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LeighWardleFlag for Australia

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Data corruption on Win98 peer-to-peer network

Hi:

Hi:

I have 3 PCs running Win 98 (first edition) on a peer-to-peer network.

I have installed Wingate for Internet Connection Sharing (this uses TCP/IP).  

Superficially, everything works.  File sharing, Internet connection sharing.

But I have done noticed that an unacceptably high level of file corruption.  I have verified this by copying a 13 mb file across the network. I then use a CRC checker to verify if the copy is valid.  

I have run Adapter level diagnostics to check packet transfer from my LAN adapters.  Everything checks out.

I suspect the corruption is being caused by the software setup, not the hardware.

I have IPX/SPX, Netbui and TCP/IP (necessary for Wingate) protocols installed.

Help please.

Regards

Leigh


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Apparatus

Hi Leigh,

Windows 98 has a few networking bugs. If you go to the Start menu, then to Settings, you should click on Windows Update. You will be taken to Microsoft's product update website. once you enter the Windows 98 section, scroll down until you reach System Update or something of that sort. The description should have something about fixing network problems. Download this update and see if this solves your problem.

Alternativly you could try a setup like I have. Windows 98 has networking support for file sharing, printer sharing, and ipx applications/games already built in. There is no need to use WinGate for this. Then for internet sharing you will need to make one computer (the one with the internet connection) into a proxy server. This is easily done but downloading a freeware utility called AnalogX Proxy server from www.download.com. The setup is very easy and comes with detailed documentation.

As a closing note, to make sure it's not a hardware problem, try copying that file from each computer to every other computer. In one network I was setting up the file copied with no problems one way, the other way it did not. Ended up being a faulty hub.

From: Chris (Man in the Moon)
at ch@calc.org
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j2
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Does the data corruption occures between all the computers or just one of them?
You should check the hardware first, probably a bad NIC, some cabling problem, or a faulty HUB.
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Thanks go to j2's suggestion.

I removed netBeui and IPX/SPX from all 3 PC's.
I have run file transfer integrity tests and everything appears OK.

I still can't believe how fragile MS Local Area Networking is.  How can data corruption occur if the Control Panel settings let you run multiple protocols!

Thanks

Leigh
That isnt the case really, i have only seen data corruption if you use different version of protocols, AND use different default protocols on the various systems.

However, running multiple protocols is unnessesary in most cases :)