Wireless and W98

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

Yo!
I have a W98 P2 oldie, a Dell P4 with XP and a new Dell notebook with XP and wifi. Also Canon printer.
First, I bouth a wifi card for the Dell desktop to allow broadband sharing peer-to-peer with the notebook. I can get the two machines to see each other but cannot get any sharing going, files or broadband.

OK, now plan B:

I am going to buy a wi-fi router to share the broadband, and I am going to take the wireless card out of the Dell desktop and put it in the old W98 P2.
Do you think I will get this to work with internet access on the desktop by ethernet wire and on the notebook and P2 by wifi from router?
Is there anyway I can get antivirus protection on all three for one subscription?
Will the new Windows antispyware work on W98?
What is the best way to get the printer shared accross all three machines?

Thanks for time and help!

 

[Fanum]

You've got several problems here.....

Win98 is notoriously crap at anything to do with networking......it can be done, but it's nowhere as easy as under XP......TBH unless you really need to, I wouldn't bother trying to get the w98 machine set up.

The two you have seeing eachother wirelessly but are unable to share files....that sounds like a firewall issue....have you enabled file sharing on them both and have you told your firewall to allow it?

(XP itself has a pretty effective firewall if you're not using something like Zonealarm, but I'd recommend zonealarm as well)

Yes, you can get decent AV software for all three........Grisoft AVG is free for home users anda s good as any commercial product.....try a search here for it and see what people have said about it.

 

[cookie]

Win98 is notoriously crap at anything to do with networking......it can be done, but it's nowhere as easy as under XP......TBH unless you really need to, I wouldn't bother trying to get the w98 machine set up.

i'll second all of that

 

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

Thanks very much!

 

[Telford]

W98 will work with wireless - it does here alongside machines running W2k, 2003 server, XP, CE and, occasionaly, Linux.

It isn't as 'easy' to set up as the later Windows OS's and takes about 3-4 reboots during installation.

But it will work.

 

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

Well, as the man said, it will work!
I now have a wireless router feeding an XP pc by ethernet wire, and feeding a W98 pc and a dell XP hopme notebook by wifi. Fitted a print server and can print from any of the three. Took ages to get the notebook to see the bloody printer, but it did eventually.
The router and server are by sitecom, from Maplins, fwiw.
One small step for anyone else but I am delira and excira!