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October 19, 2000

Note This document is based on the original spoken WebCast transcript. It has been edited for clarity.

Heidi Moeller: Hello, and welcome to the Microsoft^® Support WebCast program. We'd like to thank all of you for joining us today. Our topic will be "Home Networking in Microsoft Windows^® Millennium Edition," and our presenters will be Matt Hendrix and Mike Andriacola.

I'm Heidi Moeller, and I'll be your host for today's session. We'll start this session with a presentation, and follow that up with a Q&A period when the presentation is finished. We only answer questions submitted for the Support WebCast during the live broadcast.

Also, the Q&A session is intended to encourage further discussion of the topic at hand. However, one-on-one product support issues are outside of the scope of what we're able to cover within a Support WebCast program. If you do need one-on-one product support, please submit an incident on the Web, or call Microsoft Product Support Services to speak with a Support Professional.

With all that aside, let me go ahead and introduce Mike and Matt. Matt will be doing the presentation, and Mike will be joining for the Q&A part. Matt Hendrix joined Microsoft in April 1999 as a Support Professional for the MPS Desktop Internet/Networking group. At this time, he is a Partner Tech Lead for MPSD. Matt is a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) in both Microsoft Windows^® 98 and Networking Essentials.

Mike Andriacola joined Microsoft in October 1999 as a Support Professional in the MPS Desktop Internet/Networking group as well. At this time, he's also a Partner Tech Lead for MPS. Like Matt, he has an MCP, but is also a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and has Networking Plus certifications.

Thanks so much for joining us today. Let's go ahead and get started.

Matt Hendrix: Hello. Today, we will be talking about the Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me) Home Networking Wizard. The Home Networking Wizard is a user-friendly tool to configure a TCP/IP home network. The wizard also allows you to set up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), which allows you to share an Internet connection with other computers on your home network.

In addition to helping you configure your home network, the wizard is also portable. The wizard will prompt the customer to make a setup disk, which provides the same automated configuration for Windows^® 95, Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition computers on the home network.

The table that you see on slide 3 demonstrates the differences between the home networking options available in Windows 9x compared to those available in Windows Me. As you can see from the diagram, previous versions of Windows did not offer a wizard to configure ICS, or the option to enable autodial for the Internet Connection Sharing feature. You can also create the Home Networking Setup disk within the Windows Millennium Edition Home Networking Wizard.

Please take a look at slide 4, for a summary of what we will cover in this presentation. We will discuss how to start the Home Networking Wizard, Internet connection, Internet Connection Sharing, establishing an Internet connection, computer and workgroup names, sharing of files and printers, creating a Home Networking Setup disk, completing the Home Networking Wizard, the setup options, and using the Home Networking Setup disk.

You can launch the Home Networking Wizard by using one of three options: One, by clicking the shortcut located in My Network Places; two, by using the shortcut found on the Communications menu located in Accessories on the Start menu; or three, typing netcon.exe at a run line. Please note that you must have a working network adapter installed in the computer before starting the Home Networking Wizard.

On slide 5, let's take a look a screen shot of the Home Networking Wizard. To proceed past the Welcome to the Home Networking Wizard page, click Next, and the Internet Connection page appears. You can see a screen shot of it on slide 6. This interface allows you to specify the type of connection to the Internet you are using. The first option is Yes, this computer uses the following and the first option below it is A connection to another computer on my home network that provides direct access to my Internet service provider (ISP). That means that this computer does not have a direct connection to the Internet. It uses a connection supplied by the host machine on the network.

The second option under Yes, this computer uses the following is A direct connection to my ISP using the following device. This option is selected if the machine being set up is going to be used as the host on the network. It lets you specify the adapter used for the Internet connection. Below this option is a drop-down list of devices. Dial-up adapters is one of the choices on that list. When you choose a device from this list, it is recorded in the registry.

The last option on this page is No, this computer does not use the Internet, which is pretty self-explanatory. It means that there is no connection to the Internet.

If you check the second option under Yes, this computer uses the following, and click Next, the Internet Connection Sharing page will come up. You can see a screen shot of that on slide 7. There are only two options to choose from: Yes and No. If you select Yes, you'll have to specify the appropriate network adapter that connects the computer to your home network. The adapter that connects the computer to a home network for Internet Connection Sharing must be a network adapter. Dial-up adapters cannot be used in this scenario.

If Internet Connection Sharing is enabled and the connection to the Internet is through dial-up, then establishing Internet connection is the next step in the wizard. This page is shown on slide 8. It allows the user to configure the connection to dial automatically. This option will also allow the other computers on the home network to initiate the dial-up connection remotely. After the Internet configuration is set up and properly configured , the computer and workgroup name for the home network must be specified.

Let's take a look at slide 9, and discuss the computer and workgroup names. The current computer name is displayed by default, but can be changed on this page. The recommended workgroup name is MSHOME. The computer and workgroup names that are configured are recorded in the registry after the wizard has been completed, and the computer name must be unique.

