Hello all.. I've been into computers forever (1983?) but never really
got involved with Networking. For ages I've kept a Dial-Up service going
which gave me easy access from an older Win 98 computer which I have to
keep going (too long to explain). I'm getting rid of the Dial-Up and I
have been looking for some way to get access on the machine through the
WiFi Hotspot access on my cell phone. Desktop system - no WiFi installed.

A few suggestions have been made (I welcome others) but the one that
sounded promissing was, if I get a Range Extender (Hub with?) that
would pick up the Phone WiFi and feed it through an Ethernet cable
to the computer. Does this sound workable and supported by Win 98 ?

I also considered (no hardware to buy) networking to a newer Laptop via
cable to do the same thing, although what I read about Win98 networking
only talks about file and printer sharing, nothing about Internet access.
If it's doable it's a lot of hardware to have running for the task though
and a little hub might be the simpler solution. They have small models on Amazon as low as $30 (Cdn.. I'm in Canada).

I also already have a little flash drive sized unit that is supposed to
add WiFi through a USB Port (Made by Gmyle I think it is) which sounded promising (was bought for another purpose) but the info on it says you
need Win XP or higher to use it. I assume that's a hard limit and not
just them not mentioning it will run on anything older and anyone who
remembers Win 98 knows Nothing USB runs on it without specific drivers.

Any thoughts that don't involve recycling the computer ?
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On 03-31-19 01:58, ROB MCCART wrote to ALL <=-

@VIA: VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY
Hello all.. I've been into computers forever (1983?) but never really
got involved with Networking. For ages I've kept a Dial-Up service
going which gave me easy access from an older Win 98 computer which I
have to keep going (too long to explain). I'm getting rid of the
Dial-Up and I have been looking for some way to get access on the
machine through the WiFi Hotspot access on my cell phone. Desktop
system - no WiFi installed.

You could try a wifi access point in client bridge mode. However, phones tend to run on ad-hoc mode, which may cause issues. Only one way to find out. Certainly client bridges on an infrastructure network can work well.

A few suggestions have been made (I welcome others) but the one that sounded promissing was, if I get a Range Extender (Hub with?) that
would pick up the Phone WiFi and feed it through an Ethernet cable
to the computer. Does this sound workable and supported by Win 98 ?

Wifi extenders often do have a client bridge as part of their operation. Not sure how well these work with a phone. I've only ever used client bridges with full access points (including mobile 3G/4G wifi gateways) with a lot of successes.

I also considered (no hardware to buy) networking to a newer Laptop via cable to do the same thing, although what I read about Win98 networking only talks about file and printer sharing, nothing about Internet
access. If it's doable it's a lot of hardware to have running for the
task though and a little hub might be the simpler solution. They have small models on Amazon as low as $30 (Cdn.. I'm in Canada).

Windows 98 can access the Internet, but be very careful, given the lack of updates.

I also already have a little flash drive sized unit that is supposed to add WiFi through a USB Port (Made by Gmyle I think it is) which sounded promising (was bought for another purpose) but the info on it says you need Win XP or higher to use it. I assume that's a hard limit and not
just them not mentioning it will run on anything older and anyone who remembers Win 98 knows Nothing USB runs on it without specific drivers.

Yeah USB these days is probably unlikely to work.


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ROB MCCART wrote to ALL <=-

A few suggestions have been made (I welcome others) but the one that sounded promissing was, if I get a Range Extender (Hub with?) that
would pick up the Phone WiFi and feed it through an Ethernet cable
to the computer. Does this sound workable and supported by Win 98 ?

Those do work, and as it's plain old Ethernet as far as the laptop is
concerned should work fine. I have a TP-Link TL-WL855RE doing that
right now for my desktop.

I also already have a little flash drive sized unit that is supposed to add WiFi through a USB Port (Made by Gmyle I think it is) which sounded promising (was bought for another purpose) but the info on it says you need Win XP or higher to use it. I assume that's a hard limit and not
just them not mentioning it will run on anything older and anyone who remembers Win 98 knows Nothing USB runs on it without specific drivers.

If you have a modern desktop, you might be able to share your internet connection via ethernet if you have a hub to connect the two. I'd
guess that the range extender might be the easiest way to go.




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I also already have a little flash drive sized unit that is supposed to add WiFi through a USB Port (Made by Gmyle I think it is) which sounded promising (was bought for another purpose) but the info on it says you need Win XP or higher to use it. I assume that's a hard limit and not just them not mentioning it will run on anything older and anyone who remembers Win 98 knows Nothing USB runs on it without specific drivers.

Yeah USB these days is probably unlikely to work.

They actually do make a dongle that does NOT require the PC trying to do wireless to even recognize the USB port, just so long as it can power it.
The dongle has two connectors... USB (for power) and ethernet (for the
network connection). The only things you must have are a PC that can
recognize an ethernet connection (as far is it knows it is hardwired to a network) and, if the PC in question cannot do USB, a PC that can so that
you can tell the dongle which network to connect to, password to use, etc.

I have one... until I found a linux script to set it up, I used to have to
set it up via a Win2k laptop first, then plug it into the linux thinkpad
that I actually wanted to use it with. I would think it could also work
that way for a Win98 machine, just so long as you had another machine to configure it with first.

IIRC, you only have to reconfigure it if you want to introduce it to a new wireless network... the one I have now has not been reprogrammed in a long
time but it still recognizes my home wifi network just fine.

Mike

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