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Overview of Windows 98 Network Configuration

The Windows 98 operating system includes built-in networking support, including built-in support for popular networks and an open, extensible networking architecture.

If you are performing a clean install of Windows 98 (that is, if you format the hard disk and then install Windows 98), what Setup installs depends on whether you have a network adapter card and whether you choose to accept the default Dial-Up Networking component.

When you are upgrading from Windows 95, in most cases Setup retains the components from your original network configuration. However, Setup does not always retain the Novell NETX and VLM real-mode clients. For more information, see Chapter 17, "Windows 98 on Third-Party Networks."

Note

In the Microsoft Windows 98 Resource Kit, NETX is used to refer to the Novell NetWare workstation shell for NetWare version 3.x; VLM (Virtual Loadable Module) is used to refer to the workstation shell for version 4.x.

When you are upgrading, Setup also adds Dial-Up Networking, and if no network protocol was present in Windows 95, Setup adds Microsoft TCP/IP. If you have a network adapter card, and no previous network client was installed, Setup also adds Client for Microsoft Networks.

You can add any Windows 95 or Windows 98 – compatible network client after you run Setup. You can also upgrade to Windows 98 from Windows 95 or Windows for Workgroups if you have any of the following networks already installed and running.

For information about upgrading real-mode clients, see Chapter 17, "Windows 98 on Third-Party Networks."

The built-in networking components include support for a wide range of network transports (such as TCP/IP and IPX/SPX), industry-wide communications protocols (such as remote procedure calls [RPC], NetBIOS, and named pipes), and existing network device standards (such as network driver interface specification [NDIS] and Open Datalink Interface [ODI]). Because of the extensible architecture, other network vendors can add network connectivity enhancements and application support, and you can mix and match components at every layer. For more information, see Chapter 29, "Windows 98 Network Architecture." See also Chapter 15, "Network Adapters and Protocols."

Note

For information about how to install other network components during Setup, see Chapter 3, "Custom Installations."

The following list summarizes the benefits of networking features that are new in Windows 98.

Secure access to remote servers with virtual private networking (VPN). Virtual private networking is a new technology by which you can securely connect to a remote server by tunneling through an intermediary network. In essence, you can use a network such as the Internet or your intranet as a substitute for your network wire. For example, you can make a virtual private networking connection to a Windows NT RAS tunnel server on your LAN, or you could make a dial-up connection to the Internet, then use virtual private networking to connect to a tunnel server on the Internet. The tunnel server can then grant you access to any public or private network that is connected to it. For more information, see Chapter 19, "Remote Networking and Mobile Computing."

Windows Sockets 2 application programming interfaces (APIs).

The Windows Sockets 2 APIs support Quality of Service (QoS), by which an application can request or require certain network characteristics for a specific network connection. For example, a video application might request that a certain amount of bandwidth be available for a video transmission, and that all the packets it sends travel at a constant rate.

Enhancements to TCP/IP.

Windows 98 provides several enhancements to TCP/IP. It provides an automatic private Internet Protocol (IP) addressing feature that enables TCP/IP clients on small LANs to automatically assign themselves IP addresses when no dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server is available. It also provides performance enhancements for certain types of high-speed, high-bandwidth networks. Additionally, it supports IP multicasting, enabling a Windows 98 client to join IP multicast groups. For more information, see Chapter 15, "Network Adapters and Protocols."

Enhancements to network driver interface specification (NDIS), including support for connection-oriented media. Network driver interface specification 5 drivers add to the functionality provided by NDIS 3.1 drivers. For example, by using NDIS 5 drivers, Windows 98 can support a wide range of network media, including Ethernet, fiber distributed data interface (FDDI), token-ring, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), and wide area network (WAN) technology. Additional features include NDIS power management, support for QoS, and support for a single INF file format across Windows operating systems. For more information, see Chapter 15, "Network Adapters and Protocols."

Simpler logon with Microsoft Family Logon.

With Windows 95, you logged on to the computer using Windows Logon. Windows 98 provides a new option called Microsoft Family Logon. If user profiles are enabled and Microsoft Family Logon has been configured, the Microsoft Family Logon prompt will list all users that have been configured for that computer, enabling users to simply select their names from a list rather than having to type it in. For more information, see Chapter 18, "Logon, Browsing, and Resource Sharing."

Distributed File System (DFS) support.

Windows 98 supports the Windows NT Distributed File System. This allows a user to access the content of several servers from one Windows NT share point. For more information, see Chapter 16, "Windows 98 on Microsoft Networks."

Client support for Novell Directory Services (NDS).

With the optional service Microsoft Service for NetWare Directory Services, Client for NetWare Networks provides the ability to log on to NDS and integrates the NDS logon with the Windows 98 logon. The logon prompt for NDS contains the name of the user object and password and enables the user to set the NDS tree and workstation default name context. For more information, see Chapter 17, "Windows 98 on Third-Party Networks."

Distributed application management with Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM). The Distributed Component Object Model extends the Component Object Model (COM) to allow components of a distributed application to communicate over the network securely and transparently. With DCOM, application developers can create location-independent distributed applications using a language of their choice. Network administrators can then deploy those components on Windows 98 computers, Windows NT Server computers, and Windows NT Workstation computers anywhere in the network. For more information, see Chapter 29, "Windows 98 Network Architecture."