A local area network (LAN) is great for sharing files and printers, but one you've got your computers connected, you'll find that there is a whole array of applications that can also use the LAN. These applications can enable your network users to communicate more easily, collaborate more effectively, organize their time, and even have more fun. This chapter examines some of the techniques for deploying applications on the network and using shared files with those applications, and then looks at some of the various types of network-enabled applications themselves.

A network can be a valuable aid in deploying applications on your workstations. Rather than carry a CD-ROM or a stack of floppy disks to each computer, you can store an application's distribution files on a shared drive and access them over the network. By doing this, you can install the same application on several machines at once, or provide instructions to users that enable them to perform the installation themselves.

You can network your application distribution files in several different ways. In most cases, just copying the distribution files from the source medium to a directory on a shared drive is all that's necessary. If the application is distributed on CD-ROM, you can conceivably copy the entire disk to a hard drive, or you can determine what files are needed to install the actual application and copy those only. In many cases, the CD-ROMs on which applications are distributed contain a lot of material other than what is needed to run the application, such as demo versions of other products. By eliminating these, you can reduce the amount of space on your hard drive that is occupied by the distribution files.

You can also create a network share out of a CD-ROM drive itself and make an application's distribution files available to the entire network directly from the disk, as discussed in "Sharing Removable Drives" in Chapter 7, File and Printer Sharing. This is a good solution if you do not want to keep the distribution files permanently available or if your hard drives are short on space.

Virtually every new PC sold today contains a CD-ROM drive and a floppy drive, but networking is becoming so pervasive that it may soon become unnecessary to have these devices in every machine. When a computer is equipped with a network interface, removable storage devices are really not needed except for the installation of the operating system itself and for booting the system in the event of a hard drive failure. For these purposes, a portable drive connected to a USB port can serve. This, in fact, is exactly how the popular Macintosh iMac is configured. If you are buying new computers for your network, you might want to consider saving some money by purchasing machines without CD-ROM and floppy drives.

It is up to you to determine whether you want to copy the application distribution files to your shared drives temporarily, or store them there permanently. If you have the disk space (and most of the PCs sold today have enormous disk drives), you can assemble an archive of applications that your users can install at will. By storing your applications on shared drives, you not only protect yourself against lost, stolen, or damaged installation disks, but also you keep your files instantly available, should you need them while working on a user's workstation.

If, for example, a user has a hard disk problem or a suspected virus attack, you can keep the appropriate damage control utilities in your archive, ready for immediate use. If the worst occurs and the user's data is lost, you can rebuild the workstation configuration by installing the appropriate applications from the archive. You might even consider using an intranet web server to create a technical support page that provides users with instructions for installing and running these programs themselves.

The licensing agreement for an application nearly always requires you to purchase a separate license for each machine when you install it on multiple network workstations. However, you may be able to save some money by purchasing one copy of the retail product, complete with disks and documentation, and then buying additional licenses from the manufacturer without disks. Because they save on the manufacturing, packaging, and shipping needed for the full product, many software companies offer excellent savings on additional licenses, particularly when you buy them in multiple units like 5- or 10-packs.

In most cases, you do not actually need to use the individual serial numbers from a multiple unit license when installing an application on a network. The software will operate normally when you install multiple copies with one license number (or possibly even no license number). As long as you have purchased the correct number of licenses for your network, you are operating legally. However, there are some applications that can detect when there is another copy of the program running on the LAN with the same license number. In these cases, you must supply a unique license number for each installation and keep track of the license assignments to make sure that there is no duplication.

Once you have stored your application distribution files on shared drives, you can launch an installation program directly from the network. If you are working at the computer where an application is to be installed, you can either map a drive letter to the share containing the distribution files, or browse to the share in the Network Neighborhood and run the installation program file from the appropriate directory. In many cases, the program copies the distribution files to a temporary directory on one of the workstation's drives as the first step in the installation process, enabling the rest of the procedure to run locally.

When the distribution files are on a shared CD-ROM, you lose the autorun feature that causes an installation program to launch automatically when you insert a CD-ROM disk into a local drive. You must manually execute the installation program from wherever it happens to reside on the disk.

It is also possible to arrange for application installations on a client workstation from a remote system, although you cannot actually launch the installation program interactively from a remote location. For example, you can place an icon on a workstation's desktop that defines a shortcut to the installation program on a network share, or even place the shortcut in the workstation's Startup group, so that it will run the next time the user logs on or reboots the computer.

