by James Portanova and Larry Passo
Windows 98 includes a comprehensive set of networking tools right out of the box. It supports peer-to-peer and client/server network configurations. Windows 98 preserves and extends Windows 95's strong networking roots and introduces innovations such as Automatic Private IP Addressing and the Microsoft Family Logon.
Private IP Addressing is intended for small, private networks using the popular (and new Windows 98 default) TCP/IP protocol suite, without the need to manually configure IP addresses or a DHCP server.
Microsoft Family Logon lists all users who have accounts on a Windows 98 system and enables those users to simply select their names from a list, instead of having to type it into a logon box.
Virtual Private Networking enables remote workers to reach their office network by tunneling through a public network like the Internet.
NOTE: Virtual Private Networking has been available as an add-on for Windows 95 as part of the Dial-Up Networking upgrade v. 1.2.
Implementing comprehensive management and security measures still requires the use of Windows NT, Novell NetWare, or IntranetWare Server's management capabilities. However, supervisors of small peer-to-peer networks should be pleased with Windows 98's surprisingly useful additions and improvements to its arsenal of support and administrative utilities.
Windows 98 is designed primarily as a client operating system, and as such, shows a dependency upon attachment to a client/server network to realize the full potential of its security features.
To gain tight, but flexible, control of who can access shared resources on your computer, you should use user-level access control. User-level access control enables you to grant access to your shared resources based on accounts maintained by a Windows NT domain or workgroup or a Novell NetWare server. You can control the type of access that each user can have to your resources by assigning passwords to each user instead of your shares, as is the case with share-level access control.
Both user-level and share-level access control protect the network shares on a Windows 98 computer only when they are accessed remotely. Users who bypass the startup password by clicking Cancel at the logon prompt, booting from a floppy disk, or pressing Ctrl during startup to show the Windows 98 Startup menu gain complete access to the local computer's resources. User accounts are maintained with distributed user lists and password lists, which are stored on each individual workstation and are easily compromised.
CAUTION: You use System Policy Editor to force users to log in to access a Windows 98 system. However, a user with an MS-DOS boot floppy can still gain full access to local resources, with the exception of information that is stored on FAT32 partitions.
Roaming profiles enable users of Windows 98 computers to have their personal user settings follow them from computer to computer by storing the user's profile on a central profile server. Roaming profiles copies the appropriate profile to whichever computer the user logs on to. Any user profile changes are automatically updated to the profile server.
TIP: Roaming profiles are based on the user's account, rather than the particular computer where the user chooses to work.
CAUTION: Although Windows 98, Windows NT 3.5x, and Windows NT 4.0 all support roaming user profiles, each of the three operating systems has its own mechanism for the storage of the user profiles on the profile server. If you have users who use computers with more than one of these operating systems, any changes that they make to their user profiles only follow them to another computer with the same operating system.
Through mandatory user profiles, an NT administrator can preconfigure any user's initial environment. Although users with mandatory user profiles can make modifications to their environment, changes made by the user aren't saved to the profile server, and the original preferred desktop reappears the next time that the user logs in to the network. This assures a consistent initial desktop environment across the entire network, easing support time and costs.
TIP: The only way to restrict users from making any undesired changes to their environment is to create a System Policy file with the appropriate restrictions. System Policies are discussed later in this chapter in the section "System Policy Editor."
The goal of the Zero Administration Initiative is to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) in an organization by enabling the organization to
Zero Administration specifies the use of several existing, and under-development, non-vendor-specific technologies to create a suite of management tools that achieve the goals stated previously.
Technologies, such as automated software installation, predefined option settings for those installs and configurations, and push updates across the network are all designed with Zero Administration in mind. Following is a list of some of the applications that make up the Zero Administration Initiative:
TIP: You can find full details or obtain a copy of the Internet Administration Kit at http://ieak.microsoft.com/Default.asp.
To get started with Windows 98 networking, you will need the following minimum requirements:
Network adapter cards should be Plug and Play-compliant to take advantage of Windows 98's automatic hardware configuration features. Token Ring adapters are available in 4Mbps and 16Mbps speeds. Ethernet adapters are offered in 10Mbps and 100Mbps speeds. The newer 100Mbps PCI adapters are all PnP-compliant.
