Wifi access with Windows 95

Something does not make sense here. wireless support is not built into win95 or early win98. According to all I have read, you must upgrade to win98se in order to use wireless on the client machine. I had to do this on my laptop, and it was quite a headache. There are no pcmcia cards that I know of that list support for win95 or early win98. Just about all list win98se and newer versions, but some are xp/vista only

what exactly is your home network condiguration? how does you host machine access the internet? can you connect at home using a wireless router? this is certainly preferred over using windoze connection sharing

what is your signal strength at the library? what ip address/gateway is assigned by the library? what happens when you ping the gateway assigned above? what happens when you ping an established site like yahoo.com? are you using windoze or the card utilities to manage connections?

sometimes ftp sites do not respond to ping

good luck - I gave up on this and upgraded.

Stuart

SM> Something does not make sense here. SM> wireless support is not built into win95 or early win98. According to all I SM> have read, you must upgrade to win98se in order to use wireless on the SM> client machine. I had to do this on my laptop, and it was quite a headache. SM> There are no pcmcia cards that I know of that list support for win95 or SM> early win98. Just about all list win98se and newer versions, but some are SM> xp/vista only

Hello Stuart, thanks for your reply. The wifi card Im using is a Belkin F506020G. It installed ok on Win95 and thats the first version of Win95. Its just a plain PCMCIA card not a CARDBUS type. CARDBUS cards dont fit in my laptop so I dont know about them but Id guess you'd be hard pressed to find one of those that worked with Win95. Theres confusing information knocking about but I think you need win98se at least as the machine connected to the internet that shares its connection with other machines but win95 or win98 is ok as a client. Thats what I have here. Presumably, youve been successful at connecting your win98se wifi laptop to your home network but have you got it working with a hotspot?

SM> what exactly is your home network condiguration?

Well, thats a big question ;) Which bit ? I have a wireless access point connected to an ethernet hub and I administer that from the Win98se machine. Theres an ordinary NIC in the machine wired to the hub. Theres also another three machines wired in. I can access the files on any of these machines from the wifi laptop and vice-versa. 802.11B BTW not G.

SM> how does you host machine access the internet? SM> can you connect at home using a wireless router? this is certainly preferred SM> over using windoze connection sharing

Yup, everything I read suggests that you're right about the router but at the moment Im accessing the internet via dialup. Theres a modem connected to the Win98SE machine. Not fast and inefficent when accessed via the client Laptop, but usable. I dont have broadband yet.

SM> > I now want to use it to access the Wifi connection at my local SM> > library but Im hitting a problem. The NIC appears to be linking SM> > OK to the library access point using the SSID supplied by the staff SM> > there. Im pretty sure I had a good connection. Trouble is, thats SM> > as far as I could get. The library staff were no further help, SM> > they only know about Win2000 and XP. SM> SM> what is your signal strength at the library?

good; about 80%

SM> what ip address/gateway is assigned by the library? SM> what happens when you ping the gateway assigned above?

Good point. I should try to find this out from the library staff if I can find someone who understands what a gateway is.

SM> what happens when you ping an established site like yahoo.com?

pinging ftp.demon.co.uk has worked for me before but I will try another next time and also try pinging a raw ip address, just in case, DNS is a problem.

SM> are you using windoze or the card utilities to manage connections?

Theres only one card utility, the Belkin configuration program. Thats what I use. Its where one enters the SSID, see the signal strength, switches off WEP etc.

SM> > My understanding is that I should see some sort of login screen SM> > when I start up my browser, Opera. I think this is supposed to SM> > replace the "Home page" of the browser. I dont understand the SM> > mechanism involved in this and its not happening. Opera just SM> > times out looking. Ive tried pinging ftp.demon.co.uk, just to SM> > test the connection but its not recogised. I dont know whether SM> > this is a Win95 problem, an Opera problem or what. SM> SM> sometimes ftp sites do not respond to ping SM> SM> >

SM> > Any advise on solving this would be appreciated. Ive be looking SM> > around on the web for leads but so far have found none. SM> SM> good luck - I gave up on this and upgraded.

The Laptop couldnt handle 98SE. The thing I really dont understand is how the hotspot login page comes to be seen in the browser. Is it some sort of pop up?

-- Ian

I used the laptop ( compaq presario 1245, purchased in early 2000 ) only at home with the wireless router. The battery would not hold a charge, and I could not see buying a new one. Before I could take the machine somewhere that had a plug in, the monitor cable quit working. I purchased a new machine right away, as there were so many problems with vista that I decided to get a unit with XP on it. So, quick answer is, never tried.

You don't need them. Just look up your connection details. XP and 98 do it differently, as I recall you right click on 'network neighborhood' and look around, or do /start/run/winipcfg try it from home first

good idea. Ping the sites from home and record the ip addresses, then try them from the library you can manually enter a dns server, e-mail me and I can give you a list of some. remember that many servers are set not to respond to ping

that's what they told me - but it was just a matter of finding the drivers for the video and the touchpad. My copy of 98se was oem, so it would not upgrade, but it did a clean install just fine

Last week I was travelling, and tried a few wireless hotspots. The hotel across the street advertised wireless, and their signal was recognized. I could connect to it just fine. When I opened IE or firefox it brought up a hotel page which asked me for the access code, which of course I did not have. It was working as a 'redirect' , it took me to the wireless service providers page for the login, and I could look around at the providers advertising, but could not get 'out' without the code.

I don't know how the public, open hotspots do that - I have never tried one

Stuart

SM> > SM> what ip address/gateway is assigned by the library? SM> > SM> what happens when you ping the gateway assigned above? SM> >

SM> > Good point. I should try to find this out from the library staff SM> > if I can find someone who understands what a gateway is. SM> SM> You don't need them. Just look up your connection details. XP and 98 do it SM> differently, as I recall you right click on 'network neighborhood' and look SM> around, or do /start/run/winipcfg SM> try it from home first

I found my way through. I used the command line "ipconfig" to find the gateway and the DNS ip numbers. I could ping them but got no replies to pings from yahoo or any thing out on the internet. I dont know why but I suspect a firewall was involved somewhere. When I pinged by name, the DNS found the number, so that was ok.

SM> > The Laptop couldnt handle 98SE. SM> that's what they told me - but it was just a matter of finding the drivers SM> for the video and the touchpad. SM> My copy of 98se was oem, so it would not upgrade, but it did a clean install SM> just fine

My laptop is short on memory and HD space.

SM> Last week I was travelling, and tried a few wireless hotspots. The hotel SM> across the street advertised wireless, and their signal was recognized. I SM> could connect to it just fine. When I opened IE or firefox it brought up a SM> hotel page which asked me for the access code, which of course I did not SM> have. It was working as a 'redirect' , it took me to the wireless service SM> providers page for the login, and I could look around at the providers SM> advertising, but could not get 'out' without the code. SM> SM> I don't know how the public, open hotspots do that - I have never tried one

This was one of my problems, it turned out. I was expecting a login page and there wasnt one. The hotspot is really public. However, I discovered one cant access the web directly, one has to go through their proxy server. That has to be entered from within Opera. Working now and looks like pop3 works as well. Whether Ill be successful with a hotspot like the one tried at the hotel, Ive yet to find out. Thanks for your help and it does look as though theres some mileage with Wifi and Win95 :)