Now that you've purchased the network interface cards and hubs for your new network, and have either installed the network cabling or obtained prefabricated cables, it's time to learn just how to install the cards in the computers and get them talking to each other.

The last remaining element of the network hardware installation is to insert the NICs into the computers and connect them to the network cable. After this, you will be working at the individual computers to install the software components needed to support network communications. This chapter examines these processes, after which you should have a functioning network. You may not have all of the bells and whistles installed yet, but you will be ready to share the files on your computer and access the files on others.

There is probably no task that has irritated computer users and technical support personnel more over the years than installing new expansion cards in PCs. Even with today's plug-and-play hardware (often called plug-and-pray by many) the process of installing a network card properly into a Windows machine can be complicated and intimidating.

Fortunately, with Windows 98 and the newer NICs on the market today, a process that was once a dreaded chore is now a good deal easier, and on occasion plug-and-play even lives up to its name. However, the intention here is to discuss the NIC installation procedure with the assumption that Murphy's Law, "if anything can go wrong - it will," has prevailed. By understanding as much possible about the process, you can handle even the worst-case installation scenario.

One item to consider before you begin the installation of your card is the question of device drivers. Every hardware device in a computer needs a driver that enables it to communicate with the operating system and the other system components. As with any software, drivers are periodically revised to support new operating systems, add new features, and correct bugs. It is important to have the correct Windows 98 drivers for your network cards when you install your network.

Network interface card drivers for the Windows operating systems are written to a specification known as NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification). The various versions of Windows use different versions of the NDIS specification, but Windows 98 supports NDIS 5.0, as well as versions 4.0, 3.1, and 2.x (but not 3.0). The NDIS 2.x drivers run in real mode, and load before the Windows 98 GUI, such as when you launch the operating system in safe mode with network support.

Windows 98 ships with NDIS 5.0 drivers for most of the major network interface cards on the market, but for any one of a number of reasons, such as a newly released NIC, you may find it necessary to utilize a driver obtained from another source. You can use any protected mode driver written to NDIS 3.1 or above if a 5.0 driver is not available for your NIC.

The Win32 Driver Model (WDM) is a device driver architecture introduced in Windows 98 that is intended to provide a unified set of I/O services for all future Windows operating systems. The Windows 2000 products represent the next step in the combination of the DOS-based Windows operating systems like 95 and 98 with the NT operating systems. Drivers written using the WDM model will be able to run on future Windows 2000 releases as well as Windows 98.

WDM is still a fledgling technology, and Microsoft acknowledges that some incompatibilities may arise as the architecture develops. In the meantime, Windows 98 still supports 32-bit network adapter drivers written for Windows 95. You may find that a NIC manufacturer is holding off on releasing WDM drivers for their products because the Windows 95 driver is perfectly serviceable. You can use WDM drivers if they are available, just be prepared for a future upgrade to Windows 2000. You should not discount a NIC because only Windows 95 drivers available for it.

All network interface cards include drivers with the hardware, and it is up to you to determine whether the driver on the Windows 98 CD-ROM is newer than the one that ships with the card. For all you know, the card may have been sitting in a warehouse for months or years, and the drivers may be several versions behind the current version. It is always a good idea to check the card manufacturer's online services for information on the latest driver revisions.

In most cases, the easiest course of action is to let Windows 98 install its own supplied driver for the NIC. Once it has done this, you can check the date and revision number of the installed driver in the Device Manager, and compare them with the drivers included with the card. If you find a newer version, either on the card's driver disk or on the manufacturer's web site, you can easily update the driver from the Driver page of the network card's Properties dialog box in the Device Manager (see Figure 6-1).

As a general rule, however, a network adapter driver is not a high-maintenance software component. Obtain the newest NDIS driver version when you first install the card, and after that you can usually forget about it unless there is a serious problem. Network card drivers fall under the "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" rule. Constantly installing the latest driver versions as they become available will usually not result in any appreciable increase in performance, and it may in fact expose your system to new problems introduced in a supposedly "updated" version.

