Microsoft Networking 10/100 Ethernet PCI Adapter

Average customer rating: 4.5

Okay, but a few machines didn't like this card at all
Microsoft got it right with this one!
Extremely EASY on WinME!!
Great card and softwre
Easy Setup on Windows ME

Microsoft Networking 10/100 Ethernet PCI Adapter

Manufacturer: Microsoft
Product Group: CE
Binding: Electronics
ASIN: B00006IJOR
2002-09-22

Related Categories:

Microsoft

PCI Network Cards

PCI Network Cards

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Product Description

The Microsoft 10/100 Ethernet PCI Adapter makes it easy to add a desktop computer to your home or small office network. The adapter comes with the Microsoft Broadband Network Utility allowing you to easily monitor your network status. The easy-to-use setup wizard helps you add a desktop computer to your network in minutes.

Amazon.com Product Description

The Microsoft PCI adapter allows you to add a desktop computer to your home or small office network. The adapter installs in a standard PCI slot inside your computer and enables full 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet speeds. You can share a broadband connection by connecting to a base station, share files and printers with other computers on your network, and play games with multiple players on the Internet or within your own network.

This PCI adapter comes with an easy-to-use setup wizard, designed to make connecting your computers together easier. The Microsoft broadband network utility makes it easy to monitor your network status. Also featured is Wake-On-LAN (the ability to remotely and automatically power up a PC and alerts accept any maintenance tasks IT personnel schedule for after-hours).

Included in the box with the PCI adapter are a setup CD-ROM, as well as startup guide, and a user's guide.

System requirements include: a computer with an available PCI slot; Windows 98, 98 SE, Me, 2000 Professional, XP Professional, or XP Home editions; and a router to network more than two computers.

Additional requirements include: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later (setup will install Internet Explorer 6.0 browser components if needed, but will not displace your primary browser); 28 MB of available hard disk space if you already have Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6.0 (132 MB of available hard disk space if you are installing Internet Explorer for the first time); a 4x or faster CD-ROM drive; and a VGA or higher-resolution monitor.

Customer Reviews:

Okay, but a few machines didn't like this card at all.......2007-01-04

I've put this card in a few machines that needed a dedicated ethernet connection and it worked great, others just will not work. Hit and miss.

Microsoft got it right with this one!.......2006-12-04

All too often, it's easy to bash MS for attaching their name to products that need fixes/patches. Things that were obviously released too early.

This card is the first exception I have encountered (and I am an IT worker and load all sorts of MS software) !

My dell's built-in intel NIC was not working right and I had to disable it in BIOS and install a NIC card (or use a USB-to-ethernet NIC).

This MS NIC is hands down the easiest plug 'n play card I ever used.

I'm using it with a dell p4 pc, running XP home edition.

One caveat:
DO NOT LOSE your install CD.
(I thought I had lost mine and I could NOT find anywhere to download the drivers)!

I had temporarily missplaced mine and figured I'd simply go online and download the drivers.

Sorry, nope, no can do.

Lots of sites listed the drivers and then simply linked to the MS download webpage.
The resulting link took me to an MSN page stating, "Item not found".

After exhaustively looking/searching on the MS website; it became obvious it was not to easily be found online.

Searching the MS website resulted in an "item not found" !???

I decided to revisit my software storage cases until I could find the original installation CD.
I finally found my CD, ran the setup.exe and all was well.

I have installed all sorts of NIC cards and built-in NICs,
including 3COM, SMC, INTEL, BELKIN, generic, DLINK;
but this MS NIC was the hands down, easiest-to-install, winner.

I wish now that I had bought an extra one, back at the time I bought this one. As a backup NIC (or a "primary" wired NIC) you can't go wrong with this one.

Extremely EASY on WinME!!.......2005-03-03

I currently own an almost 6 year old Compaq Presario Computer. Slowly but surely I've been adding different components to make it "more up-to-date". The computer originally came with Windows 98 but a few years back I upgraded to Windows ME. I haven't upgraded to Windows XP yet because I'm quite comfortable around my old Windows. I recently decided to go for DSL, after thoroughly reading all the system requirements I found out I needed an Ethernet Card because my PC didn't have one. I went on Amazon and researched "ethernet card adapter" and it gave me this and other choices. I bought this on because of the price obviousley. I got it super quick (shipping was more expensive than the actual card) and I just opened my computer, punched out the metal cover over the empty slots. Slipped the ethernet card in (backwards by the way because that's the way it would fit in; now the two lights on the card read backwards but there's no problem) screwed the thing in place and put the cover back on the PC. Turned on my computer and WinME immediately recognized the NEW HARDWARE. It took me to an EASY installation process (most things you have to choose say 'recommended' anyway, my computer needed to restart and VOILA! That's it. HIGHLY RECOMMEND if you have an old dinasour computer like mine :P

Great card and softwre.......2003-01-29

I purchased a [$$$] "Etherengine" card from a different vendor and had nothing but headaches. After spending hours and hours re-installing sofware and downloading patches for Windows 98SE, I finally gave up and bought the Microsoft card. Within 20 minutes I was up and running! The software is fool-proof and the manual is easy to understand. This card is worth it's money.

Easy Setup on Windows ME.......2002-10-08

The Intel network adaptor that came with my IBM PC failed and I wasn't too confident of finding an alternative that would be easy to install on my Windows ME system. The first attempt, with a LinkSys adaptor, failed to connect to the Internet and I had little indication what might have gone wrong. After returning it, I purchased the Microsoft adaptor. It installed easily using the wizard that runs automatically from the CD. All systems now appear to be go and I'm thrilled to be back on-line with an investment of [$$$] and ten minutes installation time.

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