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NT and Windows 9x networking is better than Windows 3.x and DOS’s networking. The troubleshooting is also easier.
Windows workgroup networking is different than Windows NT domain networking, but the two methods of networking have many similarities, particularly with regards to the protocols these services travel on. NetBEUI and NetBIOS are the native tongues of Windows; because NetBEUI is not routable, it’s a good thing that NetBIOS can also travel on TCP/IP and IPX/SPX. TCP/IP is tricky to set up, and you should really take advantage of the automated TCP/IP setup tools such as WINS and DHCP if you want to use TCP/IP on your network. However, in order to take advantage of these automation tools, you’ll need Windows NT in the picture.
Windows has a lot of built-in commands and programs for diagnosing and configuring the network; it’s worth spending some time investigating them now so that you can use them when problems arise.
Q I’m using TCP/IP just fine without WINS or DHCP. Come again? Why do I need this stuff?
A You’re likely in a nonrouted environment and/or your configuration has been set in stone in the LMHOSTS text files on your hard drive. Hey, if it’s working for you, great! When you reconfigure and want to make things a bit more automatic, you might want to change.
Q Why are broadcasts so terrible?
A In a switched environment, all workstations see broadcasts. If you have 300 workstations, each of which broadcasts each time it connects to a drive, uses a printer, and so on, you very quickly have a large amount of broadcast traffic that consumes a lot of network bandwidth, thus making your network slow down. Broadcasting once during DHCP configuration is much preferable.
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