You've already learned that a network interface card uses specific hardware resources to communicate with the other components in the computer. However, what may not be clear is that the network card itself and the device driver both must be configured to use the same resources. The Windows 98 Device Manager and the Network Control Panel both provide access to a Resources page, as shown in Figure 6-2, on which you can specify the resources for the device driver. In cases where both plug-and-play and the Add New Hardware Wizard fail to properly configure a new adapter card, you can use this interface to manually configure the driver settings.

In addition to the driver configuration settings maintained by the operating system, the network card itself also stores resource information. If, for example, a network card's device driver is configured to use IRQ 11, then the card must also be configured to use the same IRQ. In the old days, you configured the card by setting jumpers. A jumper is a tiny electrical bridge that you insert onto the card to connect two conductive posts. One pair of posts might represent IRQ 9, another pair IRQ 11, and so forth. The pair that you choose to connect with the jumper indicates the IRQ (or other resource) that the card will use. If a card is configured to use IRQ 9 and the device driver uses IRQ 11, then you must reconfigure one or the other in order for the device to function.

Jumper-based configuration is inconvenient, because you have to remove the card from the computer to make any adjustments or even to determine the current settings of the device. In addition, it's often impossible to determine the functions of specific jumpers by looking at the card itself. You either have to find the documentation (usually a small pamphlet that you lose immediately after installing the card), contact the manufacturer, or work by trial and error.

Most of the NICs manufactured today use a software program to configure the device by modifying settings stored in a ROM chip on the card. The program typically runs from the DOS prompt and may include other features like card diagnostics. Figure 6-3 shows a configuration screen from the EZ Start program included with 3Com network cards.

When plug-and-play functions properly, you don’t need to use the program, because the operating system itself can modify the NIC's hardware configuration automatically. However, when it is necessary to manually configure a network card, this method is far easier than using jumpers.

After you have decided on a network interface card, purchased it, and gathered all of the driver files and information you need, it is time to actually install the card into the computer. Start by turning off, unplugging, and opening up the system, and locate a free slot of the right bus type into which you will insert the card. If more than one slot is free, you can choose any one you like; the only difference you may encounter is that one slot provides easier access to the plug for the network cable than the others.

A slot that has never been used should be protected by a cover connected to the frame of the computer's case with a Phillips-head screw. Remove the screw and the slot cover, line up the network card with the slot so that the cable connector is accessible through the uncovered slot, and press the card's edge connector into the slot with firm, even pressure. If you have difficulty pushing the card into the slot, you may find it easier to hold the card at a diagonal, insert one end of the edge connector into the slot, and then press the other end down.

Once you have inserted the card, replace the screw to secure the card into the slot. Many people omit this step, but it is important to keep the card firmly seated in the slot. An accidental pull on the network cable can otherwise wrench the card partially out of the slot, disturbing network communications.

When you turn your machine back on and Windows 98 restarts, you should see a message box indicating that the system has found new hardware and is installing software for it. If this occurs, then plug-and-play is working properly and you should have to do nothing more than reboot the system to complete the card's installation and configuration process.

If Windows 98 fails to automatically detect the card or detects an unknown device that it can't identify, then plug-and-play is either not functioning properly with this combination of devices, or one of the components does not fully support the plug-and-play standard. If this is the case, you will have to take additional steps to try and make Windows 98 detect the card, as discussed in "Using the Add New Hardware Wizard," later in this chapter.

When Windows 98 succeeds in detecting and identifying a new plug-and-play device, the system then searches for an appropriate device driver. In most cases, and particularly with major manufacturers' network cards, Windows 98 will include a suitable driver and proceed to install it from the operating system distribution files on the hard drive or CD-ROM. If your card is too new, too old, or too obscure to have a driver included with Windows 98, the system will prompt you to insert a disk provided by the hardware manufacturer. You can insert the driver disk included with the card into the appropriate drive and point the system to the correct drive letter, or browse your hard drive to a directory where you have stored a driver you downloaded from the manufacturer's web site or other online service.

