WinME, can't resolve names

[reitz]

I don't use WinME myself; I've walked so many users through problems with it that I won't touch it. We have been noticing a strange problem, though.

We had 5 different users call in with the exact same problem last week. All of them had just upgraded to WinME from Win98. In each case the user had no problems dialing and connecting, but they were unable to bring up anything. The first two problems were initially treated as simple routing issues, and TCP/IP was replaced, with no luck. DNS entries in the connection were checked, specified if they were not already. I then manually replaced wsock32.dll (often a cause of those types of issues) by extracting the file from the cabs and booting into DOS and copying over the old one (Thank you, Microsoft, for that wonderful new "system file protection" feature :|) Still no luck.

A few ping tests revealed that the user could ping numbers, but not names. He could bring up a webpage and send and receive mail using the IP addresses, but could do nothing with the names.

With one of the users, I tried everything: wiping the Network Control Panel clean, rebooting, and putting everything back; manually reinstalling several system files; specifying DNS (tried a dozen different servers) in both the connection and main TCP/IP for the dial-up adaptor; deleting the hosts file and rebooting; reinstalling WinME over top of it; and at least a dozen other things I can't think of right now. Nothing seemed to have any affect at all.

Has anyone run into this issue at all, and if so, what is the fix (besides format c: )? I scoured the Knowledge Base, but the info Microsoft has for ME is pathetic. Any ideas?

 

[mastertech01]

Your problem is more complicated than I am able to comprehend, but if it helps any I have been having problems with Winme and networking, specifically in internet access via my Wingate program which allows my daughters computer to be a client to my computer as server for internet access. I am unable to get the client computer to access the Wingate engine and I have tried everything. I believe Winme has network/TCP/IP problems that need to be fixed..hopefully ASAP.. Even its new home networking program doesnt seem to work at all.

 

[BigDave]

Are you able to ping the DNS servers you have specified?

And are you able to ping the DNS names of the web sites you are trying to reach?

 

[reitz]

BigDave, the users are able to ping any valid IP. Pinging www.yahoo.com gives "unknown host"; pinging 216.32.74.52 gives four replies. They can even enter the IP into a browser window and bring up the page. There don't seem to be any routing issues at all when dealing only with IP's. It seems like the only problem is in resolving domain names.

I'm at a loss. The only option we have right now is to try everything, and then send the customer to deal with Microsoft. I really hate doing that, so I'd love to find a fix for it.

 

[Grminalac]

hello, I was reading a previous post about a fellow having the same problem he had to deal with microsoft tech supposrt, they told him there was some sort of problem dealing with WInME and transferring internet info on a upgrade, oh lemme look and see if i can find it.

Quote from bigfootMD:
"I had to call Microsoft. There is a bug in ME when you update. It sometimes transfers network and dialup networking settings into ME that are incorrect. This is why I could connect to my ISP and not get anything.
With the help of Tech support I renamed and restored 5 files . The bottom line here is if you are UPDATING from win98 SE to ME you should first delete any clients in networks and then any protocols. You should also uninstall in 98 Dialup networking. DO not reboot after removing network and Dialupnetworking. Put the ME CD in the drive and from a DOS Promt run SETUP.
There should be an article on this problem on the Microsoft site soon."

Hopefully that helps, that looks like the problem you were having.

Files replaced winsock.dll, ws_32.dll, wsock.vxd, wsock2.vxd, wsock32.dll. It was a rather involved process.
I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else.

 

[reitz]

Grminalac, thanks for the info. I'll make sure to pass it around.

Sadly, in my experience, this appears to be a very common problem.

 

[HotWire]

It really bothers me that Microsoft could release a product such as this operating UPGRADE without finding out about that like pronto......It seems to me in the beta testing this would have revealed itself...and even if it didn't , it should not have gotten by them!!!!!