What is the residential gateway device?

Question

1.4 Tbird on Abit KT7A-RAID, IBM HDD 60 Gb, 512 Mb 133, WinME, Asus Pure 7100 Geforce2 MX 32Mb, Realtek RTL8139(A) Ethernet,(net clients none) Advansys SCSI, Plextor PX-40TSI, SONY CRX140S, Toshiba DVD SD-M1402.

A couple of days ago I had a new icon appear next to my clock. The bubble said

"Residential gateway device.

A new device is now availabe on your network.

For more information click here.

When I clicked on it it said "device ready for use would you like a shortcut on the desktop. I clicked no. A few minutes later it was back again so I clicked yes. It came back again I went into My network Plces and when I clicked on browse network it said can't do it. Network in control panel shows I have realtek rtl8139 nic and tcp/ip. No file sharing. winipcfg says NDIS 5.0 Driver (only one available to select). Node type= broadcaster. Lease expires every two hours.

What is Ndis? Do I need it? What is the residential gateway device that seems to do nothing when I click on it?

Answer

This question was answered on February 2, 2002. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

You can read about NDIS in this Web Site http://www1.umn.edu/adcs/ndis/</p>

When you have a Windows Me computer configured as an Internet Conection Sharing (ICN) and your computer detects a residential gateway device in the system tray, then Windows prompts you with the message "Click here to find out more." However, your only option is to use the connectoid. This problem mainly occurs if you're using a WindowsXP host and WindowsMe client. Try the following (at the WindowsME client): go to Software-Setup --> Windows Components and uncheck (within Network components) "universal plug & play". Your network shouldn't be harmed if doing this function properly.

Author

Posted by Isboseth of Chandler-Gilbert Community College on February 2, 2002