Networking 2 home pc's

[ritadc3]

My old HP computer with WinXP died (hard disk failed).  It was networked to an older Micron running Win98.  The Win98 pc was used for back up and ran my scanner.

This new HP, using Win7, apparently does not see the Win98 computer (although they are both connected to a LinkSys router).  It looks like the new HP will not connect to anything except another Win7 machine.

Is this true?  Is there any way I can connect the two of them, at least long enough to transfer over some of the data files??

 - Rita.

[Hanspuppa]

Hello ritadc3, Sorry to hear you are experiencing trouble networking you computers.

Windows 7 may be able to see a Windows 98 computer on a network, if the network is set up properly.

Windows 7 does networking a little differently than previous versions of Windows.

First, make sure both computers have file sharing enabled. Then go into the Windows 7 computer Control Panel and select  Network and Sharing Center. Select  etup a new network", and then choose a Work network, and give the name of the network the same as the previous network you had with the older system. Do not choose Home network.

Continue following all the different options, and you should be setup properly. Since your older Windows 98 system is 12 years old, a lifetime in computer lives, it is not supported by Microsoft. I doubt you can get any updates for it, but if you can, I would make sure it is updated as much as possible. You may need to reboot both systems or just log off of both systems in order to connect to the Work Network.

If all this fails, You can just copy and paste all the data you require from the Windows 98 system to a USB flash drive and copy and paste it to the new Windows system.

You might even consider replacing the hard drive in the failed system and install at least Windows XP on it, that might give you a few more years of use.

You should be aware that on Windows 7, many of the Folders and files are required to have the permissions set in order to view or work with them, with respect to copy and paste. You can set these permissions, but it is a tedious process, and very time consuming, and on certain Folders it has to be done everytime you want to access them. Microsoft's version of "Security", easily defeated.

Hope this works, and helps.