Win2k's ICS & possible alernatives?

[SteveC]

Hey guys,

I use windows 2000's inbuilt Internet Connection Sharing to share out my cable modem, but have found that it starts playing up after about 1 day of use. Esp. the DHCP server. Unsharing, then re-sharing cures it, but it's quite annoying!
Any ideas?

Also, any viable alternative NAT software to ICS? I can't get NAT32 to play nice with me at all - I got it working fine when I used a modem, but not now with my cable modem. I'd love something as easy to setup as win2k/winme's ICS.

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[thecurse]

first off what sort of problems are you having with win2000 ics? i use it just fine on an old hp netserver p133 with 128 megs and 2 nics, 3com 10/100 connected to the 3com cable modem and intel 10/100 connected to lan.
granted this is not my main machine but it runs win2000 and dhcp and ics and ftp and webserver just fine for my home needs.

what are your dhcp leases set for? you might want to up the time they keep their leases to foreever.


you might want to look at sygate ( www.sygate.com ) as soemthign else.

[SteveC]

how do you set the dhcp leases when using ICS? I didn't know you could...

My setup:
I have one win2k machine, one winme and one win98se machine all accessing the 'net through a different win2k PC (an old cyrix 166+, compaq(intel) 10/100 modem to the cable modem, realtek hub card to the network)

My problem:
After around a day, the win98se and winme machines loose their 'net connection, but the win2k machine still works.
Trying to renew the ip on any of the three machines (using winipcfg or ipconfig), none of them are able to get a new IP - telling me there is no DHCP server available.
Unsharing and then resharing the connection gets it working again...

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Guyver]

Here's what I did - and it works very well...

#1 - Crush/Kill/Destroy ICS before it does the same to your system.

#2 - Get Nat32+

#3 - Install it/configure/run.

I've got my Win98SE configured with 3 NICs.

NIC #1 - 3Com 10Mbit PhoneLine Network - to connect to my GF's PC on the other side of the apartment.

NIC #2 - 3Com 3C450 10/100 PCI Adapter to connect to my 10/100 8-port switch - for the rest of my systems.

NIC #3 - Intel In Business 10/100 PCI (basically a Pro 10/100 minus a chip) - connected to my General Instruments Cable modem.

Nat32 is set for #3 to be the primary, #1 for the secondary. 2 Seperate DHCP servers are started, 1 for #1, 1 for #2 (different subnets).

It just works. Sharing is accomplished via \\ipaddress\share name. (Note: MS Networking is not bound to #3)

Guyver

[Gurm]

I've seen this happen, but only on some systems. My brother's network has this problem, but mine runs for weeks on end with no such issues.

Installing NAT32+ is not a great alternative. Not only do you have to pay for, acquire, and install a new piece of software... but it's not a really great piece of software, now is it?

Anyway, I don't know what the issue is - has anyone checked Microsoft's knowledge base on this?

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[paul]

The only time I have to touch my 98se ics server is for windows' updates.

Could you install 98se on the server and be done with it?

[MultimediaMan]

Yes, you could, but why?? Use Millenium at least. The TCP/IP stack on 95/98/98SE SUCKS.

Most Win2K ICS problems seem to revolve around less well-supported NICs. I firmly believe that there are issues with ICS relating to specific NIC chipsets based on what some people here, and others on other forums have been experiencing.

Anybody disagree?

[thecurse]

i do not know where to set the dhcp release time inside the ics itself. i just run the full dhcp server and set the lease time in there.

imho with some of these cheap nics you get what you pay for. at work i only use 3com nics (cept for the new dell server has the supper opper dual port load balancing nic)

[The PIT]

The only time I had similar problems was when I had a duff network card. This only surfaced when I've overclocked.

[Greebe]

Oh Gurm, other than not being the easiest to install (configure), what is so bad about NAT32?
ICS added $25 to the price for Win98SE over Win98 and other than some bug fixes to the OS there's no difference between the two. ICS is now integrated into their other OS's, they amortized the cost of adding ICS into those, you just see it as a transparent cost. Even then, ICS doesn't work for all, all the time.

MM, yes the TCP/IP stack is better in 2K

[Gurm]

I spent quite a while last year trying to figure out who had the best ICS product. And Nevod won hands-down. It wasn't even a contest.

Obviously, MS felt the same way and bought Nevod's technology.

Last time I looked into it, Nat32+ was so far behind Nevod that it wasn't worth trying. Maybe I'm wrong now, but ICS does what it's supposed to do, unless you have a shitball netcard. (And yes, Netgear and Soho both count as shitball.)

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Guyver]

ICS is fine - when you are running under 1 subnet. It craps out when trying to run 2 subnets though. (Halts the system - hard reset required), that is why I went with the NAT32+, and yes it is a great product. Works very well for me, where ICS didn't.

Guyv

[Greebe]

I tried about 6 months after it's release, of course that a year after I had been using Nat32. I also tried NAT1000 originally but found Nat32 better than, for less.
ICS may puke on el cheapo nics, but at least they work with Nat32. (exception to inherent nic defects

I have a "Soho" el cheapo basic starup up kit. To think I paid $100 for it and all the headaches it's given me (none, other than my own ignorance).
Learning a bit of networking prior to selecting what would work well, min of headaches/support and CHEAP! That's the most important aspect, I'm on a very limited budget, as most here are, so the price of 1 $100 "Soho" kit, another el cheapo nic for my Athlon system ($14), 7' cat5 cable for $3, and Nat32 for $25, for a grand total of $142 my network is complete. The 3Com 905's are very nice (also SMC nics), but they're $54 locally... total overall then would have been ~>$120 more than my budget would afford if bought seperately.

[paul]

re: ME - Haven't seen it, if it's better, go for it.