winsock must be another name for something? I know TCP/IP, IPX/SPX (netBIOS/NetBUI) and Appletalk but I've never seen winsock. I had an old dial up program from DOS6.2/Win3.11 that had that in the name, but that's the last time I remember seeing it.

What OS is on the old computer? Maybe your ISP has you set to a static address so your never going to hit a DHCP client. If you've got XP, right click on My Network Places and go to properties, open Local Area Connection and go to properties (on the old machine). Open the properties for Internet Protocol TCP/IP and see what it says. If it's set to Obtain IP address automatically and Obtain DNS server address automatically, you should be configured right (assuming the new computers also setup the same way). If there's information specified in there, write it down and transfer it to the new computer. Win98 is similiar but a little more confusing and I don't have a win98 box infront of me. You do basically the same thing, right click on network neighborhood and go to the TCP/IP properties for your ethernet adaptor and the same info is in there but spread of several pages. See what's setup on your old machine and duplicate it on the new one.