Using the Internet Connection Wizard for Sign-up and Setup

If you are an Internet service provider and you are using server-based Internet sign-up, your users can use the Internet Connection wizard (ICW) to sign up for your services. You can customize the ICW to meet your needs.

A user can start the ICW from the Windows interface (at installation) or from Internet applications, such as Internet Explorer or Outlook Express, that have not been run before so there is no evidence of an existing Internet configuration.

This section generally discusses how the ICW can be customized by ISPs. For specific information about Internet sign up, see Chapter 13, "Setting Up Servers," and Chapter 20, "Implementing the Sign-up Process."

If you are an ISP in the Microsoft Referral Server Program and you have customized the Internet Connection wizard, your server code can easily be modified for Internet sign-up for IEAK users.

Internet sign up is also available by using Kiosk mode of Internet Explorer. If you are an ISP and you have already created a solution that uses Kiosk mode, you can continue to use your existing server solution or you can switch to Internet sign-up with the ICW. You should evaluate whether changing your server solution is cost-effective for your organization.

The ICW is designed to help users configure their Internet settings for the first time. Here's how the ICW works with the sign-up process:

• If the ICW has not already been successfully completed on the client computer, it configures the computer as necessary for dial-up access to the Internet and verifies the user's area or city code. Items configured by the ICW include the TCP/IP protocol stack, a provision for dynamically obtaining an IP address, modem settings, dialing properties, and a Dial-Up Networking entry.
• An Internet sign-up server is a Web-based application that automates the task of adding new subscribers to an ISP subscriber database. The Internet sign-up server collects information from each new subscriber, adds that information to the ISP subscriber database, and then generates a customized .ins file on the subscriber's computer.
• The .ins file contains information that configures the subscriber's Internet Explorer connection, Domain Name Service (DNS) address, news server address, mailbox, protocol stack, and dialer for subsequent connection to the ISP services. This configuration file also contains the phone numbers required to connect to the ISP Internet access network.
• When the client computer receives the .ins file, the ICW executes the configuration specified in the .ins file and completes the sign-up process. After that, when the user starts Internet Explorer, a connection to the ISP Internet access network is established.

Customizing the ICW and the sign-up process requires two steps: making any changes to brandable screens of the Internet Connection wizard, and setting up a sign-up server to work with the ICW. The IEAK Toolkit comes with Active Server Page (.asp) and PERL solutions that you can modify to fit your needs. For more information, see Chapter 20, "Implementing the Sign-up Process."

You can use the ICW for two specific set-up procedures:

• If your users already have the Connection Manager service profile, they can use the ICW to update the service profile, by populating it with user data (user name, password, and phone number) to provide a simpler logon sequence for the user.
• If your users have the latest version of the ICW, they can download an initial Connection Manager service profile

These two processes are covered in the following sections.

Populating User Data in a Connection Manager Profile

The .ins file is either shipped with the installation package or, more often, dynamically created by the online sign-up server. When using a sign-up server, the Internet service provider (ISP) should change the online sign-up server code to create .ins files with these new settings. Use the following procedure to synchronize the .ins file with the service profile delivered in the installation package:

To customize the .ins file to support integration of the Connection Manager service profile

1. Create your Connection Manager service profile and then, in the Connection Manager Customization dialog box in the Stage 3 - Customizing Setup section of the Internet Explorer Customization wizard, include the service profile for the installation package.
2. In the [Entry] section of the .ins file, specify a service name that is identical to the ServiceName entry specified in the [Connection Manager] section of the Connection Manager .cms file.
3. In the [Custom Dialer] section of the .ins file, type the following two items, which enable Connection Manager to be used as the default dialer for Internet Explorer (although users will still need to set the default on their computers):
   • Auto_Dial_DLL=cmdial32.dll
   • Auto_Dial_Function=_InetDialHandler@16

     Note This step is not needed for computers running Microsoft Windows 2000.

4. In the [Custom] section of the .ins file, type the following:
   • Run=icwconn2.exe
   • Keep_Connection=yes
5. In the [ClientSetup] section of the .ins file, specify the following two items:
   • Done_Message=End of Signup Message
   • Explore_Command=URL/Window to Launch for Initial CM Connection

   Note If you do not specify both, your users may receive error messages.

