It turns out the problem is not a 98/98SE issue. We found that installing the Client for Microsoft Networks fixed the problem. Since we don't really need (or want) it installed, I traced the solution down to its simplest part.

Here's the solution:

1) Run regedit.
2) Find the key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans]
3) There will be 1 or more subkeys consisting of 4 digits (e.g. 0000,0001,0002). Find the subkey(s) with and entry named "DeviceVxDs"
4) Add ",vnbt.386" to the end of the DeviceVxDs entry.

An alternative may be to save the following text as a text file with an REG extention and run it. (NOTE: The .386 files in your DeviceVxDs entry may be different than mine to begin with. If this is true, running this registry update could have very bad results.)

-------BEGIN-----------------------

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans\0000]
"DeviceVxDs"="vtdi.386,vip.386,vtcp.386,vdhcp.386,vnbt.386"

--------END------------------------


I do not know exactly what vnbt.386 does, but the whole list of .386 files appears to be TCP/IP related.

I'm unsure whether this is a bug in VFP, or some kind of Win98 defect, or something completely different. Perhaps all 3.

If someone from MSFT happens to read this, perhaps you can offer some more info on what's going on?

Brian


>More info...
>
>There definitely appears to be a difference between 98 standard and 98 SE. Oddly enough, 98 standard works and 98 SE fails. We've tried IE 5.01 SP2, IE 5.5 SP2, 6.0, and a few other versions in there. 98SE consistently throws 0x80004005 and 98 standard works--this is on the same compiled application and the same packages have been installed on both OS versions.
>
>There must be either a security or DLL issue here. The security problem would have to be with the client though, not the server.
>
>Any more ideas?
>
>bes
>
>>I'm working with a web service created by VFP. The service takes 1 parameter, goes out on the net and gets some data, then returns the data. Right now I'm testing from my local machine (a W2K w/IIS 5).
>>
>>Here's the intellisense generated code I'm testing with:
>>
>>LOCAL o as upsrouter web service
>>LOCAL loWS
>>loWS = NEWOBJECT("Wsclient",HOME()+"ffc\_webservices.vcx")
>>loWS.cWSName = "upsrouter web service"
>>o = loWS.SetupClient("http://BSTEELE/Webpub/upsrouter.WSDL", "upsrouter", "upsrouterSoapPort")
>>
>>The next lind of code requests the work be done. For testing purposes, the results are stored in an XML file. Note: there is 1 parameter being passed:
>>
>>STRTOFILE(o.crequestdata("1Z6311960366856702"),"c:\temp\response.xml")
>>
>>
>>This code works from my machine and any other W2K machine I can find (after I install MDAC 2.7, the MSSOAP toolkit, and msxml 3). However, 99% of our machines are 95/98. Microsoft makes no claims that web services will run on 95, so I'm focusing on 98 for now.
>>
>>Here's the error I'm encountering:
>>
>>OLE error code 0x80004005. Unspecified error.
>>
>>The error appears when crequestdata() is called. It happens every time, but not from every 98 workstation.
>>
>>The strange part is we managed to fix it on 1 machine by installing IE 5.0 SP 2. Since then we've tried replicating the fix on other 98 machines, but have not succeeded. The machine that did work is 98 standard, not SE.
>>
>>Any suggestions for this? Anyone else dealing with the same problem?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Brian