# Solved: Win98 DNS resolution issue



## anqara83 (Aug 10, 2004)

HI All,

we have a win 98 machine that we use daily in a windows network, for some reason yesterday, i started having problems connecting to shared folders on one server. this server happens to be the DC and the DNS, WINS and DHCP server. it turns out that when the win 98 machine does a name resolution for Server1 it gets ip of 10.1.1.20 where the real static IP Address of the Server1 is 10.1.1.1. Now the win98 machine is able to resolve all other server and computer names in the network to the correct IP Address except SERVER1. the DHCP server has address scope of 10.1.1.20 to 10.1.1.200, and when i checked the DHCP server i found an entry a weird one that lists 10.1.1.20 leased to "SERVER1. " usually all the other computer names listed in the DHCP server are shown as "COMPUTER.DOMAINNAME.COM" 
so i deleted that entry because it's not correct and not suppose to be there anyway.
=ON the WIN98 i did ip release and renew , didn't work
=reassigned the DNS, wins server to the secondary DNS and DHCP server, restarted the machine and is still picking up the wrong ip. i can't do flushdns because is not an option and i can't find any hosts files. 
Also when i did "ping -a 10.1.1.1" it picked up the right computer name which is SERVER1.
I also searched the registry fro any "10.1.1.20" entry on the win98 machine and couldn't find any.

i'm not sure what to do from here... Please help as this has to be resolved quickly.

How can i get this machine to resolve the "SERVER1" to its right IP Address ??

Thanks in Advance.


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## anqara83 (Aug 10, 2004)

This computer ( win 98 ) is able to reach all other network resource including browsing the Internet with no problems, and when i try to connect to SERVER1 using the IP Address it works.


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## brett1 (Dec 11, 2007)

I would for a quick fix do a search for the host file, I will admit it's been awhile with Windows 98, but I believe it under C:\Windows. Once you find the host file open it in NotePad or WordPad and you'll see something like this

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost

after the examples which are marked with the # I would type in the IP address of the server, then put the hostname of the server, like in your case SERVER1.whatever.com (putting your domain name in place of the "whatever" and then put a description of what the server is. In otherwords, you have an ip address of 192.168.1.20 a server named John a domain named Doe.com and it's a file server, so just add the line

# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
192.168.1.20 john.doe.com file server

127.0.0.1 localhost

Unless you know DNS, this is usually a quick fix, I use the Host file for my network at home, as I'm not real familiar with DNS, and all my systems communicate. Unless someone else has a better idea, try that.

Almost forgot, save the file, and I usually like to do a reboot of the system, away to check if it worked, goto (Start >Run) type CMD and then type PING JOHN.DOE.COM, (but put your info) it should come back with the reply of the correct address, this was the old way to do name resolutions.


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## TheOutcaste (Aug 8, 2007)

After you deleted the entry in the DHCP server, has it shown back up? 
Did you delete and tombstone the *SERVER1<->10-1.1.1.20* entry in the WINS server?
Did you make note of the MAC address of the SERVER1 entry before you deleted it from the DHCP server?
If you have a list of the MAC addresses on your network you can track down what system was assigned the 10.1.1.20 address. It could be misconfigured, or the user was playing with the network settings

Is this the only Win98 system on the network? If there are others, I would think they would have the same issue. But, if this is the only one, then it's likely that the other PCs are using DNS for name resolution, and this win98 box is the only one using WINS.

On the Win98 system, open a command prompt
enter *arp -a* and make sure 10.1.1.20 does not show up as a *permanent* entry (it might be there as dynamic). If it does appear as permanent, make note of the Physical Address (MAC address to help track down the cause) then delete it (arp -d 10.1.1.20)

HTH

Jerry


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## anqara83 (Aug 10, 2004)

win98 appearently doesn't have hosts file, so what i found out is since win98 was using WINS i checked the WINS DB on the server and looked for any instance of SERVER1 and it had entries with IP 10.1.1.20 which is the wrong IP, so i couldn't correct the entry then what i did is assign a static IP and DNS and GAteway to the adapter and DISABLED WINS. did ipconfig release/renew and was able to resolve the SERVER1 IP asddress and also able to access shares that are n the main server. 
at first i was under the impression that WIn98 has to use WINS for name resolution, but that was wrong, so i just disabled it on that adapter and left DNS enabled. 
Later on i will take down the WINS server since there is no need for it to be present on the DHCP Server or on the Network.