You can also choose at this point to not install a driver or select from a list of alternative drivers that Windows 98 maintains. This is useful when your card emulates another card type. For example, there are quite a few network cards on the market that claim to be compatible with the Novell NE2000 card and are able to use an NE2000-compatible driver. A card like this might function with a driver that is merely compatible, but it is usually a good idea to obtain a driver that is specifically intended for your particular network card.

In cases where Windows 98 fails to automatically detect and configure your network adapter using plug-and-play, you can use the Add New Hardware Wizard to manually install the card. The system may also load this wizard by itself if it detects a device that it cannot identify. The Add New Hardware Wizard forces Windows 98 to search the system for new hardware and assist you with installing it.

Both the Add New Hardware Wizard and plug-and-play are capable of detecting a new device in a computer, installing a driver for the device, and configuring the driver to use the appropriate hardware resources. The primary difference between the two is that plug-and-play can modify the hardware configuration of the network card itself, while the wizard cannot. Windows 98 is capable of detecting hardware resource conflicts between devices, but if the devices do not support plug-and-play, the operating system cannot do anything about them.

If, for example, your network card is configured to use an IRQ that has not been allocated to another device in the system, the wizard can automatically configure the driver to use that IRQ. If the card is configured to use an IRQ that is already allocated, however, you must modify the card's configuration using the software utility included with the product before the wizard can properly configure the driver.

To launch the Add New Hardware Wizard, you select Add New Hardware from the Windows 98 Control Panel. Once the wizard launches, it offers to search for new hardware on your system.

If the wizard successfully detects your card (see Figure 6-4), it proceeds through the driver installation process just as in a plug-and-play situation. You can elect to use the Windows 98 driver or select one of your own.

A failure of the wizard to detect your card or a misidentification of the card may be caused by any one of the following conditions:

• The slot on the motherboard may be defective; try a different, empty slot if one is available.
• In the case of an ISA card, the jumpers or DIP switches may be configured improperly. Check the card’s documentation to see if you need to modify any incorrect IRQ, I/O port address, and/or memory address settings.
• You may have to configure options using a DOS-based utility supplied by the manufacturer to get the card to properly identify itself to Windows 98. Look at the documentation to see if there is software you need to run to configure the card's internal settings.
• The card may be defective or just old. Defective cards aren’t uncommon, and older cards may just have too limited a selection of hardware resource settings for your machine. In either case a new Ethernet card that supports plug-and-play, made by a respected manufacturer, should do the trick.

Much of the time, when Windows 98 fails to recognize and configure a network interface card, the problem can be traced to the using of legacy ISA cards or cards that are poorly made or supported. You can often save yourself a lot of time and aggravation by simply buying a new card rather than trying to troubleshoot one that is an off-brand or very old.

The Windows 98 Device Manager can detect when two or more devices are attempting to utilize the same hardware resource, a feature that simplifies the process of manually installing and configuring a network card. When you open the Device Manager (from the System Control Panel), expand the Network Adapters heading, and locate the adapter you have installed in the system, you will see an exclamation point in a yellow circle if the card is configured to use a resource that has already been allocated.

To view information about the conflict, open the Properties dialog box for the network card by double-clicking on it or by highlighting it and clicking the Properties button. The Resources page of the dialog box contains a Conflicting Device List that displays the other devices in the system using the same resources as the card.

From this same page, you can change the resources used by the network card driver, but you cannot change the hardware settings themselves. If, for example, your card is experiencing an IRQ conflict, then you can change the IRQ setting for the driver by highlighting the Interrupt Request listing in the Resource Settings box, unchecking the Use Automatic Settings box, and clicking the Change Setting button. Browse through the available IRQs until you find one that does not conflict with any other device, and save your changes. Before the network card will function, however, you must use the configuration program supplied with the card to change the IRQ setting in the hardware to the agree with that of the driver you just reconfigured.

If the network adapter appears in the Device Manager's main screen without a warning symbol, then the driver portion of the installation is ready to go. Assuming that the hardware is configured to use the same resources as the driver, the network card installation is complete.

