Wi Fi with Win Me

[atferrari]

I have a laptop (my first and only one) running Windows Milenium, still in good shape. I want to use it in WiFi networks. For what I need, it is enough when surfing the Web.

Should I say that it is impossible at all? If not, what I should look for?

People selling PC stuff seems to have forgot all about Win Me.

Ideas anyone?

Of course, I do not want to "try" things if it is not a sure-fire solution. No spare money around lately.

Gracias.

 

[BrownOut]

Never tired it, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work. Just make sure ME is supported with anything you buy.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Never tired it, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work. Just make sure ME is supported with anything you buy.

Rather depends if drivers for ME are provided or not, ME was really a complete disaster and was promptly dropped.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Have you considered a Linux OS for the old laptop?

 

[BrownOut]

Rather depends if drivers for ME are provided or not.

Which is what it means to say, "Make sure ME is supported..."

Blueroomelectronics; Have you considered a Linux OS for the old laptop?

Excellent suggestion. I thought about that too.

 

[Sceadwian]

95/98 drivers should work with ME, it's just 95 with some stupid window dressing. I'd wipe ME off the machine as fast as possible and use somethign else. I have never once in my life seen as table ME machine.

 

[BrownOut]

I have an old copy of 98 lying around you can have. Though, I'd still consider linux.

 

[atferrari]

Ok. Thanks for the opinions.

Went today to people supposed to be the most knowledgeable locally.

After trying to get all they had in the shop working (almost one hour) they gave up. Even there was a driver for some of them, but they did not work after all.

Surprised: Linux in a 10yo laptop? Would it work?. Still running MPLAB I would not like to loose it.

Moreover: I am affraid of starting a new nightmare: never used Linux before. Still recall the SO MANY hours spent trying to install things in my PCs with so discouraging results. The worst of it: so long time spent in nothing.

I was so inngenuous to know so many "secrets" of DOS. For what?!!

Forgive the rant; frustration with all this and with girls, leaves scars forever.

Gracias again!

 

[Reloadron]

OK, so you have an old system running Windows ME. Since this is an old system I would guess that it does not have on board wireless. You have a few options available.

1. Most older laptops as well as new have a PCMCIA slot on them. Buy a wireless network card that plugs into the PCMCIA slot like for example Netgear WG511TS which can be seen right here and is easily supported by Windows 98 forward including Windows ME. That is one example of about a few dozen floating around out there. They are also relatively inexpensive. Most have support drivers for Windows ME.

2. If the system has an available USB port then consider a compact wireless G USB adapter like the Linksys WUSB54GC which can be found here. That also has drivers for and is compatible with Windows ME.

Option 1 is likely the least expensive but neither option is expensive depending on what you call expensive and cost in your area. Obviously, make sure whatever you buy works for the wireless bands in your geographical area.

Since the laptop is slightly aged I assume you back up your data.

As to Linux. I use it and I like it but you can't just blow away an operating system and install Linux and expect things to work. Before anyone installs Linux on a system they use to run specific software they should make sure the things they need and rely on will run on a Linux platform. Personally I run an older Linux Suse distribution I like very much in a dual boot with XP on my older test box using the Linux grub boot loader. Linux is fine and runs open office great but I still can't do everything with Linux that I can do with software from the evil empire.

Anyway, you may want to consider the networking methods I suggested for your ME syatem depending on the laptop.

Ron

 

[Sceadwian]

If you've never used Linux before, learning on a 10 year old laptop is suicide.
You could remove a lot of conjecture and guessing and simply tell us what the make and model of your laptop is.

 

[Reloadron]

If you've never used Linux before, learning on a 10 year old laptop is suicide.
You could remove a lot of conjecture and guessing and simply tell us what the make and model of your laptop is.

Absolutely agree! I was also wondering make and model so I kept the reply generic.

Linux can be a fun thing but as you mentioned there is a learning curve. Not something I would personally suggest on a decade old laptop, especially if that laptop has other software a person needs or likes to run that likely will not run on the Linux platform. That being just my take on it.

Ron

 

[BrownOut]

I just remembered... I could never get linux to boot on my laptop (Dell Inspiron which previously ran Win2k.) I've only had success with a big box computer.