TIP: It is extremely helpful to keep a reference chart listing usernames, passwords, workgroups, computers, share names, and each of the several other items that come up during the installation of your network.
The rest of this chapter introduces you to the basic steps of setting up a Windows 98 client on a network. It covers the following topics:
The goal of Plug and Play is computer devices that configure themselves without manual user intervention. Generally, to install an internal Plug and Play device, all you need to do is turn off the machine; install the board; and turn the machine back on.
Windows 98 should then automatically detect the device, install the appropriate device drivers and supporting files, and configure hardware resources, such as the following:
To see how your computer's hardware resources are currently allocated, follow these steps:
FIG. 38.1 You can view the resources used in your computer, which is useful when installing hardware or troubleshooting problems.
When Windows 98 detects a new device, it arbitrates among the currently installed devices that are vying for use of limited resources. It resolves any conflicts and reassigns resources, to accommodate peripherals that might work with only certain settings.
For example, your network interface card might function properly only while using IRQ 5; your sound card might be able to accept IRQs 5 or 10. If the sound card was occupying IRQ 5 when the network card was installed in the computer, Windows might assign the sound card IRQ 10, freeing up IRQ 5 to be reassigned to the newly installed network card.
Before the development of Plug and Play, each peripheral added to a computer had to be configured in a mostly trial-and-error process. Even today, unless a system is 100 percent Plug and Play equipped, the user might have to do some manual tweaking to install a particular device.
Windows 98's Plug and Play feature is especially useful in the case of network configuration. When a Windows 98 computer comes to life on an existing network connection, the Plug and Play feature performs the following functions:
This configuration is completed transparently during setup when your Windows 98 Welcome Screen comes up for the first time. If you have entered the correct logon password, you are already connected to the network.
Another feature of Windows 98's Plug and Play for networking is the ability to hot swap laptop PCMCIA Ethernet cards. When the operating system detects the insertion of a new network adapter, it automatically loads the hardware profile, which includes all the related network device drivers. Conversely, when the card is removed, the alternate profile without network drivers is loaded.
NOTE: Some network applications and device drivers can intelligently sense when a computer is disconnected from the network and go into offline mode. For example, a user can continue to print to a network printer while offline, and Windows spools the output to disk. When the printer is available, a prompt notifies the user that output is available to be printed over the network.
NOTE: To hot swap PCMCIA network adapters and have Windows 98 automatically switch to a network-compliant profile, all running netwoqHcomponents, including client software, adapter drivers, and network protocols, must be in full 32-bit protected mode. Real-mode 16-bit drivers are not compatible with hot swapping.
The network adapter is your critical link to the network. It is the physical connection of your computer to the actual network cabling. If your network adapter did not come pre-installed in your computer, here are the steps you can follow to install a Plug and Play-compliant network adapter in your desktop computer:
As already described in the section on Plug and Play devices, after the system is powered back up, Windows 98 detects the new hardware and any preconfigured protocols, installs the NDIS drivers, and configures a Plug and Play network adapter automatically.
CAUTION: Although Windows 98 supports legacy network adapters, you have to make sure that they are properly configured and do not cause conflicts with other devices in your system.
If you install a legacy adapter, which is not Plug and Play, there are some additional steps you need to take to get it to work with your Windows 98 client. First, make a note of what system resources are available to be assigned to your card. To get a resource report, do the following:
FIG. 38.2 It is a good idea to keep a copy of your system information handy. It can help when troubleshooting problems.
Windows outputs a concise two-page report listing each of your system resource assignments. The important information to notice is the IRQ Summary.
Find out from your adapter's documentation which IRQ assignments are its recommended settings and compare them to the free resources in your current configuration. For example, if the adapter manufacturer recommends IRQ 5 or 11, check your Device Manager report to ensure that the recommended IRQs are not being used by other devices.
