DIAL-UP NETWORKING WINDOW WILL NOT OPEN IN WINDOWS 98

Having corrupted or missing Windows system files on your Windows 98 installation can cause no end of odd little problems. Here's one that can cause the Windows Dial-Up Networking (DUN) window to fail to open or flash briefly on the screen before closing again.

If any of the Wsock32.dll, Rnaui.dll, Msvcrt20.dll, Rasapi32.dll, Msvcrt.dll, or Rnaapp.exe files from the Windows\System folder are missing or corrupt, DUN will not start properly, forcing the DUN folder to stop displaying the connections in the folder. Simply reinstalling Dial-Up Networking may not cure this problem, but the following should.

First, restart the computer in safe mode. Next, at a command prompt, rename each of the files with the .xxx extension. For example, the Wsock32.dll rename command would read

ren wsock32.dll wsock32.xxx

Once you have renamed each of the above files, restart Windows in normal mode. Now, extract new copies of the renamed files from the Windows 98 installation CD. (Instructions for using Extract.exe are available at the Microsoft Knowledge Base article How to Extract Original Compressed Windows Files.) Make sure you extract the files from a CD of the same version of Windows 98 you are currently running. Once the new files are in place, Dial-Up Networking will perform normally.http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q129/6/05.ASP