I tried that and it gave me an error saying that "ipconfig" was not a valid command. 

On the computer you are calling the client, to help troubleshoot this problem, go to Start > Run and type cmd then click OK. In the command prompt window that opens, type ipconfig /all then hit the enter key. Write down the output from this command or select it and save it to a txt file, then copy this output into a reply to this message.

 

Steve

Are you absolultely sure you spelled it correctly?  If so, then your version of Windows is totally messed up.

 

Steve

Does anything run from the command prompt Window (try msconfig, services.msc, iexplore)?

 

Steve

I tried it again on the client PC and it still gives me the error msg.   On the server it gives me a long list of settings.  

None of those commands work.  At the command level I typed "help" and did see a listing of common DOS like commands.
Should I try reloading the OS?

OK, I used the Dell resource disk and the Win XP reinstallation disk to load a couple of MS applications and then when I tried the "ipconfig" command, it worked.  Here is the info for the IP Configuration and Ethernet LAN:

Windows IP Configuration



        Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : kitchen

        Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :

        Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed

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

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



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:



        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller

        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-08-74-C6-0D-D4

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

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.29

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

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 2002:4bcb:6ed5:4:fc61:9db:9c49:f617

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 2002:4bcb:6ed5:4:208:74ff:fec6:dd4

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0::4:208:74ff:fec6:dd4%1

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : fe80::208:74ff:fec6:dd4%4

        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : fe80::213:72ff:fee2:b9c4%4

        DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1

                                            fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1

                                            fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1

---------------------
What else can I do?

You got me to investigating the combination of setting for IP addresses and such.  Since my config showed that DHCP was diabled, I relied on setting the IP addresses for both PCs on the LAN.  However, the troubleshooting information for Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) says that the IP addresses should be obtained automatically.  If I allowed for automatic IP address on the server, then the LAN did not allow both PCs to communicate.   So, I tried a combination of settings and here is what worked:

TCP/IP settings on LAN Properties

-- Server -- set static IP address
-- Client  -- obtain IP address automatically
             -- obtain DNS automatically

Also, instead of using the default for NetBIOS, I set both PCs to "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP"

Don't know if this makes sense, but it seemed to work.  Both PCs can communicate with each other and the internet.

Thanks for your help!!

There is a lot of gibberish in that ipconfig output that makes it difficult to determine where the problem lies.  Since you are using a static IP address, have you manually set up the Gateway address on this machine.

 

The standard installation of Windows should have installed all the stuff necessary for the ipconfig command to work.  Why didn't these get loaded on the initial install?  It make me wonder what other necessary stuff didn't get loaded when you reinsalled Windows.

 

Steve