NOTE: If your adapter is the ISA bus type, it needs exclusive use of an IRQ assignment. If it is a PCI bus type, it probably will be able to dynamically share an assignment with another device already installed in the system because most recent PCI adapters are Plug and Play devices.
Configure your legacy, nonPnP, adapter by setting the appropriate hard-wired configuration jumpers or dip switches or by using a disk or CD-ROM based software configuration utility. Then install the adapter in an available expansion slot as described previously.
To configure a legacy adapter with a vendor-supplied utility, boot Windows into a Safe mode command prompt by holding down the Ctrl key during bootup and choosing that option from the Startup menu. After you have configured the card through software, power down the computer and restart it, and then wait for Windows 98 to come up and hopefully detect the addition of the new hardware.
NOTE: Windows 98 differs from Windows 95 by its use of the Ctrl key, rather than the F8 key, to boot up into the Startup menu.
Allow Windows 98 to attempt to detect your new adapter. Then confirm or change the device it detects in the Add New Hardware dialog box.
If Windows 98 does not detect the new hardware at startup, you can run the Add New Hardware Wizard from Control Panel, and once again, allow Windows to search new hardware. If Windows 98 still cannot detect your hardware, the wizard gives you the option to manually install a device; click Next. Select Network Adapters from the listed hardware types, click Next, and then specify the correct manufacturer and model. Alternatively, if you have a driver on disk, click Have Disk and specify the path to your drivers.
After the legacy adapters are detected or assigned, make sure that the resources Windows assigned match those previously set by jumpers or software-based configuration. If you need to change the resources that Windows 98 uses to communicate with a legacy device, you can do so by going into the Device Manager, selecting the card under Network Adapters on the device tree, clicking Properties, and then clicking the Resources tab.
If you see any entries in the Conflicting Device list, select the resource type; then click Set Configuration Manually and choose the proper setting from the drop-down list. Verify that no further conflicts exist with the new settings in the Conflict Information window. Restart the computer.
NOTE: You might need to deselect the Use Automatic Settings check box to access the Change Setting button in the Resources dialog box.
CAUTION: Changing the assigned resources in Windows 98 for a hardware component automatically reconfigures only Plug and Play devices. You must change jumpers or use a vendor-supplied utility to reconfigure legacy devices.
After you restart your computer, go back into Device Manager to check that the adapter has been properly configured (see Figure 38.3). If you find a conflict, start Windows 98 Help from your Start menu, click the Contents tab, select Troubleshooting, select Windows 98 Troubleshooting, and then select Hardware Conflict to start the Conflict Resolution Wizard.
FIG. 38.3 Configuring a network adapter's resources in Device Manager.
Protocols define how communication takes place on and between networks. They stipulate the size, timing, and structure of data packets on the network. For network nodes to talk to one another, they must have at least one protocol in common.
Windows 98 includes support for the three protocols that are commonly used to support local area networks (LANs):
CAUTION: There are several different versions of the IPX protocol, which are commonly referred to as frame types. Computers that are configured with different IPX frame types are not able to communicate with one another. Although Windows 98 attempts to automatically determine and configure your computer to use the IPX frame type that is being used on your network, it is possible that you might need or desire to manually set the IPX frame type.To manually specify the frame type in Windows 98:
1. Open the Network icon in the Control Panel.
2. From the list of installed network components, select the IPX/SPX-compatible transport for the appropriate adapter and click Properties.
3. In the IPX/SPX-compatible Transport Properties box, select the Advanced tab.
4. From the Property box, select Frame Type.
5. In the Value box, select the desired frame type.
6. Click OK twice, and reboot your computer when prompted.
NOTE: In addition to the common LAN protocols, Windows 98 includes support for the following newer protocols:
- ATM Call Manager, ATM Emulated LAN, and ATM Emulation Client for wide area networks (WANs)
- Fast Infrared Protocol for connecting laptop computers to one another, as well as compatible peripheral devices (such as printers)
- Microsoft 32-bit DLC for connectivity with mainframe computers and network print devices (such as the HP JetDirect devices)
All Windows 98 protocols are 32-bit, protected-mode virtual device drivers (VxDs). Protected-mode drivers are loaded and bound entirely in Windows and therefore do not tie up conventional (the first 640K) RAM on the workstation. In contrast, 16-bit, real-mode drivers, such as those found in earlier versions of network operating systems such as Artisoft's LANtastic, load in DOS prior to booting Windows.
