Cable Modems and Windows 2000 Server

Duane Urban

Starway Enterprises L.C., Dracut, Massachusetts

July 7, 1999

Our company has a small local area network (LAN), and was running a single server with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Service Pack 5, which we just updated to Windows 2000 Server. The machine is a custom 233P MMX™ with 128MB RAM, 66MHz bus speed and is running almost every service an IT manager could desire, including Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0, for one of our company Websites. It is also used as a workstation while in server mode. We are connected to the Internet via an always-on cable modem, a 3Com® 10/100 3C90X-family network interface card (NIC) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) client.

For some reason, 3Com didn't anticipate this machine running Windows 2000, and as a result did not make their Dynamic Access® software compatible. Needless to say, once the update was complete neither the LAN nor the Internet connection were configured properly.

The easiest way we found to get back online and get our LAN working was to uninstall the third-party network configuration software, uninstall both NICs using the Uninstall Hardware Wizard in Windows 2000, restart, and let the Found New Hardware Wizard do the rest. Once done, all the protocols and services needed for connecting to the Internet and LAN were automatically installed. The only thing we had to do was add our users and reassign permissions.

Also, if you had problems getting an SB AWE 64 Gold card installed properly with Windows NT 4.0, that isn't a problem with Windows 2000.