Trace the Route
You can troubleshoot your Internet connection with the Trace Route option. To use Trace Route, type 'tracert' followed by the Web address or IP, in the command line. Trace route traces every hop or router on the Internet, that a packet takes to reach its destination, giving the path and the amount of time taken between each hop. On a LAN, this can be used to diagnose problems in routing. Use it on the Internet to choose the nearest and fastest download sites. Fewer hops usually make for a better connection.
Network Statistics
Use the netstat utility to display protocol-based statistics, as well as all current inbound and outbound connections. It can be configured to display all connections, listening (open) ports and Ethernet statistics, as well as statistics on a protocol basis for your network connection. This would include statistics for TCP, UDP, ICMP and IP. This is a very useful command line utility that shows you all network activity on your machine.
Instant Messages across the LAN on Windows 98/Me
You can send a quick message across the LAN using a standard tool within Windows 98/Me. WinPopUp is a standard and easy-to-use messaging utility within Windows. To use WinPopUp, go to Start > Run and type in 'winpopup' in the Open field, and click OK. This will open the WinPopUp window. To send a message through WinPopUp, click on Send-this opens up the Send Message window. Type message in the Message text field, and the name of recipient-the computer name-and click on OK. Incoming messages are also displayed in the WinPopUp window.
NOTE: Keep in mind that for the recipient to be able to receive your message, he or she would also need to have WinPopUp running.
Utilise your Network
You can view the current percentage of network utilisation in the Windows XP task manager. Open the Task Manager by holding down [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Esc] and click on the 'Networking' tab. You will see a real-time graph of network utilisation.
Pathping
The Pathping command line utility in Windows 2000 gives you the best of ping and tracert, by sending out packets to each router on the way to a final destination over a period of time, and then computes the results based on the packets returned from each hop. Since Pathping shows the degree of packet loss at any given router or link, you can use it to determine which routers or links are causing network problems.
Type 'pathping /?' at the command prompt, to get additional information on syntax and options.
Send 2 all
You can use the 'net send' command line utility in Windows 2000, to send messages to another computer, or choose to send messages to everybody in the domain. Just typing in 'net send domain_name your message' should do it! For more syntax and options type in 'net send /?' at the command prompt.
Find your way
Windows 2000 has a very powerful command line tool, the route command that can be used to view, and even change the computer's routing table. This can affect the path that the network traffic takes to get from one place to the other. Be careful while editing the routing table though-a tiny mistake could play havoc with your network communications. You can find out the different options for usage by typing 'route /?' at the command line.
Network indicator
On a PC with a modem, you can see the little flashing computers in the System Tray, that show you that there is some data flowing. Now, in Windows 2000, you can see the same indicator for your local network. Right-click on 'My Network Places', click on the 'Local Area Connection' and then the 'Properties' button. At the bottom of the Properties window, you will see the 'Show Icon in taskbar' when connected option. Enable this and you will see the indicator.
Not through the Maze
If you are working on a large LAN, then getting into a shared network resource or folder, could mean making your way through the Network Neighbourhood, and the various workgroups. The entire list of computers across the network could take quite a while to show up. Instead, you can access a computer directly, by typing \\computer_name. You can also go to the Start > Run menu and type \\computer_name to access the computer. This is called the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) style network name.
File and Printer Sharing
To share resources across the network, you will need to enable the 'File and Printer sharing' option. If you do not intend to share any folders or printers from your computer, you can uninstall the same for Microsoft Networks. To do this, go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Network and click on 'File and Print Sharing'. Uncheck both the 'Give access to files' and 'Give access to printer' options. You will have to restart your computer for the changes to take place. Now no one will be able to access any files on your machine, as your computer will not appear on the network. You will, however, be able to access files and folders on other computers on the network as long as Client for Microsoft Networks is installed.
To enable file and printer sharing, in Windows 2000/XP, go to Control Panel > Network Connections > Local Area Network click on Properties. This will pop up a window, where you can change all the network settings. Here select the 'File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks' option. Similarly deselect it to turn off sharing. You can still use shared folders or devices such as drives and printers on other network machines.
Internet Connection Firewall
Windows XP comes with a firewall known as the Internet Connection Firewall or ICF. ICF provides only inbound protection-unlike a full-fledged firewall, it only monitors incoming data. To turn on ICF, go to the Control panel and select Network Connections. Right-click on the displayed connection, and click on Properties. Under the Advanced tab, you can enable ICF. While the default settings may work fine, you may want to tweak the settings. Click on the Settings button to access all the ICF features and settings. You can fine tune the network services under the Services tab, set logging details under Security Logging, and details about ICMP under the ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) tab.
ICF - Do you need it?