[BBEG]NOTE: Protected-mode drivers are generally much faster in execution than real-mode drivers.
For connectivity with LANs, which access or must go across internetworks, Windows 98 offers native support for multiple protocols simultaneously, either on multiple network adapters or all bound to a single network adapter.
NOTE: As a rule, it is wise to install and bind only those protocols required for communication across the networks you want to reach in your situation. Extraneous protocols add additional processing overhead to each network transmission and decrease efficiency. For example, you should unbind all but the TCP/IP protocol from a dial-up adapter that accesses the Internet because TCP/IP is the only protocol used on the Internet.
CAUTION: You should disable file and printer sharing from a TCP/IP connection that you use to connect to the Internet. Otherwise, other users on the Internet might be able to access data on your computer.
Computers need only one protocol in common to talk to one another across a network. If an additional protocol is bound to your network adapter, it will be ignored by other computers on that network that do not have that same protocol bound to their adapters.
Follow these steps to install a protocol, or protocols, on your Windows 98 computer (see Figure 38.4):
FIG. 38.4 Installing a network protocol.
IP addresses need to be unique. In most cases, you can use one of the following methods to obtain a unique IP address:
Using TCP/IP on a Private Network
On private networks (LANs that will not be accessing the Internet), you can configure your computers with any IP addresses you want. To make configuration of private networks easier, Windows 98 introduces Automatic Private IP Addressing, which automatically assigns a TCP/IP address to each host on the network when a DHCP server is not available. Windows 98 Automatic Private IP Addressing assigns IP addresses from the class B address range 169.254.X.X, where the first two octets (169.254) are fixed and the last two octets are uniquely assigned to each Windows 98 computer in your network.
CAUTION: Nodes using Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) can communicate only with their private network and cannot be seen or reached from the Internet. APIPA cannot be used on multiple LAN routed configurations, except as a backup.If you need to be able to communicate with the Internet, you cannot use APIPA unless your network uses a proxy server to provide a connection to the Internet.
When a DHCP server is available, Windows 98 computers that are configured to use Automatic Private IP Addressing act like normal DHCP clients and use whatever dynamically assigned IP address they receive via the DHCP process.
If you specify an IP address (and subnet mask), it will be used instead of APIPA. Otherwise, if a DHCP server is not found when the Windows 98 machine starts up, it checks for a previously assigned default gateway. If the default gateway is found, it keeps the previously leased IP address. If the previously assigned gateway is not found, it assigns itself a random IP address and displays an error message that a DHCP server was not found. Windows 98 then continues to check for a DHCP server every three minutes; if one is found, a status dialog box displays that it is now connected to a DHCP server.
If the Windows 98 machine has no previous IP address and there is no DHCP server, the process is the same except that no error message is displayed (assuming it never had a DHCP server). However, APIPA continues to check for a DHCP server every three minutes.
NOTE: The random IP address assigned by APIPA is based on the time and the hardware address of the network adapter. APIPA also tests to make sure that the selected IP address is not in use before it is activated.
To enable Automatic IP Addressing, follow these steps:
FIG. 38.5 TCP/IP addressing in Network Neighborhood.
Using DHCP to Automatically Assign IP Addresses
There are two options for assigning TCP/IP addresses over a network: static and dynamic. With static addressing, each computer is configured with one or more preselected IP addresses. Every time that a computer with a static IP address is moved to a new location in a TCP/IP network, it must be reconfigured with a different IP address that is appropriate for the new network location.
To eliminate the need to manually configure and assign IP addresses across a network, which can become an administrative nightmare on large networks, DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) was developed.
DHCP servers are configured with a range of IP addresses that are appropriate for the various parts of their network. When a computer that has been configured as a DHCP client restarts, it is assigned an IP address by any available DHCP server. Microsoft supplies only a DHCP server capability with Windows NT Server.
