This is so weird! Windows 2000 Server and your XP machines are all communicating on TCP/IP so why can't the Windows 98 clients?!

My office used to be predominantly Windows 98SE (with an NT server) and they were all chatting on Netbeui. However, when a consultant came in to check out a few problems and do a bit of an audit for us, he recommended that we dropped Netbeui and just used TCP/IP. We have done ever since. We've now got PCs running Windows 95, 98, NT4, 2000 and XP and they all talk to each other (and the NT and 2000 Servers) without any trouble at all.

Have you got DNS configured on the server? You should have.

There's definitely something not right about the TCP/IP configuration if you get the 'Unable to browse network' message on the 98 clients. I'm responsible for our network at the office but, with things like this, I tend to keep it set up in whatever way a consultant has told me to - I'm no expert on networking I'm afraid and I can't quite put my finger on what the problem is

Here's a thought though - are all the machines using the same TCP/IP subnet mask? AHA! That could well be it actually

I'm glad you agree its weird!
Especially when the printer access worked quite merrily while set up as workgroup - which makes me think the right protocols were installed in the first place.

DNS is set up on th server. DNS is also set up on the XP machines but hasnt been set up in the same way on the 98SE machines - I may have overlooked this since they were set up to run as stand alones originally

At the moment the 98s access the server to make use of a shared database and thats working ok

Looks like I should try setting up the DNS on the 98s to match how the xp machines were set up? I can try this and report back

We may be onto something here.....?
Volty