While the most common practice is to install applications onto the local drives of each individual workstation, it is also possible to share an application installation by installing it on a shared drive and having multiple workstations access the program files directly from there. Some applications, like Microsoft Office, have installation programs that are designed to do this, while with others you can do it more informally. Some applications also enable you to store selected parts of the application on a shared drive, while putting most of the program files on the local drive.

Sharing an application in this manner offers several advantages. One advantage is disk space savings; if you have workstations with small (or nearly full) disk drives, running an application from a share is an alternative to installing a new hard drive or giving the user a new computer. Another advantage of shared installations is that they are easier to administer. When an upgrade or patch is released for the application, the administrator only has to install it once, rather than running it on each workstation individually. Finally, installing an application to a client workstation is fast and simple, since relatively little data is actually copied to the workstation. If you must build a new system or completely reinstall an old one, server-based applications speed up the process considerably.

Of course, there are drawbacks to this technique. Accessing program files from a network drive will be slower than accessing them from the local drive, and if the computer hosting the share malfunctions or is unavailable, none of the users will be able to access the application. In addition, the burden of having multiple users accessing the application files may have a noticeable effect on the performance of the machine hosting the share if someone is using it as a workstation.

Treating the shared application files separately from the main program files provides a greater flexibility in workstation installations. You can choose to store both the main and shared files on each local drive, access both from the server, or access either one from the server and store the other locally. Obviously, running everything from the local drive provides the best possible performance and running everything from the server the least. When splitting the files between the server and workstation, installing the main program files to the local drive will result in better performance than running the shared files locally.

When you run the installation program from the network share, the Microsoft Office 97 Setup dialog box contains a Run from Network Server option (that is not present when you install from the CD-ROM. If you've configured the setup program to allow a choice of where to store the shared program files, a dialog box appears providing Server and Local Hard Drive options.

As a result, you usually cannot install a Windows application to a network share from one workstation and then launch it from another workstation by accessing the shared files (although you can do this with many DOS programs). You must perform the installation on each workstation that will use the program. However, in many cases, it is possible to install the application to the same location on a particular share from every workstation. When you do this, only one copy of the program files is created, and every machine receives the required modifications to the registry and the system files. Each workstation, on loading the application, accesses the same files on the share. This, in most cases, enables multiple users to run the application simultaneously.

However, whether or not this method is completely successful depends on the application files that must change in the course of normal usage. If, for example, customizing the application interface makes changes to a configuration file stored on the server, then there will be a problem, because each user's changes will overwrite those of another user. However, if the configuration settings are stored in the registry or in a configuration file on the local machine, then users can maintain their own individual settings and share the application files on the server. In some cases, you may be able to manually configure an application to store configuration files and other volatile data on the local drive.

Sharing program files among multiple network workstations is relatively easy because the systems only have to read the files, they don’t have to write to them. Data files are another problem, however. If two users open the same document file, for example, and make changes to it, one version will usually overwrite the other, and when the two users save their changes, one user's revisions will be lost, unless the application and its documents are specifically designed to be shared. Text-based documents, such as word processor files, are typically the most problematic when it comes to collaboration, while documents with a more definite internal structure, like spreadsheets and databases, are more likely to be sharable. The files created by the Word, Excel, and Access applications in Microsoft Office are excellent examples of the sharability inherent in documents of different types, ranging from the least to the most sharable.

Some applications provide protection against the conflicts that can result from multiple users editing the same non-sharable document. When you attempt to open a Microsoft Word document that is already being edited by another user, the program prompts you with a message stating that the document is currently locked, but it does allow you to open a copy of the document, which you can save in a different file or directory.

Generally speaking, you should take pains with non-sharable document files to see to it that they are modified only under controlled circumstances. There are several ways to do this. The simplest method is to designate one person as the maintainer of the file and arrange it so that only that person has the ability to alter the file. You can store the file on the editor's workstation and share it with other users on a read-only basis using share permissions or an intranet web server. Alternatively, you can store the file on a network share to which you have assigned dual passwords. The maintainer of the file gets the full access password and other users get the read-only password.

Another method is to use the password protection capabilities, if there are any, of the application itself. Microsoft Word, for example, enables you to protect a document file in one of two ways: by requiring a password to open the file, and by requiring a password to modify it. When you choose the latter, users are presented with a dialog box when they open the file that enables them to either specify the password needed to open the file in read/write mode or open the file in read-only mode without a password. For situations where security can be less stringent, you can also recommend that users open the file in read-only mode, but allow them to open in it read/write mode without a password.