NOTE: Because DHCP is an industry standard, your network can use a DHCP server that operates on any operating system, including NetWare, UNIX, or OS/2. You also can purchase third-party DHCP server software that runs on Windows 98.
You can use the Windows 98 utility WIN IPCFG to view the IP configuration parameters assigned to your host by the DHCP server (see Figure 38.6). This graphical utility also displays the host name, IP address, subnet mask, and gateway address.
FIG. 38.6 Using WINIPCFG to show IP configuration parameters.
The TCP/IP protocol, using DHCP, is the default in Windows 98. If a DHCP server is not available on the network when the host logs on, it reverts to Automatic Private IP Addressing until a DHCP server comes on the network. DHCP-assigned IP addresses take precedence over automatically configured IP addresses.
There are no configuration options for the NetBEUI protocol.
To configure the IPX/SPX protocol (assuming that the IPX/SPX-compatible transport protocol has already been installed), follow these steps:
NOTE: Under Windows 98, the IPX/SPX frame type and network address are configured automatically.
Before a computer can share its own resources or connect to other computers' resources across a network, compatible client software must first be installed on each of these computers. The basic purpose of client software is the redirection of requests by a local computer to access the shared resources of remote computers and servers on the network. The client software is often referred to as the redirector.
To the user at a computer attached to a network, remote resources (either files or printers) look and behave like locally connected resources. However, it is the client software behind the scenes that redirects file requests over the network to the remote resources. When the client software is configured correctly, this all happens transparently.
The Client for Microsoft Networks is installed automatically by Windows 98 Setup if it finds a previous version during a Windows upgrade, or if a network adapter is found during Setup's hardware detection phase. This client supports the entire Microsoft family of products, including Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows for Workgroups, LAN Manager, and the MS-DOS add-on for WFWG.
Windows 98 can support multiple protected-mode 32-bit clients simultaneously, but only one 16-bit real-mode client at a time.
If you need to manually install the Client for Microsoft Networks, follow these steps:
After a client is installed, you can set the Primary Network Logon. In the Network dialog box, open the drop-down list under Primary Network Logon, as shown in Figure 38.7. The choices vary, depending upon which clients are installed.
FIG. 38.7 Selecting the Primary Network Logon.
To log on to a Windows NT network, a corresponding user account with user name and password must already exist in the domain for that user. In addition, the Client for Microsoft Networks must specify a logon to a Windows NT domain.
The first time you log on to Windows 98, it presents you with separate logon prompts for each individual network client. If your password for Windows 98 is the same or is made the same as the other client logons, you will be logged automatically onto all the other networks simultaneously each time Windows 98 starts up with just one logon box.
To enable logon validation for Client for Microsoft Networks, follow these steps:
Computers communicating over a network must have unique computer names and at least one protocol in common, bound to the same type of client component. (See the previous section in this chapter titled, "Installing and Configuring Network Protocols.")
FIG. 38.8 Client for Microsoft Networks Properties in Network Neighborhood.
To check the network settings, follow these steps:
TIP: If you specify the name of the Windows NT domain as the workgroup name under the Identification tab, the names of the Windows NT computers in the domain appear alongside the names of the Windows 98 computers in your workgroup.
Network management is a very active topic among administrators today. Companies are looking for ways to make their networks more reliable, more efficient, and less costly to support. We have already touched upon several areas of network management in this chapter, such as user profiles, share-level versus user-level resource access, and the Zero Administration Initiative. Although it is outside the scope of this chapter to address every network management issue, we will cover the following remote administration tools included with Windows 98:
Net Watcher enables the administrator of a Windows 98 network to perform the following services on remote computers:
To connect to a remote computer using Net Watcher, the remote computer must have both file and printer sharing services and remote administration services enabled. If your computer is running share-level security, you can connect only to other remote computers running share-level security. If your computer is running user-level security, you can connect to any other remote computers running file and printer sharing services.
There are three views in Net Watcher:
FIG. 38.9 Net Watcher utility showing shared folders.