Once you have installed the network card into the computer and loaded the device driver, you can proceed to install the other components of the Windows 98 networking subsystem from the Network Control Panel. The Configuration page of the Network Control Panel displays a list of all of the networking components currently installed in the system. There are four basic component types, each of which is represented by its own icon. These component types are as follows:

Adapters

Protocols

Clients

Services

When you install a new network interface card, the adapter icon appears in the Networking Control Panel's components list, along with the Client for Microsoft Networks and the TCP/IP protocol, which the system installs by default. At the very minimum, you must have an adapter, a client, and a protocol to create a complete networking stack.

To build a simple Windows 98 network, you do not need to install and configure a large number of networking components. In fact, the only real decision you have to make is which protocol you want to use on your network. The client will always be the Client for Microsoft Networks, which should already be installed, and the only additional service you require is File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks, which you must add manually.

Selecting a protocol requires a bit more thought, however. On a Windows 98 network, you can use any one of three transport protocol modules supplied by Microsoft to perform basic networking tasks like file and printer sharing. The protocol you choose should depend on what other services you plan to run on your network. Above all, you must be sure that whatever protocol you choose, the other systems on the network are running the same one.

NetBEUI is the simplest of the networking protocols provided with Windows 98. It also has the lowest overhead when it comes to consuming system resources and requires virtually no configuration or maintenance. If you plan on building a small network (that is, approximately 12 systems or less) that is not connected to the Internet or any other network and does not use intranet services, then NetBEUI is the recommended protocol.

NetBEUI has two main limitations:

• NetBEUI is not routable. The protocol can only "see" computers that are connected to the local network segment. If your network grows to the point at which you use routers or other devices to connect several network segments into an internetwork, then NetBEUI would cease to be a practical solution.
• NetBEUI does not support Internet communications. If you plan to connect either individual computers or your whole network to the Internet in order to provide your users with access to the World Wide Web, Internet e-mail, and other services, then you must be running TCP/IP. TCP/IP is also required if you intend to create an intranet by running a web server on your local network, even when you are not connected to the Internet.

If you decide to use NetBEUI as your networking protocol, you will probably want to remove the TCP/IP module that Windows 98 installs by default.

TCP/IP is the most popular networking protocol suite in the world today, and is also the default protocol added by Windows 98 when you install a network interface card on the system. It provides the underlayment for the Internet and is the overwhelming choice for large enterprise networks. If you plan on providing your network users with access to the Internet, then you must use TCP/IP on your network. The drawbacks of TCP/IP are that it requires a slightly greater amount of system resources than NetBEUI, and that you must configure each workstation on the network with its own unique IP address, as well as other important parameters.

On a large network, TCP/IP client configuration can be a huge task, and Windows NT and 2000 both have a service called DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) that automates the process. On a small Windows 98-only network, however, you must configure each system individually. This is not a terribly difficult process when you're dealing with only a dozen systems, since you have to install and configure the other networking components on each machine anyway, but you must be familiar with the configuration parameters required and do a little planning prior to the installation. See "Configuring TCP/IP Settings," later in this chapter, for more information.

Since Windows 98 adds the TCP/IP protocol by default when you install a network card, you must remove it if you plan to use NetBEUI or IPX/SPX instead. If you do intend to use TCP/IP on a Windows 98-only network, you must manually configure the protocol, because the default installation assumes the presence of a Windows NT or Windows 2000 server running the DHCP server service.

Novell NetWare networks use a proprietary family of protocols for communications between clients and servers. Two of the important protocols in this family are IPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange) and SPX (Sequenced Packet Exchange), which gave rise to the abbreviation IPX/SPX to refer to the whole protocol suite. As mentioned earlier, Microsoft includes a NetWare client in Windows 98, and also its own version of the IPX/SPX protocols. If your systems will be connecting to NetWare 3.1x or 4.x servers using the Client for NetWare Networks, the IPX/SPX-compatible protocol is required, but for network composed only of Windows 98 systems, it is not.

