ICS Does Not Function with Unidirectional Adapters

• Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition

SYMPTOMS

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) may not function with unidirectional devices. For example, when you attempt to start ICS on a computer with DirectPC installed, you may receive the following error message:

An error occurred attempting to load Bicdd32.dll

CAUSE

This issue occurs because ICS requires two network adapters (whether they are physical network adapters or dial-up adapters) to move IP requests to the Internet from a local network. Both adapters must be bi-directional, which means that they can both send and receive data.

MORE INFORMATION

Unidirectional adapters (adapters that can only send, or only receive data) may not function with ICS. For example, DirectPC (which uses a satellite to receive data from the Internet) and Surfboard modems require an initial connection through a phone-line modem to connect to the Internet service provider. They use another adapter to receive data from the Internet. ICS cannot resolve the phone-line modem and the high-bandwidth device as one adapter, so it cannot forward IP requests to the network.

However, ICS functions properly using two modems and two phone lines in a multilink format as along the multilink functionality provided by Microsoft's Dial-Up Networking files. Third-party solutions such as Diamond Multimedia's Shotgun technology may or may not function with ICS.

The third-party products discussed here are manufactured by vendors independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products' performance or reliability.

Additional query words:

Keywords          : kb3rdparty kberrmsg win98se 
Version           : WINDOWS:
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb 

Last Reviewed: July 6, 1999