From: Jonathan Berry (jberry_at_islandnet.com)
Date: Tue Jul 02 2002 - 20:03:04 EDT
Thanks for the tips, Michael. Next time I'm at that network
with the TP 600E I'll try removing NetBEUI to see if it works
with TCP/IP properly bound.
Neither Win2K computer had ever had NetBeui installed in it.
One of the computers had run happily with a Win95 network under
IPX/SPX. I guess I disabled file sharing under TCP/IP for
exactly the reason you suggest. But I eventually removed
(uninstalled, not just unchecked) all other protocols etc until
each computer had just Client, Sharing, and TCP/IP. The
computers on the Win2K obviously could see each other
sporadically--a lot depended on which computer had rebooted
most recently--but I didn't have network connection (all I got
was Microsoft's misleading error messages) until NetBEUI was
added.
Looking at the bindings now (in Win2K they are under
> Network and Dialup Connections
> Advanced
> Advanced settings
> Adaptors and bindings )
File Sharing is bound both to NetBEUI and TCP/IP. I know
that I never consciously turned on the TCP/IP binding, because
I did not know (or had long forgotten) that the binding setting
was there!
So this doesn't make sense to my poor little brain. But like so
much in the world of computers, one supposes it is just
something that you experience and remember.
When debugging Win95 networks, they seemed to fail a lot
because they had too many protocols (etc) installed. The same
minimalistic tendencies I inherited from those times did me no
good on the Win2K network. I should have forgotten that and
just slapped in extra protocols until the darned thing worked.
Instead I was turning on and off which computer was the
"browser", changing the network speeds, and all sorts of other
hubris.
SMC's documentation effectively hides the fact that the item can
function as a network hub. In both the quick guide and the
complete guide (which doesn't come in the box, but can be found
on the internet), it doesn't go much beyond internet connection
sharing and printer sharing. I agree that, if you don't need
NetBEUI, they don't need to mention it. But they don't mention
LAN networking at all.
In article <OLEFLDGJHOKBJNECCGNJIECPECAA.Mike_at_Geary.com>,
"Michael Geary" <Mike_at_Geary.com> wrote:
>> I had a similar problem when installing a Win2K network
>> on the cold side of an SMC7004ABR Barricade router. I
>> had to install NetBeui, in addition to TCP/IP. Zero
>> documentation about this from SMC. The person who
>> gave me the NetBeui hint, suggested that perhaps SMC
>> didn't want to mention NetBeui because Microsoft may
>> no longer be supporting NetBeui, even though it was
>> their idea in the first place.
>
>More likely, SMC didn't mention NetBEUI because it just doesn't have
>anything to do with their router. They probably don't say a lot about
>AppleTalk, IPX/SPX, or other unrelated protocols either. Their business is
>routing IP packets, and their router isn't aware of other protocols you
>might be running on your LAN.
>
>Most Windows 2000 networks don't use NetBEUI--it isn't installed on any
>Windows 2000 machine by default, only TCP/IP. Having a router doesn't mean
>you need to start using NetBEUI either--I've set up a number of networks
>with that same SMC unit (or its wireless sibling) and various other routers,
>all using TCP/IP only.
>
>I suspect that the reason both you and Richard had to install NetBEUI was
>simply that a computer you wanted to connect to on your LAN had its file
>sharing bound only to NetBEUI and not to TCP/IP. Disconnecting file sharing
>from TCP/IP is a trick people often use for security when they don't have a
>router or firewall--for example, it's described at www.grc.com.
>
>So, an alternative to installing NetBEUI would have been to go into the
>network settings on the other computer--the one you couldn't connect to--and
>install TCP/IP if it wasn't there, or turn back on the binding that allows
>file sharing over TCP/IP.
>
>-Mike
>
-- cheers Jonathan Berry http://www.islandnet.com/~jberry/ to know more than you want
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