6. In the .ins file, to set the user data, create Connection Manager [Entry], [User], [Phone], and [Backup Phone] sections and specify the information for each, as appropriate.
   • [Entry]
     Entry_Name=ServiceProfileServiceName
   • [User]
     Name=UserName
     Password=UserPassword (in plain text)
     Tunnel_Domain=LogonDomain (for logon dialog box, if appropriate)
     Tunnel_Name=UserName (for VPN, if appropriate)
     Tunnel_Password=UserPassword (in plain text, for VPN, if appropriate)
     UserNamePrefix=RealmNameToBePrefixedToUserName
     UserNameSuffix=RealmNameToBeSuffixedToUserName
   • [Phone]
     Phone_Number=PrimaryAccessNumber
     Dial_As_Is=YesOrNo
     Country_ID=TAPICodeForCountry/Region (use only if Dial_As_Is=Yes)
     Area_Code=AreaCodeAppendedToNumber (use only if Dial_As_Is=Yes)
   • [Backup Phone]
     Phone_Number=BackupAccessNumber
     Dial_As_Is=YesOrNo
     Country_ID=TapiCodeForCountry/Region (use only if Dial_As_Is=Yes)
     Area_Code=AreaCodeAppendedToNumber (use only if Dial_As_Is=Yes)

Downloading an Initial Connection Manager Service Profile

If your users are running the latest version of the ICW (available with Internet Explorer 5), you can use the ICW to download a complete Connection Manager service profile from the sign-up server to your users. This is useful when a user employs the ICW to connect to a referral service for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and selects your service as the provider.

Because of security, ICW does not support the downloading of executable files. However, it does support incorporation of all Connection Manager service-profile information in the .ins file, which it then uses to create the service profile and install the profile on the user's computer. After the initial Connection Manager service profile is downloaded and installed, the user can use it to connect to your service and obtain another service profile (a full service profile that includes all required attached files).

To provide this support, create the initial Connection Manager service profile by using the CMAK wizard, and then copy the information from the service-profile files directly into the appropriate sections in the .ins file by using the following procedure. When the ICW downloads the .ins file, it recognizes information in these sections that belong to the .cmp, .cms, ,pbk, .pbr, and .inf files and uses them to create the appropriate service-profile files.

Note Do not use this procedure if the user already has the service profile. To update an existing service profile, use the previous procedure. (See "Populating User Data in a Connection Manager Profile" earlier in this chapter.)

To download an initial Connection Manager service profile by using the ICW

1. Use the latest version of the CMAK wizard to create your Connection Manager service-profile files and, if appropriate, use advanced customization techniques to further customize it. (For information about customizing the service-profile files after they are created, see "Advanced Customization Options for Connection Manager" earlier in this chapter.) Test your service profile on all supported platforms.
2. Create your Internet Explorer installation package, but do not incorporate the Connection Manager service profile.
3. In your Internet Explorer .ins file, create a [Connection Manager CMP] section, and then copy the information from the .cmp file (created in step 1) into this section. Change all section titles from the .cmp file so that, instead of being enclosed with square brackets, they are enclosed with braces (curly brackets). For example, change [Profile Format] to {Profile Format}. This indicates that they are subsections, not sections, of the .ins file. For example:

   [Connection Manager CMP]
   {Profile Format}
   .
   .
   .
   {Connection Manager}

Note The [Connection Manager CMP] section contains user-configurable data such as the user name, domain, password, phone numbers, and so on. Specify the appropriate entries in this section in order to populate a profile with this data.

4. In the .ins file, create a [Connection Manager CMS 0] section, specify the name of your .cms file instead of the placeholder (ServiceProfileFileName), and then copy the information from the .cms file into this section. Remember to change the brackets in the .cms file to braces, as covered previously in step 3. For example:

   [Connection Manager CMS 0]
   CMSFile=ServiceProfileFileName
   Contents from this .cms file

Note If you have merged service profiles, you must create a section for the .cms file of each merged service profile. Specify a section name of [Connection Manager CMS 1] for the first merged service profile, [Connection Manager CMS 2] for the second merged profile, and so on.

5. In the .ins file, create a [Connection Manager PBK 0] section, specify the name of your .pbk file instead of the placeholder (PhoneBookFileName), and then copy the information from the .pbk file into this section. Remember to change the brackets in the .pbk file to braces, as covered previously in step 3. For example:

   [Connection Manager PBK 0]
   PbkName=PhoneBookFileName
   Contents from this .pbk file

Note If you have merged service profiles that contain phone books, you must create a section for each additional phone book (.pbk) file. Specify a section name of [Connection Manager PBK 1] for the first merged phone book, [Connection Manager PBK 2] for the second one, and so on.

6. In the .ins file, create a [Connection Manager PBR 0] section, specify the name of your .pbr file instead of the placeholder (PhoneBookRegionFileName), and then copy the information from the .pbr file into this section. Remember to change the brackets in the .pbr file to braces, as covered previously in step 3. For example:

   [Connection Manager PBR 0]
   PbrName=PhoneBookRegionFileName
   Contents from this .pbr file

Note If you have merged service profiles that contain phone books, you must create a section for each additional phone book region (.pbr) file. Specify a section name of [Connection Manager PBR 1] for the first merged phone book, [Connection Manager PBR 2] for the second one, and so on. Remember that each .pbk file must have a corresponding .pbr file of the same name.

7. In the .ins file, create a [Connection Manager INF] section, and then copy the information from the .inf file into this section. Remember to change the brackets in the .inf file to braces, as covered previously in step 3. For example:

   [Connection Manager INF]
   Contents from the .inf file

8. Before posting the .ins file to your sign-up server, test it on all supported platforms.