Thanks for the help guys, it is greatly appreciated.


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## brett1 (Dec 11, 2007)

whaaaa, no host file in windows 98? My bad. Glad you were able to take care of the issue though.


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## anqara83 (Aug 10, 2004)

Yeah, no host file , the wholw c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc directory is not there, and you can't do flushdns either cause there is no DNS cache.... no wonder is called Legacy OS.


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## Blue Zee (May 18, 2007)

Win98 has a HOSTS file but its default location is C:\Windows.

Check there.

Zee


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## anqara83 (Aug 10, 2004)

Thanks for the Correction, is it called "hosts" i will check when i'm back to work.


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## TheOutcaste (Aug 8, 2007)

Win98 doesn't have a default hosts file, just a hosts.sam file in C:\Windows you can edit and rename if you need one.

If your issue has been resolved you can use the Thread Tools at the Upper Right to mark this thread Solved.

Jerry


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## Blue Zee (May 18, 2007)

TheOutcaste said:


> Win98 doesn't have a default hosts file, just a hosts.sam file in C:\Windows you can edit and rename if you need one.


There is an HOSTS file (no extension), whether it's working or not depends of the user, or some malware scanners (ex. Spybot S&D) that fill it, etc.

Quoting HOSTS and LMHOSTS Files for Windows 98

The following shows the default HOSTS file provided with Windows 98.

_# Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows 98
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the computer name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
127.0.0.1 localhost_



TheOutcaste said:


> If your issue has been resolved you can use the Thread Tools at the Upper Right to mark this thread Solved.


Look again at the question title.


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## TheOutcaste (Aug 8, 2007)

my bad, somehow missed the Solved part


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## Blue Zee (May 18, 2007)

A bit off topic (sorry!) but useful to someone wondering what is the HOSTS file and how it can be used.

Excellent article and excellent HOSTS file (regularly updated) available here:

Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File


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## TheOutcaste (Aug 8, 2007)

Blue Zee said:


> There is an HOSTS file (no extension), whether it's working or not depends of the user, or some malware scanners (ex. Spybot S&D) that fill it, etc.


Just to clarify, I just finished a fresh install of Win98SE and can confirm that, unlike NT, 2K, and XP, there is no default HOSTS file with no extension, there is only HOSTS.SAM. Same thing with Win98. This generated a lot of support calls (thanks Bill!) for hosts files not working in Win98. Since there was no hosts file (with no extension), I would get calls from 
people who edited HOSTS.SAM (or created a new file) in notepad and tried to save it as HOSTS with no extension but forgot to change the *Save as Type* box to All Files (*.*) from Text Documents, so notepad would add the .txt extension. This meant the file was actually named hosts.txt and wouldn't work. Or, since the default in Win98 is to hide common file extensions, they were unaware that the file had a .sam extension.

Almost never got calls like this on the other versions of Windows because they DID have a default HOSTS file with no extension, and notepad only adds the .txt extension if you are creating a new file and try to save it without an extension. It won't add the .txt extension if you edit an existing file that doesn't have an extension.

Loved getting these calls, cause it sure improved the call time average.

Jerry


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## Blue Zee (May 18, 2007)

You probably mean there isn't any working HOSTS file.

That is correct and I did point that in my comment.

Other entities can create or edit HOSTS files without the knowledge of the user, i.e., malware in several forms, anti-malware software, etc.

The user should know how to use the HOSTS file, one of them being blocking parasites as explained in that article I linked to, but not only. This may be useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file

I usually do not point to Wikipedia, but this article includes several excellent links that can be used for deeper understanding of the HOSTS file.

An excellent tool to control changes (willingly or not) in the contents of the HOSTS file is WinPatrol, it's free and includes loads of information on startup entries, tasks, services, etc., all of them extremely useful.

The debate, useless and pointless, ends here at least for me.

Hopefully some users may find my comments useful.

Cheers,

Zee


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