ICS XP & 98se Clients knock ICS XP Dial-Up Host offline ???

[Youngblood]

I recently replaced my old 98se internet gateway system ("ICS Host")
with a new one built around XPPro. Before I did this, all of the
puters on my home net (D-Link 10/100bTX Switch & D-Link 802.11b AP)
were running 98se. Now I have a mixture of XPPro and 98se.

Since upgrading, every attempt to access the Internet from one of the
ICS Clients results in the ICS Host being knocked offline in such a
way that the port is still open, so the only easy way to reconnect is
to begin with a reboot of the Host.

I used the new ICS Host for ~3 weeks before deciding to finish up the
ICS cfg on the rest of the puters. During this time, I was on for 10+
hours/day and never experienced any such disconnects ... until I
started working on the ICS Clients.

I am connecting via Earthlink dial-up which usually results in a conx
of ~44k. As with the old ICS Host system, I run ZoneAlarmPro
(v3.7.159) with a Trusted Network cfgd to 192.168.0.2-253.

This is not an IP prob ... all of the ICS Clients are assigned via
DHCP to 192.168.0.2-253 / 255.255.255.0

I have no "exotic" settings configured, usually opting for "suggested"
settings.

I am stumped ... any ideas what may be causing this?

TIA!!

Kim

[Youngblood]

Additional details:

I have been using ICS on my home net since it became available in
Win98. I upgrade & build systems quite often (purchased my last
store-bought/mfr-rolled system in April 1990). I am very comfortable
with PCs. While I initially setup my home net in 1996, I am not a
networking guru, more of a dabbler.

Since 98se provided everything that I needed, I never really "played
with" XP until a few months ago. The facts that my "gateway" system
[old 98se ICS Host] was, pretty much, maxed out and the upgrade of
same is *such* a PITA, I decided to install XPPro for its additional
flexibility and features.

Prior to replacing the old 98se ICS Host, I had upgraded/rebuilt my
gaming system and installed XPPro. I also had an HP Vectra VL830 [was
modding this for my sister] on the testbed bench with XPPro. I used
Windows Update via ICS to update the OS on these systems several times
prior to replacing the old 98se ICS Host with the new XPPro ICS Host.
Lonnnng D/Ls over dial-up. I experienced no ICS issues with that
setup. I also had no probs using ICS for Internet connectivity on my
laptop via 802.11b.

If it wasn't obvious by its ommission in my initial post, file &
printer sharing works flawlessly.

DHCP is handled by my ICS Host system.

The XP Firewall is OFF (I let ZAP handle that function) on all XP
systems and ICS Sharing on the ICS Host is ON.

When the ICS Client kicks the ICS Host offline, the result is a bit
WEIRD. On the HOST:
- the Earthlink tray icon reflects an offline condition
- the ICS tray icon is still there and says that it is connected (?)
- RtClking ICS tray icon and Clking Disconnect does nothing
- RtClking ICS tray icon and Clking Status provides a brief FLASH of
the Status window ... so brief that you don't even get a sense of the
whole window
- RtClking ICS tray icon and Clking Open Network Connections works,
but trying to Disconnect the Earthlink connection fails to do anything
- the port is still busy, so I cannot redial ... even when given the
open of hanging up before redialing, the hangup does nothing.

I captured the link to Steve Winograd's great-looking website and
intend to crawl thru the prodigious qty of info there in search of a
solution ...

.... I'm just hoping that, considering how long XP has been around,
someone here will readily recognize the symptoms of this prob and
provide me a quick solution ... :-)

Many thanks for taking the time to read all of these words!!

I will now look very closely at ZAP (for the 4th or 5th time) for
possible causes ... then back to XP ... for the umpteenth time ...
;-)

Kim

[Youngblood]

In the words of Emily Litella, "Nevermind" :-)

I just cranked up two ICS Client systems (one, each, XPPro and 98se),
temporarily shutdown file sharing on all 3 and then turned off
ZoneAlarmPro ...

.... and then surfed the internet on the 2 Clients without any probs
for 5 minutes and the Host never lost conx ...

.... so the culprit is one or more setting in Zone Alarm Pro ...

[Steve Winograd]

In article >, Youngblood
> wrote:
>In the words of Emily Litella, "Nevermind" :-)
>
>I just cranked up two ICS Client systems (one, each, XPPro and 98se),
>temporarily shutdown file sharing on all 3 and then turned off
>ZoneAlarmPro ...
>
>... and then surfed the internet on the 2 Clients without any probs
>for 5 minutes and the Host never lost conx ...
>
>... so the culprit is one or more setting in Zone Alarm Pro ...

I haven't tried ZA Pro, but to use the free version of ZoneAlarm on an
ICS host computer, you must set the Internet Zone Security to Med. and
set the Trusted Zone Security to Low.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

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