Don't laugh - Windows 7 to Windows 98 networking?

I have an old Windows 98 desktop on my network that I'd like to copy a bunch of files off of to my new Windows 7 laptop so that I can retire the Win98 machine (about time, eh?) Although I can see the Win98 machine as well as my husband's WinXP desktop in Norton Internet Security (firewall) that came on my new machine, I am unable to see either of them in "Network and Sharing Center" on the Windows 7 laptop. I only see my own machine. I am able to print to a printer attached to the Windows 98 machine as well as to another printer on the network, however.

The Windows 98 machine is set up to share My Documents, but it can only be seen on the two XP machines on my network, not the 7 machine.

Any advice? I attempted to use a USB flash drive in the Windows 98 PC to transfer the files, but there are no Win98 drivers for it. Sigh...

Thanks!

use the XP computer as a bridge?
I'm currently researching if they have any protocols in common.
my best bet is to download Apache and set up the Win7 as a ftp server.
EDIT: It appears that Win 98 is capable of TCP/IP... See if you can find instructions for setting up sharing for 98 and to access a TCP/IP server manually under 7.

Thanks Barman58!

That worked. I already had the Win98 PC set up to share My Documents, I just didn't know how to access it from the Win 7 laptop. Now I do. Many thanks!

Hey,

What (did) are you doing with that 98 machine, please tell me you going to retire it?

blade1269 said:

Hey,

What (did) are you doing with that 98 machine, please tell me you going to retire it?

That is definitely the plan. Right now it's mostly a document backup/repository, but it also has the router, DSL modem, and one of the printers plugged into it, so it's going to take a little effort to reconfigure everything. We don't run email or web browsers on it, and have a firewall and anti-virus software on it, so even without Microsoft patching, it has remained virus-free for years. It's just slow and ugly. It will be moving out soon now that I have all the files off it I want to keep.

Cheers,
Emily

In the gpedit.msc in windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10/…
1. Accounts: account “guest”: Enabled
2. Access computer from the network — add Guest
3. REMOVE Guest account from the “DENY access to the computer from the network” !!!
Restart in services.msc server service or reboot.

Make common resources on both Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10/. and windows 98

Start->Run in windows 98 and try \\computername2k\commonresource (no warrancy about just \\computername2k – you need additional manipulations to get the to work. Tip: named channels)
-----
Active Directory Client (DSClient) or windows 98 SP3 (ESP3) is required for authentication to work smoothly.

Then just having in mind that Win9x will not open a Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10/ network computer directly is suff.;
instead, one must know the exact names of the shares and access them directly.

For example, if the Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10/ computer named TEST1 has a shared folder under the name of MyShare,
then you'll have to type \\TEST1\MyShare in your file manager and it will open it.

SO, in the Win9x System, "Client for Microsoft Networks" MUST be installed (in Control Panel->Network)
AND used as "Primary Network Logon"
AND a User/Password combination used that MUST MATCH that defined on the NT5<= -type system.

after that you have to set on Win98 the following (not required on SP3):

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA]
"LMCompatibility"=dword:00000003
;

Windows 98 never had tcip it used netbui so to connect you need to get tcip for it or netbui on Windows 7 there were a lot of software to connect via serial or parrel ports with a cable

If you have an available desktop computer, you could remove the hard drive from the W98 computer and install it in the desktop computer as the secondary drive, then copy everything from it to the main hard drive. I have a stack of old hard drives that I have collected over the decades, and I am in the process of connecting them to one of my computers which has an IDE drive connection and copying from them whatever is useful.