It's magic!
Thanks to everyone (ejcaldera, sg1jb, amethyst_reader, aranhe) who suggested I check the 'obtain IP automatically' setting. It did occur to me later that only one of the laptops was hiccuping like that. The weird thing is that after I tracked down the setting (on my Vista laptop) it did appear to be set correctly. On the other hand, I've not had a repeat of the error message and nephew and I were both on last night at the same time with no problems. So it fixed itself, perhaps. *rolls around laughing at the idea of Windows fixing itself*
Ahem. I suspect it was a temporary glitch fixed by a reboot, but at least I now know what kinds of things to look for if it happens again. I was just so mystified by why I'd be having problems when I hadn't had any with AT&T, it was easy to assume I'd goofed with a router setting somewhere.
(Nephew, while I was trying to navigate through dozens of router settings, after I finally figured out how to take the router in question back to factory settings, and log on to the online settings page: "Isn't this what you did as a job for the library?"
Me: thinking of IT Network Dude, and laughing, "Um, no.")
Ahem. I suspect it was a temporary glitch fixed by a reboot, but at least I now know what kinds of things to look for if it happens again. I was just so mystified by why I'd be having problems when I hadn't had any with AT&T, it was easy to assume I'd goofed with a router setting somewhere.
(Nephew, while I was trying to navigate through dozens of router settings, after I finally figured out how to take the router in question back to factory settings, and log on to the online settings page: "Isn't this what you did as a job for the library?"
Me: thinking of IT Network Dude, and laughing, "Um, no.")