It is possible to use IPX/SPX for general Microsoft networking communications, but of the three protocols discussed here, it runs a distant third. Aside from NetWare interoperability, the only reason why you should install the IPX/SPX-compatible protocol is that you have an application that requires it. Typically, the only programs that require IPX/SPX for their network communications are legacy (usually DOS) applications and some of the older multiplayer games. Games with networking capabilities today mostly use TCP/IP for multiplayer communications.

While Windows 98 networking will function with just the modules added by default during the network adapter installation, you will probably want to add the File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks service and possibly add or change protocol modules. The procedure for installing a networking module is the same, regardless of whether you're adding a client, protocol, or service. This procedure is as follows:

1. Click the Add button on the Networking Control Panel's configuration page.
2. Select the module type from the Select Network Component Type dialog box.
3. Select the manufacturer of the module in the left column of the Select dialog box and the module in the right column.
4. Click the OK button to install the module.

Win98 may prompt you to insert the operating system CD-ROM if the distribution files are not available on the hard drive, after which it adds the newly installed module to the components list. To uninstall a module, you simply highlight it in the components list and click the remove button.

In some cases, the networking modules need some sort of configuration before they are fully functional. The following sections examine the procedures for configuring the Windows 98 networking components.

Depending on the networking modules that you select, you may or may not have to perform extra configuration procedures before a Windows 98 system can communicate over the network. If, for example, you replace the default TCP/IP protocol with NetBEUI, then simply rebooting the system should be all you have to do to configure the system. If you decide to use TCP/IP, however, you must configure the protocol's properties before you can connect to the network. Some modules, such as the IPX/SPX-compatible protocol and the File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks service, have configurable parameters, but they seldom if ever have to be modified, and are omitted here.

The Networking Control Panel's Identification page (see Figure 6-5) specifies the name by which the computer will be known to the other systems on the network, as well as the name of the workgroup to which it belongs. When you install Windows 98, the setup program prompts you for the computer and workgroup names. If you did not know the function of these names at the time of the installation and specified inappropriate values, you can change them on the Identification page at any time.

Windows 98 uses a programming interface called NetBIOS as part of its networking architecture. NetBIOS provides session layer services to the computers on a Microsoft network, and includes a name space used to uniquely identify each computer on the network. Both the computer and workgroup names are actually NetBIOS names, and the names you select must conform to the NetBIOS naming rules.

NetBIOS names can be no more than 15 characters, must contain no spaces, but can contain any of the following symbols:

If you do not specify a computer name during the Windows 98 installation process, the system takes the first eight (non-space) characters of the user name. Each system on the network must have its own unique computer name. An error will be generated if a system tries to log on to the network with a name that is already in use.

The names you select for the systems on your network should enable you to easily identify each machine, as these are the names that you will see in programs like the Network Neighborhood and the Windows 98 Explorer to browse for shared resources. If your systems are always going to be used by specific people, then using their names for computer names is a logical choice. However, you might also want to consider naming systems for their roles. If a computer is used by several different people to perform a specific task, it may be more logical to name the system "Faxserver" or "Scanner," rather than choose the name of one user.

Workgroups are logical groupings of computers that you can use to organize the systems on your network. When you browse the network using Windows 98 Explorer or the Network Neighborhood, you see a hierarchy that consists of one or more workgroups, each of which contains one or more computers. On a small network, it's probably best to put all of your systems into one workgroup, but if you want to you can create workgroups to categorize computers by their location, by company departments, or by any other criteria you like.

If you do not specify a workgroup name during the Windows 98 installation, the setup program uses whatever name was previously specified on the network. If you are installing the first system on your network, the program uses the first 15 characters of the organization name (minus any spaces).

The Computer Description field enables you to specify a string of up to 48 characters that describes the computer, its user, or its function. The description is not a NetBIOS name, and is therefore not subject to the same limitations. However, the description does appear with the computer name in applications that enable you to browse the network. You can use spaces in the description, and any symbols except commas.

