I presume that when you say external you mean a site on the Internet - i.e www.fastmail.fm or something.

Check that your IE6 browser is set to use the LAN (basically the button for NEver Dial should be set ) and then just press the button marked LAN settings)...........IE6 - Tools - Internet Options - Connections

Also check in your Control Panel - Internet Options - that this matches too....so it always uses the Ethernet LAN.

Thanks - the browser is set to "never dial" (grayed out) - I checked via both methods you describe and they are the same (never dial).

I can ping external IP's (like 66.218.71.80 which is yahoo) but cannot ping www.yahoo.com

I tried this on my Win 98 machine and see that I can ping both the IP and the www address.

Ok - that means that DNS (Domain Name Server) is not working for you - can you do following :

Start ->Run ->cmd              and when white on black DOS box appears type

ipconfig/all

And then post info here - interested to see what the DNS servers you are getting info on - as these Servers are what resolve Names (i,e www.yahoo,com to Ip addresses)

Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Dell8300

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-07-E9-71-2D-DC

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.25

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 66.189.0.29

66.189.0.30

So Dan,

It looks like you manually configured the IP information - and have indeed put in the DNS Server IP addresses of DNS Servers of 66.189.0.29 & 66.189.0.30  - which you probably copied from your WIn98 PC - which is fine

However you need to configure you priamry DNS domain for DNS to work properly, i.e it won't be able to figure out out which Domain your are starting from to perform iterative or hierarchical requests

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Dell8300................."rename to something useful - DanXP-home"
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :   "misssing info here - should be "some-isp.com"
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

So actions to resolve are :Go to your Network connection - Properties - TCP/IP - Advanced - DNS and configure in this tab a valid DNS suffix - it needs to mtach the DNS suffix of your(old)  exisiitng Win98 PC - i.e what the ISP your connecting via is.

You could also take the opportunity to change the DNS host name of yor PC to something more friendly - but les get you using DNS and on the first,

How do I add "Primary DNS Suffix" to my XP TCP/IP properties? _ i don't see such a thing under the Advanced DNS tab?

Also I'm not sure that i have sucha setting in my win98 setup-here is the ipconfig /all on the win98 computer that is working:

Windows 98 IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . : HOME

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . : 66.189.0.29

66.189.0.30

66.189.132.4

Node Type . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast

NetBIOS Scope ID. . . . . . :

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . : No

NetBIOS Resolution Uses DNS : No



0 Ethernet adapter :



Description . . . . . . . . : PPP Adapter.

Physical Address. . . . . . : 44-45-53-54-00-00

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . :

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255

Primary WINS Server . . . . :

Secondary WINS Server . . . :

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . :

Lease Expires . . . . . . . :



1 Ethernet adapter :



Description . . . . . . . . : Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet Adapter NDIS5 Driver

Physical Address. . . . . . : 00-03-6D-13-B2-37

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.100

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

Primary WINS Server . . . . :

Secondary WINS Server . . . :

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . : 12 30 03 7:31:52 PM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . : 12 31 03 7:31:52 PM

Easiest way to show this is to a tracert to a known Internet IP address - so do it to Yahoo

tracert    66.218.71.80

Then in the first couple of lines you should see your ISP's domain - as the last bit of info before the IP address hop in square brackets.

So in nework Settings - TCP/IP- Advanced - DNS - "DNS Suffix for this connection = ?????

The tracert from the XP machine yields:
Tracing route to over a maximum of 30 hops



1 14 ms 14 ms 9 ms No resources.

But I can still ping 66.218.71.88

I did the same tracert on the Win 98 machine and I get

Tracing route to w1.scd.yahoo.com [66.218.71.80]
1 9ms 9ms 7ms 10.82.32.1

then all other 29 hops time out??

Ok to ensure that we're getting the right information then - can you change your IP information on your XP-PC to "Obtain IP addess automatically", as along with the IP address DHCP provide gateway, DNS servers and DNS information.

Once you have changed from static to dynamic on  TCP/IP of your LAN network adaptor goto to

Start -> Run -> cmd

ipconfig/renew

ipconfig/all

Thanks again for your help - -
I did reset everything to dynamic on the XP PC. When I do ipconfig /renew I get
Windows IP Configuration
An error occured while renewing interface Local Area Connection 2: An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.

ipconfig /all yields:
Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Dell8300

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-07-E9-71-2D-DC

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.195.225

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Yes - you were not allocated or recieved DHCP info correctly.....yet your WIn98 gets DHCP info ok - from previosu info in thread............are the WIn98 and XP PC's connected via a common hub or multiport router ?

On the XP PC try "ipconfig/release" and then "ipconfig/renew" from the DOS console window.

Yes they are connected via a linksys router. Since my last message I have now re-installed the operating system on the XP machine and I am now able to access internet and use IE 6 with a new NIC card I installed. The integreted Intel NIC is not responding (doesn't show up on Device Manager list). So perhaps this is where the problem lies??

I guess I can live with this so long as it doesn't affect other things. Thanks for your help and if another problem occurs I'll start a new message thread.