To apply password protection on a Word file, you select Options from the Save As dialog box shown in Figure 9-2. Supplying a password in the Password to Open box denies all access to users that do not possess the password, while using the Password to Modify box grants users read-only access unless they supply the proper password. The Read-only Recommended checkbox displays only a recommendation that the user open the file in read-only mode, but can be used along with the password options to provide greater security.

Another method for working with non-sharable documents on a network is to maintain multiple copies of the files and allow users to work on their own copies. This is a viable solution only when the application generating the files has the ability to combine two copies of a document and reconcile their changes. Microsoft Word can do this in two different ways, both of which make use of its revision tracking feature. In the first method, you can compare two documents by selecting Tools/Track Changes/Compare Documents, which causes the differences between the two documents to appear as marked revisions. You can then incorporate into a single composite document.

In the second method, you must activate the Track Changes feature on identical copies of a document before the separate users are permitted to modify them. Then, by selecting Merge Documents from the Tools menu, you can combine the revisions from both documents into one final composite. Neither of these methods is an ideal solution, however, as there will very likely be conflicts between the modifications made by different users. Someone with the final say on the document’s contents must then reconcile the differences.

The only way for multiple users to truly collaborate on an unsharable document is to use a product that provides direct communication between the computers that will be working together, like Microsoft's NetMeeting. For more information about network collaboration programs, see "Communicating and Collaborating Over a LAN," later in this chapter.

Falling somewhere between a text-based document and a database, the workbook files that contain Microsoft Excel spreadsheets can be opened simultaneously by multiple network users. Because spreadsheet information is, by definition, stored in discrete units (that is, cells), it is possible for the application to maintain a current display on multiple computers with the same file open.

By default, when two or more computers open the same Excel workbook file, the application maintains a history of the changes made to the workbook, including previous values of individual cells and who made the changes. Not all of the standard Excel features are available when a workbook is being shared, but the application provides sufficient capabilities for multiple users to edit the same document simultaneously.

To do this, one user opens the file and selects Share Workbook from the Tools menu. This displays a dialog box that enables the user to activate the sharing feature and view a list of the users that have the file open. On the Advanced page (see Figure 9-3), you can configure the behavior of the Change History feature and specify how conflicts between different users' edits should be resolved.

When users open the database, they must supply a user name and password, and the access they are granted is dependent on the permissions they are assigned by the administrator. You can use this feature to designate certain users as the maintainers of all or part of the database by granting them the ability to make changes, while other users can access the data without modifying it. The user and group accounts in Microsoft Access are independent of the operating system, and can be used on a workgroup-based network, as well as in a domain.

As shown in the preceding sections, the administrator of a small business network can store company information and provide it to users in several different ways. The Word, Excel, and Access applications in the Microsoft Office suite illustrate the gradated amount of sharability available in network applications, and you can use them singly or in combination to build an information system for your users.

The criteria you should use to select an application format for your data include the following:

A business will very likely have data of various types with different accessibility requirements. For example, financial information maintained by a bookkeeper in a spreadsheet will have to be viewed by the company's principals, but kept hidden from other employees and outsiders. A password-protected spreadsheet is a good idea here, with only the bookkeeper and perhaps selected others being permitted to modify the data. The change history feature provided by Excel (as well as frequent backups) is good for protecting the bookkeeper's carefully-maintained data from the possible blunders of well-meaning executives. For sensitive information like this, the spreadsheet file can be stored on the bookkeeper's PC, with only the company executives having access to the share and the password to the spreadsheet files.

Less sensitive information, like sales literature and product information, can be made available to everyone, but must also be protected against modification or deletion, except by designated individuals. Password-protected Word files will serve for this purpose, but publishing the information on an intranet web server (in either HTML or Word format) is even better protection against data loss, since users cannot modify the original files on the server at all.

A database provides the greatest amount of information sharing and access control flexibility, but also requires the greatest amount of planning, development, and maintenance. For a two- or three-person office, this effort probably is not necessary, but slightly larger businesses may benefit from a database application configured to provide order entry or inventory tracking functions, for example.

In Chapter 12, E-mail Systems, you will learn how you can use e-mail for internal network messaging as well as Internet communications. However, there are other ways in which you can take advantage of your LAN to provide immediate communications between network users. Windows 98 includes a tool called WinPopup that you can use to send brief messages to other network users and an application called NetMeeting that can establish extended communication sessions with other users (on the LAN or the Internet) using text messages, a whiteboard, voice, or video. NetMeeting also provides true application collaboration by enabling multiple users to edit the same document using only one copy of the application.

