, Yes... we did uninstall/reinstall DUN and TCP/IP. What makes me 95% sure that is my settings somewhere is that I have 3 ISP dial up connections. All of them experience the same problem whether I designated DNS or let it be assigned. So i dont think its their DNS. We did check the numbers in configuration as well. I just downloaded a document from Microsoft about Removing and Reinstalling Dial Up NEtworking and TCP/IP Files. (ID Q181599) <== if you care <VBG> It lists the procedure very accurately but also includes the renaming of several files... which i didnt do last night. It tells you to go to ms-dos mode and rename several files. Going to try that tonight as well. I think I am going to first try the Winsock2 and cross my fingers and hope somehow there was just a corrupted file somewhere and this replaces it. Just a shot in the dark but worth the try I guess *shrug* Then will try the uninstall and reinstall procedure. If that doesnt work I guess Reinstalling Windows95 is the next step. Finally.. the ol "Format c:" is an option!! ROFL Scott PA-Scott

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> What version of Win95 are you running? There are a number of things that can > cause this problem. When you said they had you reinstall the network did you > mean dial-up networking? If you have not unistall it and reboot then > reinstall it. Also you may have to remove the TCPIP protocol. Also make sure > you have DNS setup proberly for the servers. They should have talked you > through that when you called them. Remember when i ever you unistall > somthing to reboot before reinstalling. > I am a LAN administrator and have this type of problem all the time. 90% of > the time it is the users setup that has gotten messed up. But the other 10% > is a server issue. > Hope that helps you a little, i will check this news group to see if you > have any more problems with it and try to help you out. > Good luck. > >Sorry for this long post... but I need help (With my computer too!) > ><VBG>. > >Heres the problem. Last night I went to log onto the internet and > >connected to Earthlink just fine. 33,600. However... I cannot use > >ICQ, PingPlotter, email, news, or browse! I get the error message > >cannot locate DNS, etc. If I plug in the numbers themselves... it can > >find the web address. I spent over 2 hours on the phone with > >Earthlinks Senior Tech Support (Which I commend for their efforts!!). > >They didnt rush me and even asked other tech supports for ideas. We > >uninstalled network and reinstalled it in Windows95. They had me go to > >dos prompt and had me extract 2 files which I have no idea does or what? > >Their final recommendation was to download Winsock2 from Microsoft > >because its definitely acting like Winsock is corrupted. I logged into > >my 2 other ISP connections and same thing. Great connections... but > >cant find DNS. Now we went through the obvious DNS settings in > >connections and network setup, etc. > >Do any of you guys think that the Winsock corruption is a reasonable > >explanation/problem ? Again... let me stress that the guys at > >Earthlink were VERY helpful and I did not feel they brushed me off. We > >tried many things! Cant say that about some tech support center. > >Thanks in advance for any recommendations and answers. BTW.. everything > >else on my computer is working just fine. > >Scott > >PA-Scott > >-- > >Scott B. Husted > >Marketing and Administrative Manager > >Riegel Federal Credit Union > >http://www.riegelfcu.org > >ICQ# 4395450

-- Scott B. Husted Marketing and Administrative Manager Riegel Federal Credit Union http://www.riegelfcu.org ICQ# 4395450

This is probably too late but .... The first thing you should try when you have any weird problems with Windows 95 is to restore the previous version of your registry. I STRONGLY recommend that you frequently back up your registry - copy the files system.dat and user.dat to a safe place before you install any software. It's actually a very good idea to back up everything before you install any software so that you can restore the machine to its exact state if you run into any problems. But I digress. Note: Windows automatically backs up your registry every time you successfully boot the machine. User.dat is copied to user.da0 and system.dat is copied to system.da0. If you haven't already rebooted your machine, and unfortunately I suspect that you have since you did a bunch of reinstalling of various components, copy the .da0 files on top of the .dat files (make copies of the .dat files first!) and reboot. I had a problem similar to what you are describing once. While logged on, all of a sudden IE3.01 couldn't find anything and reported that my Dial Up Networking wasn't configured correctly. And my Office programs started failing (Word and Excel). Restoring the previous registry fixed everything. You gotta love this OS! Note: you will find these files in the c:\windows folder.

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> Sorry for this long post... but I need help (With my computer too!) > <VBG>. > Heres the problem. Last night I went to log onto the internet and > connected to Earthlink just fine. 33,600. However... I cannot use > ICQ, PingPlotter, email, news, or browse! I get the error message > cannot locate DNS, etc. If I plug in the numbers themselves... it can > find the web address.

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You've probably tried this already, but I've encountered the same thing in the past when installing a connection, so here goes.. - go to Dial-up Networking, "Properties" - click the "Server Types" tab - type of dial-up server: "PPP" - Advanced options: IMPORTANT: Ensure ONLY "Enable software compression" is checked (I'm pretty sure that by clicking "log on to network", you will connect, but then get the error you encountered) - Allowed network protocols: ONLY check TCP/IP - Click the "TCP/IP settings" tab - "Server assgined..." is okay - ensure BOTH boxes at bottom are checked Hopefully your problem is not any more complicated than this.. good luck doktorB

Just wanted to thank all that replied. I ended up uninstalling DUN and TCP/IP and reinstalling. Solved the problem and all is back to normal. I tried just updated winsock to winsock2 and it didnt work.. so there was a corrupted file somewhere =) Thanks again to all for the help! Scott -- *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Scott B. Husted http://home.earthlink.net/~sbhusted ICQ# 4395450 PA-Scott on TEN *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* vcard.vcf < 1K Download

As a representative for an ISP I can only state that (1) we advise our customers to "enable software compression" and (2) not "log on to network".

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> I would suspect that for most people "Enable software compression" should > most definitely be left UNCHECKED. With most ISPs all this will result in > is about 20-30 seconds attempting to negotiate a suitable protocol which > will then fail resulting in no better throughput :( > "Log on to network" shouldn't cause any problems but will again delay > getting the connection initialised.

-- Regards, Bruce. ---------- The GP Legends Historic Motor Racing Club is located at:- http://www.netspeed.com.au/brucek/legends/

No...we haven't had any, Richard.

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> On Sat, 15 Aug 1998 07:56:22 +1000, Bruce Kennewell > >As a representative for an ISP I can only state that (1) we advise our > >customers to "enable software compression" > Do they ever complain about lengthy connect times? ;-) > The actual best settings will depend on what equipment is in your racks but > to date my experience of various Ascends & Ciscos indicate that software > compression increases connection times for no discernible improvement in > throughput (and is a definite "no no" for online ***). > Cheers, > Richard > -- > We all bump into each other every day of our lives, and we render our opinions > whether we know anything or not, and if anybody catches us out we lie...

-- Regards, Bruce. ---------- The GP Legends Historic Motor Racing Club is located at:- http://www.netspeed.com.au/brucek/legends/