Keep in mind that ICF is for use only with a direct connection to the Internet, such as a dial-up or cable modem connection. This means that computers connected to the Internet through a LAN, or Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), or a hardware router doesn't need an ICF. Moreover, you may tend to have some trouble with networking other computers on a LAN, as File and Printer Sharing services are blocked. It would make sense to disable the ICF, if you intend to use File and Printer Sharing services that would be essential in a LAN environment. To disable the ICF, go to the Control Panel, and select the Network Connections. Open this and right-click on the desired connection, click on Properties and under the Advanced tab, disable ICF.
Faster Windows sharing
When you try to view the shared folders on a computer running Windows 98 or ME, from a PC running Windows 2000/XP, there may be a delay of up to 30 seconds. This is because Windows 2000/XP tries to determine if any 'Scheduled Tasks' are enabled on the other computer. You can fix this delay by deleting a Registry entry on the Windows 2000 machine-but only after backing up the Registry before making any edits.
Note: this tip requires expert level acquaintance with registry editing.
Go to Start > Run and type regedit to open the Registry Editor. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer
\NameSpace, and locate the sub-key that reads {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}.
First click on File > Export and save the selected branch as, say, restoreshare.reg in a folder. Once you have exported a copy of the key, right-click on this sub-key and click on Delete. This should fix the problem.
System monitor
System Monitor is a standard utility in Windows 98/ME. If it is not already installed, you can install it from Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs; here navigate to Windows Setup > System Tools > Details. Scroll down and select System Monitor.
Start System Monitor, click on the Add button and choose Microsoft Network Server from the category field. Choose the parameters that you want to track. This will be added to the chart. Use this to determine whether your system is slowing down due to shared resources. You may need to disconnect a user or un-share a resource to remedy it.
Permissions & Dollars
Windows 98 is not very secure when it comes to sharing files. However, there are some things you can do to prevent people from accessing your files. The simplest of all is to use passwords. When sharing a folder, you can specify two passwords, one that will allow a person to only read files, and the other that will also allow him or her to modify them. Secondly, you can share folders so that they are not visible on the network. When sharing a folder, if the share name ends with a dollar sign, it will not be visible in Network Neighborhood, but a person can access it by typing the full path to it (\\machinename\share$) in Windows Explorer. Thus, only the people who know that such a share exists can access it.
Access Control
Another security option in Windows 98 is to create user level shares. For this, your network must be controlled by a Windows NT/2000/2003 server as Domain Controller, with users and groups already defined on it. Right-click on Network Neighbourhood, click Properties, switch to the Access Control tab, and select 'User-level access control'. You must give the name of your Domain Controller server. All existing shares will be disabled. After rebooting, when you share a folder, you can add a list of users allowed to access the share, and also define what they are authorised to do with the files-read, write, delete, create files and folders, change file attributes, list files and change access control.
TCP/IP Configuration
TCP/IP Configuration can be accessed in Windows 9X/ME by going to Start > Run and typing in winipcfg in the open dialog box. This utility lets you view all your current TCP/IP settings in a single place. By clicking on More Info, additional information regarding the network can be viewed. If the IP address was dynamically allocated by a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server, then you can use the Release and Renew buttons to manage your allocatedIP address.
The information displayed on the screen is described below.
Adapter address
This is a hexadecimal address, also called the MAC address, unique to every network adapter. It is hard coded into the card by the manufacturer, and consists of six 8-bit numbers. However remember that modems do not have this address-this is restricted to network adapters-the number for a modem or dial up adapter is set to a meaningless default number.
IP address
This is the current IP networking address. Depending on whether the DHCP is used, this may be static or dynamically allotted. The static value is entered in the TCP/IP network configuration menu.
Subnet Mask
This is used to mask a portion of the IP address, to determine the subnet where the computer is located-within the internal network. All computers running TCP/IP must have the subnet mask defined.
Default Gateway
This is the IP address of the computer that provides the connection to a remote network. The gateway computer is the computer that TCP/IP will use to communicate and route data destined for computers on remote networks.
Clicking on it will display the following details:
DHCP Server
This entry indicates the IP address of the DHCP server. The DHCP server, when present, will dynamically assign an IP address to the machine upon connecting to the network. Clicking on the Release button will release the IP address, and the Renew button requests a new IP address from the DHCP server.
Primary and Secondary WINS Server
These settings specify the IP address of the Primary and Secondary WINS Server, if present. The WINS servers translate the NetBIOS names into the corresponding IP addresses.
Lease Obtained and Leased Expired
These values show when the current IP address was obtained and when it is due to expire. You can use the Release and Renew buttons to release and renew your current IP address. In any case, the DHCP client automatically attempts to renew the lease, when 50 per cent of the lease time has expired.
Ping-Pong
The Ping utility will let you determine whether a specific IP address is accessible. It works by sending a data packet to the specified address and waiting for the reply. Ping is a simple, yet very useful diagnostic tool.
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