| Previous | Table of Contents | Next |
Microsoft Windows is the Volkswagen Bug of desktop operating systems and peer-to-peer networks. Truly the “people’s network” (although its valves and carburetor are a heck of a lot smaller than the Bug’s), it’s pretty simple to own and drive. For all the slings and arrows that Microsoft suffers at the hands of the Justice Department and the press, it has taken many of the great networking concepts (and even some commands) from UNIX, wrapped them up in a neat and easy-to-use graphical user interface, and gone to town.
In this hour, I discuss Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT 4.0. When I refer to Windows, I mean 9x (that is, Windows 95 and Windows 98) and NT; I’ll specify 9x or NT when specifics are different.
I’ll start off with the theory behind Windows-based networking and talk about the differences between domain and workgroup computing. Because Windows TCP/IP networking has its own nuances, I’ll discuss that briefly and then move on to the topics of checking your workstation configurations and using built-in Windows network troubleshooting tools to conquer a host of problems.
| Dissed and Dismissed
With 31-derful flavors of Windows, why focus on 9x and NT 4.0? Well, NT 5.0 is still pretty late in coming, but even when it arrives, it will be fundamentally similar to NT 4.0. NT 3.51, while functional, doesn’t run enough modern applications to make it a real player, and the reliability and speed improvements of NT 4.0 over 3.51 make it a compelling upgrade. If you’re still running DOS and Windows 3.x, please don’t! Treat yourself by running out to your local electronics house for an upgrade, reformatting your hard drive (back it up first, though), and starting over. Why so vehement about DOS and Win 3.x? They’re a nightmare! Various terminate-and-stay resident DOS drivers have to be manually loaded into the CONFIG.SYS and the AUTOEXEC.BAT; incompatibilities are the order of the day, and memory management is a mess. Everything (networking, in particular) is so much simpler and well integrated with 9x and NT. It’s just an exercise in masochism to run the older stuff. |
Although Windows allows you to connect with everything but the kitchen sink (and I hear that Microsoft is working on this), we’ll focus here on only the networking tools Microsoft has invented and provides. If you’ve got a good handle on the theory behind Windows networking, you’ll be better able to troubleshoot it when it’s not working. Not surprisingly, there are actually several components to a successful Windows network (I’ll define these further as we go along):
Microsoft’s whole ball of network wax is sometimes referred to as Microsoft file and print.
As you might expect, running a peer-to-peer Windows 95 network is a lot simpler than setting up a Windows NT network over a wide area connection; however, the building blocks are very similar. If you use Microsoft file and print networking, your computer is either part of a workgroup or an NT domain.
First, we’ll look at NetBEUI, which I briefly mentioned in Hour 1, “The Telephone Analogy: Becoming Familiar with Basic Networking Concepts.” NetBEUI is a nonroutable protocol that runs NetBIOS on top of it; think of NetBEUI as the native tongue of NetBIOS. It’s simply the way the NetBIOS message is packaged and delivered to the wire. The downside to NetBEUI is that because it’s very simple, it relies on network broadcasts to get a lot of information across.
A broadcast is when a network node sends information to all other network nodes on a segment, which obviously causes a lot of network traffic. It does this because keeping track of all the nodes on the network is difficult—if a station doesn’t differentiate whom to talk to, there doesn’t have to be a facility on the network to keep track of who’s currently available on the network. Because NetBEUI is a simple protocol, it naturally uses the simplest First, we’ll look at NetBEUI, method of talking.
The downside of not using NetBEUI is that TCP/IP is tougher to configure, and IPX/SPX is not well supported by Microsoft. (It’s really there only for compatibility with Novell networks.) For small networks, NetBEUI is the way to go—it’s actually faster for small numbers of PCs because no routing overhead exists. However, anything larger than 30 to 50 stations warrants the extra up-front work involved in TCP/IP configuration.If you have a larger network, you really shouldn’t be using NetBEUI. Broadcasts are the pits; in large enough quantities, they will lead to broadcast storms (that is, one workstation broadcasts, leading other workstations to broadcast). On a large scale, this creates unnecessary network traffic that can wreak havoc on your network. If you’re experiencing occasional freezes and hang-ups on your large NetBEUI network, it might be because of broadcast storms.
| Previous | Table of Contents | Next |