Problems after installing XP

[girltech]

So I just had to wipe my hard drive clean and reinstall XP. The installation seemed to go fine, but I'm have some problems setting up.

The first thing I noticed after installation was complete was that the taskbar looked like the pre-XP taskbar, not the new blue and green one. I didn't have that problem the first time I installed XP, and I didn't change any of the taskbar properties. I don't care what the thing looks like; I'm just wondering if it's a symptom of a larger problem.

Second, I can't get it to connect to the Internet. I have a cable modem connected to a router. The other computer and the Playstation connected to the router work fine. I tried switching cables around, connecting directly to the modem, disabling the firewall completely, and making sure the NIC was in tight. Still it doesn't work. The light on the router and on the NIC come on like they should, and XP shows that all the connections are enabled. I'm not very familiar with the network settings on XP. I've never had to adjust them. The defaults (or what XP detected) always worked just fine. Thank the Lord for our slower, yet dependable, 98SE computer or I'd really be stuck.

Any insight anyone has is much apprieciated.

[Panama Red]

If you reinstalled, did you remember to load the motherboard drivers? That should be step 2 followed by a complete update at Windows Update.

[Statica]

Originally Posted by girltech So I just had to wipe my hard drive clean and reinstall XP. The installation seemed to go fine, but I'm have some problems setting up. The first thing I noticed after installation was complete was that the taskbar looked like the pre-XP taskbar, not the new blue and green one. I didn't have that problem the first time I installed XP, and I didn't change any of the taskbar properties. I don't care what the thing looks like; I'm just wondering if it's a symptom of a larger problem.

Did you change the theme for XP? XP ships with 2 themes Windows Classic Style and Windows XP theme. You can try changing it by going to Display properties (either from the control panel or by right clicking on the desktop and selecting properties) > Appearance > Windows and buttons > Windows XP style.

Originally Posted by girltech Second, I can't get it to connect to the Internet. I have a cable modem connected to a router. The other computer and the Playstation connected to the router work fine. I tried switching cables around, connecting directly to the modem, disabling the firewall completely, and making sure the NIC was in tight. Still it doesn't work. The light on the router and on the NIC come on like they should, and XP shows that all the connections are enabled. I'm not very familiar with the network settings on XP. I've never had to adjust them. The defaults (or what XP detected) always worked just fine. Thank the Lord for our slower, yet dependable, 98SE computer or I'd really be stuck. Any insight anyone has is much apprieciated.

The first thing to check is if your computer is receiving an IP address? Try openning a command prompt (START > RUN > cmd and press OK)
From the command prompt issue the command:
ipconfig
You should see the name of your network connection (usually the network card) and IP address. What is the IP address you are receiving. It is usually along the lines of 192.168.xxx.xxx If you do not receive this, then you need to tweak your settings further.
First make sure that your network cable is plugged into one of the LAN ports of your router, and that port works fine (try swapping it with an existing connection and see if it still works). Does your router have any MAC filters or any special settings that you might have put in the interests of security that you've forgotten to account for? The usual suspects are MAC filters, disabling DHCP etc.
If you are satisfied that your router is set to assign IPs by DHCP, you can try working on the network connection settings on XP. The simplest way is to run the network connection wizard from the control panel.

[girltech]

First off, I checked XP's theme. It's set to "Modified Theme". I tried to change it something else, and a window pops up that says "An exception occurred while trying to run shell32.dll, Control Panel_RunDLL desk.cpl". It does that no matter which theme I select.

Next I tried to check the IP address using ipconfig. A black window opens and closes so fast that I can't make out anything on it. The only thing I could catch was the top bar that says C:\Windows\........ (Couldn't make out the whole thing.) XP lists two network connections, one of the router and one for the NIC, I think. Both are set to obtain an IP address and DNS server automatically. The IP address for the NIC is all zeros, and when I try to repair the connection, it is unable to do so. The IP address for the router just says "unavailable".

Did some files install incorrectly or corrupt? I'm thinking I have to reinstall again. Or is there anything else I can try? I didn't reload the motherboard drivers yet, but that shell32 error makes me think it's most likely an XP problem.

[Statica]

Originally Posted by girltech First off, I checked XP's theme. It's set to "Modified Theme". I tried to change it something else, and a window pops up that says "An exception occurred while trying to run shell32.dll, Control Panel_RunDLL desk.cpl". It does that no matter which theme I select.

That is usually indicative of bad video drivers. Have you loaded the correct video card drivers to your system? Does this explain your situation: http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1

Originally Posted by girltech Next I tried to check the IP address using ipconfig. A black window opens and closes so fast that I can't make out anything on it. The only thing I could catch was the top bar that says C:\Windows\........ (Couldn't make out the whole thing.) XP lists two network connections, one of the router and one for the NIC, I think. Both are set to obtain an IP address and DNS server automatically. The IP address for the NIC is all zeros, and when I try to repair the connection, it is unable to do so. The IP address for the router just says "unavailable".

It is imperative that you run ipconfig from within the command console or you will miss out the information. As I said from my previous post, first open a command console by doing START > RUN > type cmd and then press OK. Then use ipconfig..

Let's start with the simplest troubleshooting procedure to the more complicated.
Are you sure the cable you are using is fine? and not a cross over? (connect it between your Win98 computer and the router and test it out).
Is your router set to issue an IP address to your network cards (DHCP server?)
Is the network card drivers loaded properly, again is it an onboard NIC? If so make sure the drivers are loaded correctly. (Mind you, some gigabit network cards have issue with certain brands of routers, try testing it with a good working NIC).

Did some files install incorrectly or corrupt? I'm thinking I have to reinstall again. Or is there anything else I can try? I didn't reload the motherboard drivers yet, but that shell32 error makes me think it's most likely an XP problem.

The generic order of installation is:
Operating system (Windows XP)
Critical drivers motherboard drivers, video card drivers, multimedia devices and other hardware drivers.
While XP is quite good at having a stock set of drivers to get you started, you get best results from using the specific drivers for your hardware, windows update

[girltech]

I've reloaded all the drivers--motherboard, NIC, graphics card. I don't get the shell32 error anymore, but still the taskbar looks like the pre-XP taskbar, no matter what I set the Windows theme to.

Still can't get online. I checked the IP address using ipconfig, the right way this time. (Sorry I didn't catch the cmd part the first time.) It shows the IP address as all zeros. The router is set up correctly. I've tried 3 different network cables, every port on the router, two different slots for the NIC, and connecting the computer directly to the modem. Still the IP address is all zeros. I guess I could pull the NIC out of my computer that's running Win98 and try it out in the XP machine. Any other suggestions before I try that?