 

[Sceadwian]

Depends on your boot options and level of expertise BrownOut, the key is you have to point the OS to a boot point that is the linux installer which knows enough about the system to install Linux on it itself, if you can't do that you're dead in the water. Doing that on a system you don't have drivers for using an OS you've never tried before pretty much means you've hit a brick wall.

 

[BrownOut]

I set all that up on the front end. I booted from the disk, but couldn't boot it once it was installed. It installed and booted perfectly on my desktop.

 

[Sceadwian]

Typical linux experience, there was a fallback driver on the install side that wasn't on the installed side.

 

[BrownOut]

Our IT guy told me that basically, none of our Dell laptops would boot linux ( although it was he who suggested I try it in the first place ) But our Dell desktops worked fine, and so did the Boss's mobile workstation. I mention this because it just might not be possible to get linux to work on an old laptop.

I was creating a systemC model of a microprocessor at the time, and the boss wanted to be able to download the model from the compay network and check it out from anywhere he happened to be ( which could be anywhere in the world. ) I also had to have it available for the programmers on the company's unix servers. I had to keep two versions of the model, because it executed differently on linux and unix. So, I had to have a linux box to download and run the software before the boss tried it.

While we're on the topic of linux, I have considered converting an old XP box to RHL. But the catch is, I have alot of custom software I've created to do JTAG testing over the parallel port. Under Windows, I use a DLL with an embedded driver to talk to the port. Will I be able to do this in linux? Or will I even need a driver? All the code geeks say it is easier, but never tell me what makes it so.

 

[Sceadwian]

You're talking about core system process timing.
Under windows the DLL is required.
Under linux direct port access can be granted via simple access permissions. As far as the timing goes what other libraries you're using that your code depends upon is completely up in the air. You'll learn fast the hardship of code porting when you depend on OS specific library implementation.
This is why languages like Java were created.

 

[BrownOut]

NP, I"ve ported code between windows and unix/linux many times. I only wondered about accessing the ports.

 

[Reloadron]

NP, I"ve ported code between windows and unix/linux many times. I only wondered about accessing the ports.

Prior to Windows XP accessing the parallel port was relatively an easy task.

Writing programs to talk with parallel port was pretty easy in old DOS days and in Win95/98 too. We could use Inporb and outportb or _inp() or _Outp functions in our program without any problem if we are running the program on DOS or WIN95/98. But entering to the new era of NT clone operating systems like WIN NT4, WIN2000, WINXP, all this simplicity goes away. Being interested in Parallel port interfacing and programming you might have experienced the problems in writing a program that can talk to parallel port successfully in NT based operating systems. When we are trying to run a program which is written using the conventional software functions like Inporb, outportb, _inp() or _Outp on a WINNT or WIN2000 system, it will show an error message that "The exception privileged instruction occurred in the application at location ....".

All Windows operating systems since Windows NT will throw an error using the old code that worked so well for years. Per the above quote that is a result of security enhancements. Therefore on systems post Windows NT built on the NT (New Technology) framework like Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and today's Windows 7 we need a sort of go between. The go between is a .DLL file and the popular one was Inpout32.dll for WIN 98/NT/2000/XP. The file works great as advertised in XP but sucks in Vista and Windows 7. I never had much success with it anyway even with fixes and patches.

My thinking at this point is nobody ever bothered to write a new .DLL because for all practical purposes the parallel port is dead. No new motherboards have a parallel port. For those who need one and buy parallel port PCI cards they won't work with old parallel port programs as the port address is not what it was. Along those lines the serial port is right behind it in heading towards extinction.

Enter the Linux environment and as Sceadwian points out:

Under windows the DLL is required.
Under linux direct port access can be granted via simple access permissions.

Linux based operating systems allow easy direct access to the parallel port or for that matter the RS232 port without the need for a go between .DLL file. This is a nice and wonderful thing but having an OS that can easily access a parallel or RS232 port becomes useless on hardware that offers neither port, so go figure.

Ron

 

[BrownOut]

Actually, I use inpout32.dll and XP. Yeah, I guess it's all a moot point. It's on my list of things to do to get off the parallel port and on to USB anyway.