Windows 98 networking question

[Professur]

does anyone know for sure wether or not there's a maximum number of NICs that can be assigned to the TCP/IP protocol? I'm trying to build an image for laptops for our field techs, but there are several different types of PCMCIA nics used at the various offices, plus one model of the machine has an onboard NIC. Adding in the PPPOE binding and dialup, and I always get caught with one adapter that won't bind tcp/ip.

anyone?

 

[Winky]

The TCP/IP stack in WIN98 can not handle more than
four connections, that includes all bindings to the stack!

 

[Professur]

Odd. I'm stable at 6. Thanks for that confirmation, Winky. That was the conclusion I'd come to, but now I can call it fact.

 

[rrfield]

You are still deploying Win98 laptops too, eh? I thought I was alone!

 

[Professur]

Not willingly. But 450 PIII 600s aren't replaced without a fight.

 

[Luis G]

The TCP/IP stack in WIN98 can not handle more than
four connections, that includes all bindings to the stack!

wtf? Care to elaborate on what you mean by connection?
Because win98 can handle more than 4 TCP/IP connections.

 

[Luis G]

wtf? Care to elaborate on what you mean by connection?
Because win98 can handle more than 4 TCP/IP connections.

edit: or do you just mean 4 adapters?

 

[rrfield]

I think they mean bindings, not conenctions.

 

[rrfield]

Not willingly. But 450 PIII 600s aren't replaced without a fight.

Yeah, I know what you mean. We have shitloads of old meters that talk proprietary protocols over DB-9; the vendors have not updated the protocols, or the programs that understand the protocols, since 1999. Hence, many laptops still run Win98. Pain in everyones ass.

 

[Luis G]

This behavior is more likely to occur with a laptop computer that is used in more than one network environment. Note that creating an additional hardware profile does not resolve this issue. The default parameter for the MaxInstance entry in the original release of Windows 95 is 8 for all protocols. The default parameter for the MaxInstance entry in Windows 95 OSR 2-2.5 is 8 for NetBEUI, and 4 for IPX/SPX and TCP/IP. The MaxInstance entry for Windows 98 is 8 for NetBEUI, 4 for IPX/SPX and 6 for TCP/IP, WinME - 8 For NetBEUI, 4 for IPX and 10 for IP.

And the solution to the problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q217744/

rrfield, without the intention of being anal, but you can bind a protocol to an adapter and you can bind a connection/socket to an address (theoretical limit for the number of socket bindings should be 2^16-1).

 

[rrfield]

within context of the discussion, only protocol-adapter bindings make sense, but yeah you are right!

 

[Professur]

Halleluia. Thanks Luis. That's fixed it. MaxInstance for TCP/IP was set to 6. I set it to 8 and it worked like a charm.