ICS not working, I can't seem to get ICS to work at all

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Here's what I've done so far:
I loaded up two computers with fresh installs of win98 and winxp (in that order). First I tried to get ICS working with win98 since I know what I'm doing there. After making sure it was all set up (modem installed, ISP details entered correctly, network cards installed and TCP/IP protocols, etc...) I installed ICS. It gave me the "could not open search page" (dnserror) error. I checked automatically detect LAN settings, didn't work. I uncheck auto detect setting and set the gateway address, but that didn't work also. Anyway after fiddling around with everything I could think of, it still didn't work.
So I tried installing a proxy program (ccproxy), entered the settings and it worked (well the web did). Since that worked I figured it must be ICS on that machine, so I tried on the other machine. Still no luck. I don't get it. What would cause it to not work?
BTW: My network has 3 computers, with the third one having an old installation of win98 (no winxp). One of the fresh install comps had an IP address of 169.254.84.110 (I think) and the other had 192.168.0.194. I had to force them to use 192.168.0.1 & 2. My third comp, which worked perfectly before the fresh installs, doesn't work either (with ICS).
When I tried setting up ICS oin winxp, winxp on the client comp detected that the gateway comp had connected to the internet, it pops up with a connected status, but it still gives me the "could no open the search page" error.
Is it possible my router switch could be causing this????? I'm totally out of ideas here and any help would be greatly appreciated.
The switch is: Wise - WS-4005D
Thanks

Firstly, you seem to be setting up ICS when you say you have a router. If you have a router, connect the Internet to this and get it to do all the work for you. Setup DHCP and get the clients to obtain all their settings from it. That should be quite straightforward.

Anyway, back to ICS. This problem could be quite simple. As long as you have configured the computers on the same workgroup, set the IP addresses in the same subnet (192.168.0.x), set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 and entered the correct default gateway into the networked PCs, can you try to see if you can access http://66.102.9.99 . If you can, then it's a simple DNS problem which can be easily solved. You just need to enter your ISP DNS servers (found from their website) into the NIC properties on each computer.

Also, check that no firewalls are running which could be preventing access. If you have firewalls disable them (including ICF) or configure them for home networking.

HTH,

Edwin

Ok, I got it working.
I put fresh installs of win98 in both computers and set them up to share files (to make sure the network was working). I set them all to obtain IP addresses automatically, Wins set to use DHCP, entered no gateway and diabled DSN. When I checked their IP addresses one had 169.254.84.110. This one was the client so I set LAN setting to auto detect settings. I ran winipcfg and clicked the renew button. Worked like a charm. It detected the settings, including giving it and IP of 192.168.0.2.
I'm still not sure if this had anything to do with winxp (I previously had them on dual boot) so I will install winxp on them now and let you know if it still works (and if XP works).

Just glad you got it working

Well I got ICS working on winxp also. This is very very strange. All I can think of is that ICS was corrupted somehow.
Thanks for your help, Ed. My router is very basic (and cheap) and second, I'm using a dial-up modem. I know it seems really stupid to use it on a network, but I'm planning to get ADSL so I wanted to get ICS working before I put all my programs back onto my computer.
And regarding all those settings (IP add, DHCP, DNS, etc...) win98 and winxp should set them up automatically, which I eventually got it to do.
Thanks for you help.

ADSL is definitely a step in the right direction. You won't look back