A difficulty vaguely remembered from dim and distant past is that with Win95 and possibly with Win98, a computer that had ever been set as the "owner" of the net connection in ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) could NOT be made a non-host member without "major surgery," since there was no way to TURN OFF the "ICS hosting" on the machine. It would persist in naming itself as 192.168.0.1 - the default for the ICS host, which was quite likely to cause a "duplicate address error" when a new host was set up - even when it was a router or full blown DNS server.
There was a Microsoft Knowledge Base article giving full details, but when Win98 support "ended" most Win98 and earlier articles were expunged. Microsoft later relented, and made some older articles accessible, but I haven't been able to find that one since.
The procedure required that you use Control Panel to "remove" Internet Explorer. Since IE is an intergral part of the OS, you can't get a complete removal - just a rollback to the version that came with the OS (It was IE4 or IE4.5 when I ran it, if I recall correctly).
After rolling back, there was a specific set of files to be deleted. The KB article had a list that you could copy to notepad to create a .bat that would run the two-page(+/- ?) list.
After the "manual" (or batch) deletions, you could reinstall/repair IE using the "patch Microsoft" bit in Control Panel Add/Remove programs and your original disks, or you could just install the latest IE.
The problem may have been patched in releases since I ran into it, but is fairly likely to still exist with Win95. Even if still present, this may have nothing to do with your current problems. If not, it's just a bit of nostalgia.