Compiled by John J. Yacono;
Contributors-James Alan Miller, Marc Spiwak, Serdar Yegulalp
Click Here to see a
171KB bitmap image of artwork
which goes with this article, entitled:
All Done With Mirrors
- While Microsoft hasn't provided a fix for the Windows 95/NetWare
3.11 long-filename-support problem (Newstrends, March), we have
a short-term answer. We avoid using IPX over the dial-up connection
by putting the Gateway Service for NetWare setup on our NT RAS
server. It translates between TCP/IP (used over the dial-up) and
IPX/SPX (used by the NT server to talk to the NetWare 3.11 server
volumes). That prevents the timeout presented by Win95's client
IPX stack, and since NT is more robust at IPX, it handles the
3.11 correctly. The downside: The software gateway can only handle
a few RAS connections at a time.
- At the Microsoft Technical Editors conference this spring,
the company seemed ready to make good on its promise to "be
the Internet." Its biggest strengths may be ActiveX technology-delivering
richer Internet experiences through downloadable components (scroll
bars, buttons and so on) that will become part of interactive
Web pages-and FrontPage, which promises to make everyone a Webmaster
overnight. Still, few ISPs support the extensions necessary to
make either offering very useful.
- Incidentally, at the same gathering Microsoft treated us techies
to a token of their infection. A version of the Concept or DMV
virus -which was not detected by Norton AntiVirus for NT-found
its way into our labs via the TechEd CD-ROM. To rid yourself of
the scourge, acquire SCANPROT.DOT and its associated README.DOC
file from Microsoft at
http://www.microsoft.com/kb/softlib/mslfiles/wd1215.exe.
Also available on this CD-ROM as \DIST\WM\WMFILES\9607JUL\WD1215.EXE.
- Fred Langa, our Editorial Director, logged a curious Matrox
Millennium driver bug. It seems an older version can cinch a LapLink
95 remote-control host very tight. LapLink maker Traveling Software
blames the video driver's unusual handling of GDI calls. As a
workaround, you can use version 2.30 of the Millennium driver
(at
http://www.matrox.com/mgaweb/ftp_mw95.htm) as 16771230.zip
and 16772230.zip. With the new driver installed, right-click on
the Desktop and choose Properties. Click on MGA Settings, then
on Advanced. Uncheck PowerGDI Acceleration and click on OK twice.
- The Nuclear Macro Virus, a new strain of Word virus, is making
the rounds, and it's as dangerous as it sounds. Neither McAfee's
VirusScan nor Microsoft's SCAN.DOC or SCANPROT.DOT finds or completely
fixes this strain, but SCANPROT at least warns you if a document
has embedded macros. Start by installing SCANPROT.DOT, available
from
http://www.microsoft.com/kb/softlib/mslfiles/wd1215.exe
Also available on this CD-ROM as \DIST\WM\WMFILES\9607JUL\WD1215.EXE.
Check under Tools/Macros in Word for macros called AutoExec, AutoOpen,
DropSuriv, FileExit, FilePrint, FilePrintDefault, FileSaveAs,
InsertPayload and Payload. Delete these, leaving AutoExit, FileOpen,
InstVer and ShellOpen-the macros for SCANPROT.DOT-intact. Exit
and re-enter Word, and follow the instructions in README.DOC.
- Fans of Norton pcAnywhere32 will be happy to hear Symantec
has produced a service release for the program. The patches boost
the performance of the mouse, keyboard and 16-bit apps. The readme
file is chock-full of tips like "To enable remote file transfer
support with NetWare volumes, your Novell NetWare password should
be the same as your Windows NT password." Actually, Symantec
has not tested and does not support it under NT 4.0.
- Sure, all this talk about the sealed PC and the IEEE 1394
bus from Microsoft sounds good, but there's something familiar
about all this. Wasn't there some PC company named after a fruit
that trod this very same path with SCSI?
If you've ever had the urge to defrag an NT FAT partition, here's
how. Run SAVELONGNAMES.EXE (offered by Fenestra Software in Phoenix)
from the console under NT and redirect the output to a file named
LONG.BAT. Then reboot to DOS and run the Norton Utilities (8.0)
Speedisk. Boot back into NT and run LONG.BAT from the console.
Then run CHKDSK/F under NT to remove any illegal long-filename
entries.
Copyright © 1996 CMP Media Inc.