To connect to a remote computer using Net Watcher, follow these steps:
TIP: You can also run Net Watcher from Network Neighborhood by right-clicking a remote computer, selecting the Tools tab, and clicking the Net Watcher button.
To share a resource on a remote computer while using Net Watcher, follow these steps:
The goal of System Policies is centralized administration of all of your network users and computers. Implementation of System Policies requires the use of a centralized Windows NT domain or NetWare Server, and user-level security. A single policy file located on Windows NT Primary Domain Controllers or Novell NetWare Servers controls the System Policies for each user and computer. The System Policy Editor is the tool that is used to create the policy file for a network.
To use System Policy Editor, the Remote Registry Service must be running on the remote computer. To install the Remote Registry Service, follow these steps:
Using the System Policy Editor, an administrator can do the following:
To install the System Policy Editor in Windows 98, follow these steps:
Figure 38.10 shows the System Policy Editor displaying a network's default computer properties.
FIG. 38.10 System Policy Editor showing network policies.
System Policy settings can be applied to groups as well as individuals. Additionally, default policies can be applied to users and computers or to specific computers, groups, and users. To create policies for Internet Explorer and the Active Desktop, use the Internet Explorer Administration Kit.
CAUTION: The System Policies Editor is a very powerful tool and should be used only with knowledge and extreme caution. Each item in the settings tree has three possible states: enabled, disabled, and unchanged. It is possible to make accidental changes to the remote computer's Registry, which can cause unexpected results that cannot be fixed with a complete reinstallation of Windows 98.
Through remote administration, network administrators can manage remote resources, shares and Registries and modify the desktop environment and configuration.
Both user-level security and Remote Administration Services must be enabled on each computer managed by remote administration. The computers must have at least one protocol in common.
To enable remote administration on a Windows 98 computer, follow these steps:
TIP: When File and Printer Sharing and user-level security are all enabled on a Windows 98-based computer, remote administration is automatically enabled.
When network problems occur, it is best to start with the more obvious causes of the problem (such as a disconnected cable) and work up to the less obvious ones (such as an incorrect IP address) rather than the other way around.
Try to determine when the problem first occurred and what, if anything, might have changed prior to the first appearance of the problem.
Most hardware and software vendors maintain a problem database of some kind on their web sites. Microsoft's Knowledge Base is one of the most comprehensive in the industry. It is available 24 hours a day to anyone with an Internet connection and browser software. You can enter keywords or Boolean search terms to locate technical support documents that relate to your precise problem.
If you have lost your password on a Windows 98 peer network, you can find a file named USERNAME.PWL (where USERNAME is your logon name) in the \Windows folder. Erase that file/and restart Windows, and you will be prompted for a new password at startup.
If you have difficulty installing your adapter card into Windows 98, or if it seems to be working but you still cannot log on to the network, try these proven troubleshooting ideas to find a solution:
It is an excellent idea to keep a network journal to record all incidences of problems, along with their discovered causes and their solutions.
Maintain up-to-date records that include a schematic of your network with a thorough hardware and software inventory. Record dates and times that software and hardware components are added, removed, and updated, along with a record of users at each workstation. Good records are valuable resources to have when you're trying to track down the possible causes of a problem.
A new feature of Windows 98, the System Configuration Utility, is a useful tool for isolating startup problems. This utility is easier to use and much less prone to error than the old SYSEDIT utility that it replaces.
Through a graphical user interface, you can selectively add and remove individual components of the Windows 98 startup files, including, the AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, SYSTEM.INI, and WIN.INI files.
TIP: To launch the System Configuration utility, run MSCONFIG from the Start, Run dialog box.
Microsoft System Information provides information on devices, components, and drivers. It keeps a history log of the system and can provide reports showing changes to the system and the dates of same. The System Information Utility is run from the \Accessories\System Tools folder on the Start menu.
Another new tool helpful in tracking down system problems is System File Checker, which automatically checks the Windows 98 system files for corruption. It can be run from the Tools menu inside the System Information Utility.
Scanreg (DOS version) or Scanregw (Windows version) runs automatically each time Windows 98 boots. Such files check and back up the Registry and can also be run from System Information.
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