February 2000

Locating Network Servers with Find

by Gregory Shultz

If your system is connected to a large network with many servers, chances are that the Network Neighborhood is a very crowded place and locating a specific server can be a time-consuming procedure. Fortunately, Find can help. Simply right-click on the Network Neighborhood icon and select the Find Computer command from the shortcut menu. When the Find Computer dialog box appears, just enter the name of the server in the Named text box and click the Find Now button. In a moment, you'll see the server you need to access. Best of all, your search will be saved. So the next time you need to access the server, just launch Find and select the server from the Named dropdown list instead of entering the name.

If you have a Windows keyboard, accessing the Find Computer dialog box is even easier. Simply press [Ctrl][Windows]F.

Get technical assistance with FastTips

If you have questions about Windows 95 or Windows 98, you can get answers quickly by calling Microsoft Support Network's toll-free automated FastTips service. Using this service, you can have Microsoft's fax machine call your fax machine and deliver the information you order. When you call this service, you'll be prompted through each step by an automated voice system and will use the keypad on your touch-tone phone in order to enter responses. The first thing you should do is order a catalog of all the available documents. Once you receive the catalog, you can order the documents you need. To contact the FastTips service, call (800) 936-4200. FastTips is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Using the Move To command

When you right-click on a file and select the Send To command, you're actually copying the file to the location you select from the Send To command's menu. However, you can use the Send To command to move files rather than copying them. To do so, simply hold down the [Shift] key as you click the location.

Hiding shared resources in My Computer

In the January article "Hiding shared resources in Windows", we showed you how to hide shared network resources so that they don't appear in the Network Neighborhood. Recently, we discovered how to hide shared resources in My Computer. As you know, when you share a resource, Windows changes that resource's icon to one with a hand holding the resource. We've discovered how to prevent Windows from changing the icon when you share a resource.

To do so, you'll need to edit the Registry. As such, we strongly suggest that you backup the Registry before you perform the steps outlined in this article. For more information on backing up the Registry in Windows 98, see the January article "Backup and restore with the Registry Checker" and in Windows 95, the December 1999 article "Protecting your system with the Registry Backup batch file".

To make the change to the Registry, launch the Registry Editor and open the following keys in succession: 

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Network 
SharingHandler

Once you access the SharingHandler key, double-click on the Default string value to open the Edit String dialog box, as shown in Figure A. At this point, simply delete the Msshrui.dll value and click OK. Then, close the Registry Editor and restart the system. If at a later date you want to allow Windows to change the icon, simply access the SharingHandler key and replace it with the Msshrui.dll value.

Figure A: To prevent Windows from using the hand icon on a shared resource, delete the Msshrui.dll value.
Figure A

Tracking IP addresses

If you want to check IP or DNS addresses, you can do so with a handy utility that comes with both Windows 95 and Windows 98. The basic function of this utility, called TraceRoute (Tracert.exe), is to list all nodes (computers) through which data passes between your node and the one you're actually communicating with. During this process, TraceRoute refers to your DNS server and reports the DNS address and the IP address of each node it encounters along the way. To see how TraceRoute works, open an MS-DOS Prompt window and then type Tracert at the command prompt. (Keep in mind that the usual DOS-prompt help format of Tracert /? doesn't work because TraceRoute interprets /? as the name of the host to which you want to trace the route.) To trace a real host, type a command such as Tracert www.zdjournals.com. When you do, lines of node information similar to those shown in Figure B will gradually appear. As you can see, www.zdjournals.com has an IP address is 204.255.225.6. This is a good way of compiling IP address information that will enable you to connect to Web sites even if your DNS server goes down.

Figure B: DNS and IP address information appears for each stop on your Internet connection.
Figure B

Investigating the online Windows Resource Kits

As you may know, the Windows 95 and Windows 98 Resource Kits are comprehensive encyclopaedias to these two operating systems. However, you don't have to go out and buy the books if you don't mind reading them online. Both the Windows 95 and Windows 98 CDs contain online versions of their respective Resource Kits. The Windows 98 CD even includes a sampler of the wonderful utilities that come on the Windows 98 Resource Kit's CD. You'll find the online version of the Windows 95 Resource Kit on the Windows 95 CD in the file Win95rk.hlp, which is located in the \Admin\Reskit\Helpfile folder. You'll find the online version of the Windows 98 Resource Kit on the Windows 98 CD in the file Rk98book.chm, which is located in the \Tools\Reskit\Help folder.

The Windows 98 Resource Kit Tools Sampler

If you want to sample some of the tools included on the Windows 98 Resource Kit's CD, you can install the Windows 98 Resource Kit Tools Sampler. To do so, open the \Tools\Reskit folder and double-click on the Setup.exe file. Once Setup is finished, you'll access the Windows 98 Resource Kit Tools Sampler by selecting the Tools Management Console from the Programs/Windows 98 Resource Kit menu. When the Microsoft Management Console appears, you'll find an assortment of handy tools at your fingertips. To learn more about the tools included in the sampler, investigate the Readme.doc file, which you can find on the Windows 98 CD in the \Tools\Reskit folder.


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