Still can't connect to LAN

[byrdman]

the guys at Best Buy sold me the "fastest router" Linksys had available. So all I bought is an expensive 5 port direct connection to the internet. In Windows, all I see are my machines, in my LAN, and I can transfer files between compuers, talk to each other, and everything works great. I need to contact my ISP.

[Harry Kuhman]

the guys at Best Buy sold me the "fastest router" Linksys had available.

Well, that is a load of BS, a switch isn't a router. And with the drop in prices of routers, it likely cost a lot more than a good router. Best Buy has recently sold wired 4 port Linksys BDFSR41 10/100 routers for $5 after rebate. Other places such as CompUSA have sold 4 port routers that also include wireless capability for about that same price ($2.99 to $9.99 after rebate, sometimes even with high speed 802.11g wifi capability).

You do want a router, it will provide you protection that you really need with a high speed connection, and just don't get when your local computers have exposed internet addresses (research NAT on Google for yourself for more info). And it will very likely resolve your ping issues (maybe not all of your networking issues between Linux and Windows though, as I said that is a complex issue, but the first step is to be able to ping).

So all I bought is an expensive 5 port direct connection to the internet. In Windows, all I see are my machines, in my LAN, and I can transfer files between compuers, talk to each other, and everything works great. I need to contact my ISP.

Not sure why you need to talk to your ISP when your gripe seems to be with Best Buy.

You also seem to be skipping things that I keep asking for. Like the exact syntax of the pings that do work and the traceroute between the Win98 and the XP system (which will tell us how the traffic is being routed). So I'll assume that you have enough information now and no longer want additional help.

[Harry Kuhman]

In Windows, all I see are my machines, in my LAN, and I can transfer files between compuers, talk to each other, and everything works great. I need to contact my ISP.

I see now that you chose to hide information in a new subject line. Cute but not a smart thing to do when you are trying to communicate with someone who doesn't expect to have to search all over the page to find what you write.

As to being able to network and transfer files between computers, I suspect that you don't know the half of it. With those exposed IP addresses and no router, you can and very likely do share your files with people all over the Internet. Your software firewall might tend to slow some of them down (can never be depended upon to protect you fully), but I strongly suspect that you don't have the networking background to configure it to do that well. That's not intended as a dig against you, but just an observation that if you didn't know that you didn't have a router that your expertise is likely to be in other areas. In short, you don't have a Local Area Network, you have a WAN, and you really need to take a lot of steps to shut it down a.s.a.p. and do some serious scanning of those computers, install a hardware firewall, and reflect on what important private information (banking info, passwords, tax files and so on) may have been compromised and what you need to do to start protecting yourself (like closing out any account that you had information on in the computer and opening new accounts).

[byrdman]

Harry,

I wan't trying to trick you, or pull something over on you. Since my stroke last year it's difficult for me to type as fast as I could. I was trying to comply with all your requests. I have to take my time and sometimes double check your requests to accurately describe my computer and information. Anyway thanks for all your help.

Rod