Operating and Using Microsoft's ICS

Operating and Using
Windows 98SE Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)

Okay, you’ve installed or upgraded to Windows 98SE, you’ve installed Internet Connection Sharing and your system has been restarted. Now you click Start, Programs and …ummm nothing has changed and there’s no reference what so ever to ICS! Now you’re saying to yourself, where do I find ICS? Don’t panic!

You can access the Internet Connection Sharing properties and their settings from Internet Options in Control Panel. When you installed ICS, a number of changes were made to your Internet Properties page. In addition to finding numerical references for your installed network cards, you will also find a new Sharing button on the Connections tab.

Important!!! During testing of the Windows 98 Internet Connection Sharing installation, setup and use, we have learned that at times during the installation process, the Sharing button will be missing from your Internet Options dialog box. If this occurs, stop here and read the following. If you do not have this problem, move on down to using the ICS Control Panel by clicking here.

Microsoft advises that this can occur if the Inetcpl.cpl and Inetcplc.dll files are not the correct versions. Both of these files should be version 5.00.2614.3500 or later. Microsoft also notes that this may be part of the same error that occurs when you update Internet Explorer to version 5 while using the original version of Windows 98 and then perform the upgrade to Windows 98 Second Edition. It seems that the upgrade process to Windows 98SE doesn’t upgrade Internet Explorer to version 5 correctly. There are two ways of dealing with this problem. You can try and force Windows 98SE to install IE 5 correctly to version 5.00.2614.3500, or you can upgrade Internet Explorer to version 5.01 or 5.5.

To update Internet Explorer 5 after you upgraded to Windows 98 SE:

Note: The version of Internet Explorer 5 that shipped with Windows 98 SE was 5.00.2614.3500.

1. Rename the Iemigrat.dll file in the \Windows\System folder to Iemigrat.old.
2. Start the Registry Editor. You do this by clicking Start, then Run and type in REGEDIT and click OK.
3. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Setup \ Migration \ 100
4. Delete the IE System Migration value.
5. Exit the Registry Editor.
6. Now reinstall Windows 98 Second Edition.

If you just wish only to install the latest version of the Inetcpl.cpl and Inetcplc.dll files, you can do so as follows:

1. Select Start, Run, and then type sfc in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Now select “Extract one file from Installation disk”.
3. Type inetcpl.cpl in the “Specify the system file you would like to restore” box, and then click Start.
4. In the “Restore From” box, type the drive letter and path to the Windows 98 Second Edition CD-ROM folder.
5. In the “Save File In” box, type the full path to the \Windows\System folder (as in: C:\Windows\System), and then click OK.
6. Click OK to use the default backup folder when you are prompted.
7. Click OK to start extracting the file.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 to replace the Inetcplc.dll.

The last option that seems to work is to upgrade directly to either Internet Explorer version 5.01 or version 5.5 by downloading either one from the Microsoft download site. You can find Internet Explorer version 5.01 here, and you can find Internet Explorer version 5.5 here.

ICS Control Panel:

When you click on the Sharing button it will bring up the ICS Control Panel. There are only a few options that you really need to be concerned with. You cannot exert any control over logging or the ability to open special ports. You also have no control over Client network access other than to shut down the connection itself, and you have no control over the Internet Connection Sharing DHCP server.

Note that although there is a Help button, it really isn’t of much use to you. Indeed, when you clicking on it, it will bring up ICS help, but the client setup information isn’t much help to you and it is confusing at best, especially when viewing IP addressing.

You may want to select the “Show Icon in Taskbar” box so that you can access the ICS Control Panel right from the taskbar rather than having to visit the Control Panel.

When you right click on the ICS Icon in the system tray, you can choose:

• Status – Selecting Status will show you the number of computers using Internet connection, however read our follow-on note.

  Note: We have seen ICS take as little as 60 seconds and as much as 20 minutes before showing the correct number of connections. This is no doubt due to the fact that ICS holds Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports open for a client for as long as 10 minutes after the activity on that port has terminated. When a port is open for a client, ICS counts the port as a connected client, and the count of connected computers is only updated after the port is closed.

• Options – Selecting Options will bring up the ICS control panel.

• Disable Internet Connections Sharing – Selecting Disable Internet Connections Sharing does exactly as it implies, it disables Internet connections sharing.

Once you have setup ICS on the computer that will access the Internet (and become the gateway for the other computers), you will then need to setup the client computers, (those using the gateway for access to the Internet). You can do this in one of two ways. If you are comfortable with setting up network parameters, you can point each client computer to the computer upon which you just installed ICS or you can use the diskette you made during the installation of ICS.

Yes, remember that Client Configuration Disk that you made as part of the installation process? You only need to insert that diskette into the drive and follow the installation process carefully, and it will setup each of the client computers.

Now, if ICS has installed properly, you should be able to try the browsers on your computers that access the shared computer. If things don’t work, however, (and yes, it happens!), you will need to verify that ICS has been installed properly. Here are some of the things you will need to verify:

1. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. Now select Network in Control Panel, and you should see some new additions:

   • A new Internet Connection Sharing adapter.

   • Copies of a new Internet Connection Sharing protocol installed and bound to each of your Network adapters.

   • A copy of TCP/IP installed and bound to Internet Connection Sharing, which replaces the TCP/IP protocol which was installed before you installed ICS.
2. Now click Start, Run and type winipcfg in the Open box.

3. You should find an ICSHARE adapter replacing the type of adapter you used to connect to the Internet, Dial-up adapter, cable modem or NIC, etcetera.

4. If all looks as it should be, save the settings and then restart the computer, log onto the Internet and then test the connection again with one of the other computers.

Still have problems? Let’s move on to How to Troubleshoot Windows 98 Internet Connection Sharing.

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