Wireless woes...

[monkey0506]

My younger sister was given a computer by our grandmother a while back. It's worth noting that my grandmother is amongst the least tech savvy people in the world, though she definitely does always try new things...which invariably screws up her computer...which I invariably have to repair...but I digress.

The computer is rather old as indicated by the Pentium II CPU, 256 MB of RAM, and 6 GB HDD. However my grandmother still found it necessary to install Windows XP. Alongside her existing Windows 98 installation. Not over the top...she wanted to keep both OSes installed. However she later decided to manually remove Windows 98 by simply deleting all the files.

Essentially this computer was screwed. So I decided on my favourite cure-all solution. Format the hard drive! Somehow I always tend to forget how many problems this generally creates...though once set up it usually does solve a lot of problems simply by doing a clean install.

It was easy formatting and installing Windows 98; the problems started from there. My sister has a Linksys Wireless-G USB Network Adapter that I couldn't get to install properly on Windows 98. So I figured that hardwiring her computer to the router and installing Windows Updates might fix the problem. This lead to more problems...

Namely the fact that her Ethernet card apparently didn't have a driver installed either. I tried several generic drivers (unsuccessfully) before I came across one intelligent post on some tech forum. It said that most cards have some type of manufacturer or part number listed on the card. So I opened up the case and sure enough, right there on the card was the manufacturer and part number. With this I was able to download the proper driver to install the Ethernet card.

Now I was finally able to connect to the Internet on my sister's computer....maybe. See...the first edition of Windows 98 was released with Internet Explorer 4. Funny thing about the internet though...it has a way of evolving. So much so that most web pages don't work well (if at all) with IE4. "Most web pages" including Microsoft's website...up to and including Windows Update. So I tried copying the IE6 downloader/installer to my sister's computer. It wouldn't connect.

I searched for hours to find a FULL version of IE6 instead of the downloader route. Once that was installed I was finally able to run Windows Updates. I was somewhat upset to find out that the updates still didn't find a better display adapter though. At this point I was still running at 640x480 resolution in 16-color (not 16-bit) mode. Then I came across this website which tells how to determine which graphics/video card your computer is using.

Since my sister has on-board graphics it was hard for me to try and determine this and testing random adapters was getting troublesome. But using the Windows debugger I was able to determine that she has an nVidia Riva 128. After hours of staring at the same 16 colors I was finally able to change to 800x600x16. So much nicer.

However...there's still one pending issue. The wireless USB adapter. Even after updating Windows the adapter still has that stupid yellow exclamation point. The error is apparently (from what I've read) due to two drivers: NDIS.VXD and NTKERN.VXD. From the research I've done, this is a rather common problem between Windows 98 and several network adapters (wired and wireless). The only solution I can seem to find for FIRST EDITION Windows 98 users...upgrade.

The problem is that this isn't really practical. If anyone knows any other solutions, any suggestions would be much appreciated. Other than that about the only thing I can think of would be to get the drivers from someone with Windows 98SE (Second Edition).

[SSH]

The answer is simple: Ell Eye En You Ex

[auriond]

I got lost halfway down your post, but I managed to pick up the thread at "pending issue" onwards. Are you saying you're missing these driver files?

This link might help: http://www.annelisabeth.com/blog/archives/000371.html

[dasjoe]

go with what ssh suggested, using windows 98 should be a criminal offense by now.
http://www.linux.com/articles/52134 seems to be a good read about that.
i can recommend DSL, it's very nice. or xubuntu for some additional eye candy, but this may be slower.

[RickJ]

Take SSH's advice and do your sister a favor.  I can highly recommend Kubuntu Linux which you can freely download from kubuntu.org.  It should work with the computer you describe.  There is an nvidia driver that you will need to install but it's not a dig deal and there is plenty of advice on the Kubuntu/Ubuntu forums. 

[monkey0506]

My sister is 15 and not very tech-savvy herself. Other than that my mom likes to take after her mother and try and fix non-existent problems as well.

It would realistically be up to my parents and my sister as to whether or not I could take the Linux-route. My stepdad almost definitely would not go for it. He'd probably throw the computer in the trash if I even suggested it.

I'll try that link auriond posted...if that doesn't work...I may have to brace myself for the Linux-discussion with my parents.

[RickJ]

Load it up first just to see how cool it is.  Show your sister the online catalog of software that is available for free.  If she likes it your parents should be cool with not having to spend any $$ on software for her.     It took me years to switch my wife over.  It wasn't until she got her beloved windows paralyzed by malware that I finally convinced her.  Good luck.

[monkey0506]

The money was already spent years ago. I find it kind of funny that with all the disks that we've lost over the years we've managed to keep tabs on our copy of Windows 3.1 (6 floppies). We've also kept up with our 'upgrade version' of Windows 98.

And although the 'network monitor' Linksys has installed isn't registering the network at all, the modified NDIS.VXD file was enough to get the wireless adapter working.

Thanks to auriond for the link. I was happy to see the yellow exclamation point go away, but disturbed when the monitor still didn't show any wireless networks. Then Windows notified me of a 'critical update' that needed to be downloaded immediately.

I was curious how Windows could be downloading updates with no internet connectivity...until I realized that it was simply Linksys's monitor that was (apparently) not working at this point. I am now posting this from my sister's computer saying thanks to all for their suggestions. And finally...I've fixed the internet for my sister so she can stop hogging the family computer (which is my AGS computer...).

[auriond]

Glad it worked! Hope that Linksys monitor not working is not a big problem.