The Client for Microsoft Networks does require any configuration in order to function, but it does have a Properties dialog box (see Figure 6-6) like most of the networking modules, with settings that you can use to alter its behavior. To open the Properties dialog box for any of the modules in the Networking Control Panel's components list, you either double-click the module or highlight it and click the Properties button.

The Logon Validation box does not apply to Windows 98-only networks. You use these fields to activate the domain logon feature and specify a domain name. This type of logon uses a single machine as the repository for the user authentication and security data of a given group of computers, called a domain. Running a domain requires a Windows NT or Windows 2000 server, and is beyond the scope of this book.

The Network Logon Options box enables you to specify whether Windows 98 should re-establish persistent network connections each time a user logs on or wait until the user accesses each connection individually. By default, the system reconnects all of the previously mapped drive letters during the logon sequence. If the system has a drive letter mapped to a share that is unavailable because a computer is down, an error message will appear during the logon sequence, asking if the system should remove the drive mapping. If you have users that would be puzzled by these messages, you can check the Quick Logon option, which causes the system to establish the connection to each share only when the user tries to access it.

NetBEUI is another networking component that does not require any configuration to be functional. Its Properties dialog box contains only two configuration settings, which usually do not need modification from the default values. These settings are as follows:

Maximum Sessions

NCBS

The TCP/IP Properties dialog box (see Figure 6-7) is larger and more complex than that of the NetBEUI and IPX/SPX protocols, and requires a great deal more attention. Because you won't have access to a DHCP server on your Windows 98 network, you must configure the TCP/IP client parameters manually.

The following parameters are required for TCP/IP connectivity:

IP Address (IP Address page)

Subnet Mask (IP Address page)

In addition to the IP address and subnet mask, you must also configure the following parameters if the system is going to access the Internet using a shared modem or router connection on another machine:

Default Gateway (Gateway page)

DNS Servers (DNS page)

By default, Windows 98 utilizes all of its installed protocols on all of the installed clients and network adapters. The process of establishing a connection between two networking components is called binding, and you can override this default behavior, if necessary. Every protocol and adapter module includes a Bindings page in its Properties dialog box that contains checkboxes for other networking components installed on the system. Protocol modules have binding checkboxes for the installed clients and adapters have checkboxes for the installed protocols.

When you clear one of the checkboxes, you prevent that modules from passing network traffic to the component that the box represents. This enables you to separate the network traffic using particular protocols and adapters. For example, if you have a network interface card and a modem installed on a system, along with both NetBEUI and TCP/IP, you can bind the NIC only to NetBEUI and the Dial-Up Adapter that represents the modem only to TCP/IP. This forces the system to use NetBEUI only for internal network communications (using the NIC) and TCP/IP only for modem communications, such as Internet connectivity. This provides an added measure of security to your network because there is no way for an intruder on the Internet to access your network through the modem connection. Internet communications require TCP/IP and if you run only NetBEUI on your internal network, any unauthorized access is limited to the system actually connected by modem to the Internet.

The Advanced page of the Properties dialog box for each of the three networking protocols has a checkbox labeled Set This Protocol to be the Default Protocol. When you have more than one protocol module installed on your network systems, you can enable this feature for the protocol that you want the systems to use first. For example, you might want the computers on your network to share files and printers using the NetBEUI protocol, but you also must install TCP/IP for Internet connectivity. By making NetBEUI the default protocol, you force all of the systems to use NetBEUI whenever possible. The systems will still use TCP/IP for Internet communications, since NetBEUI doesn't have that capability, but Microsoft client connections will not use TCP/IP as long as both systems support NetBEUI.

Once you have completed all of the steps outlined in this chapter, your computer should be ready to connect to the network. Plug the network cable into the NIC port and into your hub, and you should be in business. If you reboot your system and find that you are not connecting, the problem is very likely a misconfiguration of one or more networking components. Ask yourself the questions in the following sections when troubleshooting a Windows 98 system's network connectivity.