TCP/IP protocol


NT4 includes full support for TCP/IP protocol, which on itself fills a thick book, so I am concentrating on this pages just on the basics. I also assume, that you have basic knowledge of TCP/IP addressing (if not, look at the Windows95 TCP/IP basics, the basics are valid for any system with TCP/IP protocol installed, regardless of CPU-typ and Operating system).
TCP/IP can be installed during the initial Network-setup/definition.
I am here assuming, that you have the Network already installed using NetBEUI, so to add now TCP/IP, enter in the “Control-Panel” the “Network“-Applet, select the tab:”Protocols” and then the “Add“-button:

Select from the list “TCP/IP Protocol“.
You will now be prompted:

Unless you have an NT-server (or a similar server) with a DHCP-database, you will use static assigned IP-addresses, so select : “No“.
Like always, NT needs to load some files from the CD-ROM:

Once the files have been load, do NOT yet try to configure the TCP/IP, you will get:

As requested, select first the “Close” button, so that NT can create the bindings between all the network-components, it will then prompt to define your TCP/IP address:

On an office-network, you need to get the IP-address assigned to you by your network administrator, at home, you can pick any IP-address, but I suggest to use the range of IP-address reserved for private networks: 192.168.x.x.
That’s it, a reboot is required:

Once you are up, you can test your network connection to other systems using the TCP/IP “ping” (for some background info, see : Testing Connection using TCP/IP):

In this example, I pinged myself (192.168.10.1), the connected notebook (192.168.10.2) and a non-existing 3rd system (192.168.10.3), for which no answer could come.

With the enforced user-security on Windows NT4, using the TCP/IP “ping” is a
very efficient method to determine, whether your network hardware (network-boards, cables, hubs, terminators) are ok or not, to define, whether you have to search for a Hardware problem or a software/setup/user-definition problem.

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