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January 2000

Microsoft Systems Journal Homepage

Editor's Note

Greetings Year-2000 fans. We here at MSJ have been selected to bring you the sad news that due to technical difficulties inherent in arranging any disastrous or catastrophic event, the New Millennium has been cancelled. Thousands of citizens say they feel betrayed by the hypesters, comparing the whole New Millennium thing to that movie where a bunch of kids get lost in the woods and then nothing happens. They denounced it as the sorriest, most pathetic millennium attempt they've ever seen.
      But don't fret. This month we're going to discuss some new technologies that are so exciting you'll forget you ever even wanted a new millennium. Between Beta 3 and the final release candidate of Windows 2000, several notable corrections and additions have been made.
      Our old acquaintance, the Win32 API, has some new data types. Located in Basetsd.h from the Platform SDK are the definitions for three types: fixed-precision, pointer-precision, and specific-precision. Fixed-precision data types are the same size for both Win32 and Win64 programming, and have the precision as part of their name. For example, INT32, INT64, ULONG32, and ULONG64 are expected. DWORD32 and DWORD64 are also fixed-precision data types. Hmm, just how does a DWORD become 64 bits? Anyway, we've been advised to start using them, and since they're derived from C integer and long types, they'll compile today and tomorrow in Win64x.
      The next new addition is custom scripting for RAS clients. This capability is accessed through the use of RasCustomScriptExecute, which is simply an exported function from a custom scripting DLL. If a phone book entry is configured with the RASEO_CustomScript option, RAS will call this function during the RASCS_Interactive state of the connection process. At this point the client has the opportunity to interact with the user, communicate bidirectionally with the server, and satisfy two of your New Year's resolutions. Another RAS addition is the use of Extensible Authentication Protocols (EAPs) for multilink and callback connection authentication. Both the RasEapGetIdentity function and the PPP_EAP_INPUT structure have been changed appropriately—undoubtedly you should be hearing more about this in Keith Brown's Security Briefs column.
      It was hard to miss the MADCAP buzz at our team's New Year's party—you probably had the same experience. Windows 2000 now supports the Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol! What? You missed that one? Shame on you for not keeping up to speed with the IETF (http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-malloc-madcap-07.txt). MADCAP allows clients to actively enumerate, connect, and disconnect from network multicast transmissions, and Microsoft provides seven APIs to assist you. On the server side, the Multicast Group Manager (MGM) APIs can be used to develop routing protocols for multicast administration. Windows 2000 Server is a minimum for MGM.
      We all thought RTM stood for Release To Manufacturing. As we've lamented in the past, acronym recycling has occurred. Another new addition to Windows 2000 Server is the Routing Table Manager version 2. For the network developers among us, the RTM API enables the creation of routing protocols for the IP transport.
      You've probably been well-prepared for our last item by Michelle Quinton's Windows 2000 TAPI 3.0 feature in the November 1998 issue of MSJ. Our final change since Beta 3 comes as welcome news for TAPI fans. The Microsoft Web Telephony Engine is a service that now makes interactive voice response (IVR) Web applications a reality. Using COM, HTML, and scripting, the Internet and the telephone await your coding magic. Happy New Year!
—J.F.
From the January 2000 issue of Microsoft Systems Journal.