net working has casued probloms

hey i want to make a small net work between two computers
one has vista and is a laptop and the other is a pc with windows me
now when i put a Ethernet card in the pci bus in the windows me pc
and turn on the computer it installs the drivers and then i restart to finish the install drivers part
but when the computer if finished starting it comes up with explorer has a error in <unknown>
and then i press ok and explorer restarts but the same thing comes back
i delete the drivers in device manager and take the ethernet card out of the computer but the explorer has a error in <unknown> is still there but a scanreg
restore fixs all

the drivers install from windows me driver base
they install the right ones
i cant install the drivers from the cd becasue i got no cd lol
the Ethernet card is a compaq NC3121
is there any drivers i can get from a web site ? mabye the win me ones are bad

Hello starcraftmaster,

It has been such a long time since I have used Windows ME, I remember doing the same thing (ME -XP) and having trouble with it. I believe that this guide should help you through the steps http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_...s/wxpwin9x.html

i tryed the
RTL8139(A) pci fast ethernet adapter
and same thing happened

Is that the adapter that you are using?

This may be way off but here goes.

The PC that you are installing the network card into probably has a built in LAN interface with a CAT5 port (802.3). Under normal circumstances, this port would be connected to your high speed modem (DSL or cable etc.). I say "probably" because even back in the old days of ME, it was common practise to connect to the Internet via a high speed modem and most motherboards had one built in.

You would not normally connect two network devices to each other and then use another port as your main Internet connection. I'm not even sure it could be done.

To accomplish your task, you should have a router, either wired or wireless or best of all, one that has both wired and wireless ports. This device acts as a hub to which you attach your PCs and other devices either with a CAT5 cable or wireless. The router becomes the device your ISP 'sees' and accepts the assigned IP address from the ISP. In turn, it becomes the device that assigns IPs to the devices on your LAN. It sends and receives data from your devices and their assigned IP addresses and sends and receives data from your ISP at the IP assigned by your ISP.

Typically these routers have 4 ports to accommodate 4 devices (PCs, printers, etc) and the devices can be connected wireless or wired. In your case, you probably want to connect your ME PC through a wired connection and the portable would likely be wireless. Many portables come equipped with a wireless card.

I appreciate that this doesn't really address your problem with installing drivers but, if I am correct, you don't have to.

no i was going to use the compaq NC3121 but i thought i should try the RTL8139(A) pci fast ethernet adapter to see if the same problom still comes
which the problom stills comes

A router would be best,

Can you provide details of how the systems are connected now?