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Windows and TCP/IP for Internet Access

WINDOWS 95 (includes TCP/IP stack)

Windows 95 includes a TCP/IP stack and accompanying WINSOCK.DLL and WSOCK32.DLL. Windows 95 includes support for a direct network connection using a network interface card. It also includes support for a dial-up PPP or SLIP connection to an Internet service provider. For the most part, the Windows Help system will walk you through the necessary installation and configuration procedures. Only the SLIP installation presents some difficulties, mostly for those who do not have Windows 95 on CD-ROM.

Windows 95 includes only minimally useful Winsock-compliant clients. A wide variety of 32-bit Winsock-compliant clients are available on the Internet, as described elsewhere in this tutorial.

Direct Network Connection

Windows 95 installs itself for network use and should recognize most network cards. The TCP/IP network protocol is not included in the default installation. You can search the term "TCP/IP" in Windows Help to find the topic "Installing a Network Protocol." This will lead you to the Network properties control panel, which you can use to add the TCP/IP protocol to your installation. (Of course you can open Network properties directly from Control Panel.) Select Microsoft TCP/IP as the protocol to be added. Once it is added to your list of installed protocols, you can set properties for the protocol, which include your IP address, nameserver addresses, and gateway addresses.

If you are upgrading to Windows 95 from Windows 3.x, and if Windows 95 does support your particular network card, you will no longer need to load any real-mode DOS-based drivers from your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files. For example, if you were previously running Windows 3.x and using Trumpet Winsock over a packet driver, you can delete the lines in your AUTOEXEC.BAT that installed the packet driver and the virtual packet driver WINPKT.COM. You can also remove from your DOS path statement the directory containing your Trumpet Winsock files. Usually under Windows 95 you will not need any path statement at all. In fact, you probably won't need a CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

PPP

Windows 95 dial-up networking supports PPP (point-to-point protocol), which is one means of using TCP/IP and other network protocols over a serial connection. The Windows 95 Help system walks you through the installation and setup.

1. Search Windows Help for the term "dial-up"
2. Select the topic "Connecting to the Internet"
3. Select the button labeled "How to connect to the Internet using Dial-Up Networking"
4. Windows Help will walk you through seven steps that install and configure the necessary hardware and software. Buttons in the various Help windows will launch any control panels that you need to set up your system.

SLIP

Serial Line Internet Protocol, usually referred to as SLIP, was once the most common means of running TCP/IP over a serial connection because it is relatively easy and cheap to administer. If your Internet service provider does not support PPP, then you will have to install Windows 95 SLIP. Unfortunately, Microsoft made the SLIP installation process somewhat confusing and difficult.

To install SLIP support in Windows 95:

1. Follow the procedure outlined above for PPP until you reach Step 6 in the Windows help system.
2. When you reach Step 6, Windows Help is less than helpful. While Help does point out that SLIP support can be installed from the Windows 95 CD-ROM, Help does not provide a button to do this. Help also states that SLIP support is available in the Windows 95 Resource Kit, which turns out not to be the case.
   • CD-ROM version
     1. Use Find on the Start button to search for SLIP on the Windows 95 CD-ROM.
     2. Read the text files that you find to learn that you need to look in the CD-ROM folder ADMIN\APPTOOLS\DSCRIPT to find the SLIP program files. Once you have discovered this secret, you can install SLIP support. The SLIP installation process also installs a Dial-Up Scripting Tool that enables you to automate your log-on procedures by writing a script and attaching it to your dial-up connections.
     3. In Control Panel:
        1. Launch Add/Remove Programs
        2. Select the Windows Setup tab
        3. Click the Have disk button
        4. Browse the Windows 95 CD-ROM and select the ADMIN\APPTOOLS\DSCRIPT folder
        5. Select the RNAPLUS.INF file (the only one displayed)
        6. Click OK to install SLIP support
     4. Once SLIP support is installed you can select it as the protocol to use when configuring a dial-up connection.
   • Diskette version
     Microsoft did not include SLIP support in the diskette version of the Windows 95 upgrade, though the files require less than 100 KB of disk space. Owners of the diskette version can obtain SLIP support in at least two ways:
     1. Ask a friend with the CD-ROM version to copy the ADMIN\APPTOOLS\DSCRIPT folder to a diskette. Then use Add/Remove Programs as outlined above for the CD-ROM version. This is the method I used to install SLIP support on my laptop.
        OR
     2. Obtain a copy of DSCRIPT.EXE from the Microsoft World Wide Web pages. DSCRIPT.EXE is a self-extracting archive containing the files included in the CD-ROM's ADMIN\APPTOOLS\DSCRIPT folder. Unfortunately, the location of the file is much less than obvious if you start at the Windows 95 home page. Finally I found the DSCRIPT files from the Windows 95 CD-ROM Extras page under Administration Tools.

Additional Information

Additional information about Windows 95 is widely available on the World Wide Web. Some places to start are listed on my Windows 95 Information Sources page. The Windows95.com page is especially attractive and includes links to information on networking.

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Revised: December 28, 1999
Harry_M_Kriz , [hmkriz@vt.edu]