. . provided you have the drivers and your Windows CD (unless it was installed off the hard disk, in which case you won't even be asked.

Some internet services now install the drivers for the card they sent you without bothering you with the detals. Existing card will generally be accepted as is.

If that isn't what hppens, you put the card in and start the machine. When Windooze detects the net card, put in your driver disk and browse to the right driver (something like d:\\drivers\\win98). It may or may not ask for the Windows CD-ROM depending on how Windows was installed.

You should now have a "Network Neighborhood" or "My Network Places" icon on the desktop. For most services, that's all there is to it because the network card will be set to "Get IP Address Automatically". That'll happen when your connection software sets up the PPoE connection (DSL) or TCP/IP finds a DHCP server provided your cable box. At most, you might have to enter DNS addresses in the properties for the TCP/IP attached to your network card.

If you insert a firewall router (Linksys, DLink, etc.) between your computer and your DSL/Cable device, you may need to set up IP addresses in the properties for the TCP/IP attached to the net card, but most of those provide DHCP too.

You will have to configure your firewall. We use Linksys, which is configured using your Web browser. Cable services around here key the user to the MAC address of the network card they provide, but the Linksys (and I presume others) has the ability to spoof the MAC address. You get it from a DOS window by typing ipconfig /all.

I always test connections by pinging 4.2.2.2 (a Verizon DNS server with an easy to remember address). If that responds, I test with ping www.aaxnet.com to see if DNS is working.