[ale] OT - MsWin net/LAN/PPP/VPN setup driving me nutz!!!

[John Mills]

ALErs -

I would appreciate a source of MsWin net-configuring information, as I'm
having problems.

Subject is my Win98 laptop. It plugs into a MS Lan just fine by ethernet,
I login on the domain server and all is good, redmond-wise. This is the
startup default. The LAN uses DHCP and provides a MS proxy.

I have a PPP dialin account to use independently, and also to pass my VPN
login back to the LAN. These decidedly _don't_ run smoothly.

1) I can login by PPP (without the LAN attached) and 'ping' various hosts,
but can't actually do anything with web browser nor ftp. It appears that
bytes are being sent, but not received, or not many.

2) When logged into PPP, I can fire up the VPN and _it_goes_through_.
_Now_ I can actually get out to the world, using the gateway defined for
the VPN.

I am guessing that the problem is one or more of:

A) Some parts of the LAN/ethernet configuration are being set in place
even when the ethernet connection is not there, and these override the PPP
setup which comes later. (The LAN is actually the same one I access
through VPN, so the settings are generally correct from that perspective.)

B) I am not effectively registering the gateway for my PPP link, or am
looking for one when no gateway is really 'there' in terms of my PPP
interface.

C) Some parts of my setup want to deal with a proxy which is not there in
the PPP login. (There is some evidence the proxy defined for the LAN is
being sought, and I have not been successful overriding this, even when I
set the browser options manually. (BTW, the problem occurs with both
Internet Exploder and Netscrape.)

Diagnostic suggestions and information sources welcomed.

I now return you to the more philosophical content of recent ALE traffic.

TIA.
 - John Mills


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