WinPopup is installed with Windows 98, in the form of a single executable called Winpopup.exe in the C:\Windows directory (by default). However, the installation program creates no shortcuts to the program, either in the Start Menu or on the desktop. You can launch the program by simply typing winpopup into the Start Menu's Run dialog box, but if you intend to use the tool regularly, you should create a shortcut for it and place it in the Startup group for every machine on your network.

When you place a WinPopup shortcut in the Startup group, it is a good idea to configure it to run minimized, so that it is out of the way once the system starts. You do this by selecting Minimized in the Run field on the Shortcut page of the shortcut's Properties dialog box.

Once WinPopup is running, you create a message by clicking the Send button and specifying the name of a computer, user, or workgroup in the Send Message dialog box, as shown in Figure 9-5. The program uses the standard NetBIOS names to identify computers and workgroups, and the names used to log on to Windows networking to identify users. Sending a message to a workgroup causes the same message to appear on every computer in that workgroup. Computer and workgroup names are valid at any time, but if the same user is logged on to two machines, messages addressed to that name will not be delivered. After specifying a destination, you type your message in the field provided and click the OK button to send it.

On the receiving system, incoming messages appear on the main WinPopup screen. Selecting Options from the Messages menu enables you to specify how the program should behave when a message arrives. You can configure the program to play a sound and/or pop up the dialog box to notify the user of an incoming message. This way, you can leave the program minimized in the toolbar and be ready to receive messages at any time.

As multiple messages arrive at a system, they are stored in separate WinPopup screens that you can cycle through using the Previous and Next buttons on the toolbar, and remove from the display using the Delete button. When you click the Send button while a message is displayed, the Send Message dialog box automatically inserts the name of the sender in the address field, so that you can easily respond to the message.

WinPopup is a simple program that provides only the most basic messaging capabilities. It's not a convenient tool for extended discussions, and you can't save incoming messages for later use. The NetMeeting application included with Windows 98 (and Internet Explorer versions 4 and higher) provides much more comprehensive communications capabilities.

NetMeeting is a conferencing program that enables you to communicate with other users on the network is several different ways, including the following:

Chat

Audio

Video

Whiteboard

Application Sharing

File Transfers

NetMeeting is designed and marketed as an Internet audio and video conferencing solution, and as such it is only marginally successful when used with the dial-up Internet connections that are standard on most computers. However, on an Ethernet LAN, the 10 Mbps of bandwidth provide excellent performance, making NetMeeting a useful communications tool.

When you install NetMeeting and run it for the first time, the program calibrates itself to set the proper audio levels, and then enables you to connect to another user on the network, using the main dialog box shown in Figure 9-6. To connect to another workstation on the LAN, you can specify its NetBIOS name or its IP address. You can also create speed dial entries containing the addresses of the systems you communicate with regularly.

When used on the Internet, NetMeeting uses the services of an online directory containing users and their addresses. The NetMeeting client connects to a directory server and displays a list of the connected users, enabling you to select one for a conference. This is a good way to meet new people, but on a LAN a directory server is not necessary. As long as you know the NetBIOS names or IP addresses of the computers on the network, you can connect to them directly.

NetMeeting supports certain types of conferencing between more than two users at a time. While only two users can participate in an audio/video conference, the other types of communication support larger groups.

NetMeeting takes document sharing to another level by enabling multiple users to work in an application at the same time. Instead of each workstation running its own individual copy of the application and opening the same document on a shared drive, one system runs the application and opens the document. Then, by sharing the application with another workstation connected using NetMeeting, both users can edit the same copy of the document. Only one user can have control over the document at a time, but both can see the changes immediately as they are made. The advantages to this method are that only one computer has to be running the application, and that the users can discuss their changes in an audio/video conference as they are working.

To share an application, you establish a NetMeeting connection in the normal manner. Then one user selects the Share Program button to display the Sharing dialog box shown in Figure 9-7. This window contains a list of the programs that are currently running on the computer. By selecting one or more applications and clicking the Share button, you open a new window on the other user’s monitor that contains the screens currently displayed by the shared applications. You can then specify whether the connected user is allowed to take control of the active application.

