I very nearly gave up on this problem (It would have been my first “i’m sorry, but I cannot fix it”… I guess it will happen sooner or later).

Anyway, it was a win98 system with dialup internet & a spyware infection & the internet stopped working.

I work on it from the office & remove all the spyware & then connect it to my LAN… but the networking doesn’t seem to work.

I can ping the router & even the google ip address. I can ping google.com.au, but not www.google.com.au . Now thats very strange. A dns problem? All other PCs on my network work just fine. I check my win98 settings (on virtual PC), but everything looks OK.

I eventually find a post that shows how to remove the networking drivers from the “networks” in control panel, & then remove certain key entries in the registry. The network devices are reinstalled on reboot & the network is finally working. I update windows & all the virus & spyware definitions.

At this stage, I’ve had the PC for 1 week, & the elderly lady is really wanting it back. So I don’t get a chance to “reinstall” the dialup networking drivers.

I take the PC back & I struggle with the password for a bit & then notice the internet is looking strange… google & maybe 2 other pages load up, but most others don’t.

I can easily ping any DNS address, so whats going on?

I take a guess and decide to remove & reinstall dialup networking drivers.

Once done, it all works perfectly.

I’m glad there are fewer and fewer win98 systems out there. XP is much more robust.