By default, when another user attempts to take control, a confirmation dialog box appears on the sharer’s screen before the program passes control. If the sharer fills the Automatically Accept Requests for Control checkbox, a connected user can take control of a shared application at any time. The Do Not Disturb checkbox prevents other users from requesting control. The user that shared the applications can regain control simply by clicking in the application window.

There are several advantages to this type of application sharing. The most obvious one is that users can collaborate on a document without leaving their desks. However, for purposes of training and technical support, this arrangement enables you to demonstrate how to use an application or other tool without having to go to a user’s desk, switch seats, or reach over their shoulders to type.

In addition to sharing individual applications, NetMeeting also has Remote Desktop Sharing (RDS), which enables you to access a workstation's entire desktop from a remote system. You can use this feature to access your machine from another workstation, either on the network or connected over the Internet.

NetMeeting uses a secured connection for RDS, so you must configure a system to support Remote Desktop Sharing before you can access it from another machine. To do this, you select Remote Desktop Sharing from the Tools menu and specify the password that you will use to establish the connection. Once it is configured, Remote Desktop Sharing can only be activated when NetMeeting is not running. The computer lies dormant, waiting for an incoming connection from another NetMeeting client.

When you connect to the system from another workstation (supplying the appropriate password), a new window opens that contains the entire desktop of the other machine. You can then launch programs and use them, just as if you were working on the host computer.

The Outlook 97 program included with Microsoft Office is an e-mail client that supports both internal and Internet e-mail. The application is also a personal information manager (PIM) that you can use to maintain a calendar of appointments, an address book, to do lists, and a journal of activities and communications. When you use Outlook 97 in a network environment, you can also use the program to schedule meetings and other activities for your users. This feature is called group scheduling, and it is provided by a number of other software packages similar to Outlook 97.

In a busy office of almost any size, getting a group of people together at a time convenient for everyone can be difficult. Often, many phone calls or e-mails are needed to negotiate the time for a single meeting. When all of the users on your network maintain an appointment schedule using Outlook 97, you can arrange a time for a meeting by checking the schedules of the other users to see when they are busy.

To use group scheduling on your network with Outlook 97, you must install a Microsoft Mail post office on one of your workstations and create an e-mail account for each of your users in that post office. The post office will function as a server that stores the scheduling information for everyone on the network. When you set up Outlook 97 for each of your users, you must add the Microsoft Mail service and configure it to log on to the post office with the appropriate user name and password.

At regular intervals, each Outlook installation updates the scheduling information for the user that is stored on the server. You can specify the update interval and the amount of calendar information stored on the server by selecting Advanced Scheduling on the Calendar page of Outlook's Options dialog box shown in Figure 9-8.

Any user on the network can schedule a meeting using Outlook 97 by selecting Plan a Meeting from the Calendar menu or the toolbar, which displays the dialog box shown in Figure 9-9. The Invite Others button enables you to select the Microsoft Mail post office accounts of the people whose attendance at the meeting you want to request.

As each person is added to the All Attendees list, the times of their scheduled appointments are displayed in the calendar grid as busy or out of the office. You can then look through the calendar to find a time when everyone is available, or use the AutoPick button to have the program automatically find an appropriate time.

Once you have scheduled the meeting, the Make Meeting button generates an message to be sent to each user's e-mail account. You can specify additional information in the message, such as the location of the meeting and the agenda. Each user, on receiving the message, responds by either accepting or declining the request. Accepting the meeting request causes the program to automatically add the appointment to the user's calendar.

Networking is not all business; there are many ways to have fun with your network, too. Many of the computer games produced today enable you to use a network connection to play against opponents on other computers. The original network games were proprietary, such as Snipes, a simple maze game included in early versions of Novell NetWare that compares to today's computer games as Pong does to the latest arcade games. Snipes used the NetWare IPX protocols for network communications, and for some time afterward, IPX remained the standard for network gaming.

In most games that support networking, one player hosts the game and functions as a server to which the other players connect. The player operating the server sets the rules for the game and other parameters. It is usually necessary for the players to know the IP address of the server in order to connect to it.

If you find that game performance is disappointing over relatively low-speed Internet connections (especially with graphic-intensive action games), you will be pleasantly surprised when you set them up on your internal LAN. 10 Mbps of bandwidth provides excellent reaction times. Not surprisingly, though, many of these games can monopolize a lot of your network's bandwidth, and on a business network this can have a negative effect on the performance of other systems. In most cases, network game play should be an after-hours activity only.