The next page of the wizard, on slide 10, is Share files and printers. In this step, the My Documents and My Shared Documents folders, and any locally installed printers can be shared. The My Shared Documents folder is located in Windows\All\Users\Documents, and is shared through the wizard. A shortcut is created to the folder within My Network Places after the wizard is completed.

Please note that printers that have the word "Fax" in their port names are not included in this interface. This is because many fax printer drivers do not function properly when shared on the network. This may also affect multi-function devices as well. These types of printers or devices can be shared manually in the Port folder.

Let's move on to slide 11. After the file and printer shares are configured, the Home Networking Setup disk is ready to be created. The wizard provides you with the opportunity to create a disk to configure other computers in the home network. This disk contains a portable version of the Home Networking Wizard that can be used on Windows 95 and Windows 98 computers. You will need one formatted floppy to create the setup disk.

When the wizard is completed, you are prompted to remove the setup disk and informed that a restart may be required. This depends on what components are installed during the wizard and what components are already installed.

Each time the Home Networking Wizard runs, the wizard checks a registry key, which indicates if the wizard has been previously run. The setup disk created during the Home Networking Wizard is used to configure to other computers on the home network. Other Windows Millennium Edition computers do not need to be configured in this way. The wizard is already available to run locally.

After the setup disk is run on the computer, as I said, it does recognize that it has been previously launched from a shortcut on the Communications menu under Accessories or the Start menu.

There are four files that the Home Networking Setup disk contains: Setup.exe, which also contains Netcon.exe; Icsapi32.dll, which is the API for Internet Connection Sharing; Icsrmt.dll, which contains the remote ICS APIs; and Netcon16.dll, which interfaces with external 16-bit code such as SetupX.dll (This file is responsible for installing needed network components, for example, TCP/IP and file printer sharing); Nconn32.dll, which provides the network card detection and thunking to Nconn16.dll.

Please take a look at slide 12. After you complete the Home Network Wizard, you are prompted to remove the setup disk from the floppy drive. As stated previously, you may be required to restart the computer depending on which components have been selected during the wizard.

On slide 13, you'll see the setup options. Each time the Home Networking Wizard runs, it will make an update to the registry key, and it will check this key any time that you go back into the Home Networking Wizard.

The setup disk created during the Home Networking Wizard is used to configure the other computers on the home network. Other Windows Millennium Edition computers do not need to be configured in this way.

Here are some important points for you to remember. The Home Networking Wizard can be used to configure Windows Me for communication on a typical home network. Internet Connection Sharing settings are configured using the Home Networking Wizard. The Home Networking Wizard is portable. It can be used to configure Windows 95 and Windows 98 computers.

And now, we can go to the Q&A session with Heidi.

Heidi: Okay, excellent. It is time to move on to the Q&A portion of this Support WebCast. If some of the details in the PowerPoint^® slides were a little bit difficult to view within your browser, or you'd simply like to have a copy of the slides, be sure to download the file from our Web site. All of the information on upcoming Support WebCasts as well as archived sessions is on http://support.microsoft.com/webcasts/. On that page, you'll see information about all upcoming WebCasts. And if you look to the bottom of that page, you'll see a link to all past sessions. For all past sessions, we have on-demand streaming media, PowerPoint slides, and transcripts available.

Okay. With all of that aside, let's go ahead and move on to the questions.

The first question looks like it might be a little bit of a support issue, so if it is, certainly, let me know. My hope is that maybe it's something where there's a quick and easy answer.

The question is: My home networking disk won't run on Windows^® 2000. Should it?

Mike Andriacola: No. The Home Networking Wizard is only designed to run on the 9x platform.

Heidi: Okay. Next question: Not all computers in a home network are visible in Entire Network in My Network Places. But when searching for the computer, it becomes visible. I'm seeing this mentioned in several of the messages on the message board. Do you have any suggestions or comments about that?

Mike: That's actually by design. Any network with more than 15 shares will not show up in Entire Network. It will only show up when you connect to that share. The reason for that is Windows Millennium Edition uses a net crawl, so it will go out and search the entire network and start showing you every share. If you have more than 15 shares, it will take too long to do that.

Heidi: Okay. The next question is: Can ICS use static IP addresses?

Mike: Although ICS can use static IP addresses, it is not recommended. The reason it is not recommended is, that the DHCP process of ICS will actually go out and give out the IP addresses as it sees necessary. However, it is reasonable to use static IP addresses if needed.

Heidi: Okay. Next question: How many computers can you set up?

Mike: You can set up five on a good home network in general, but probably no more than ten. If you use ICS, you can have no more than four computers and the host computer on each subnet.

Heidi: Okay, moving on to the next question: Are there any differences required for users who have DSL connections?

Mike: No. A DSL connection would work the same way as a basic LAN connection would.

Heidi: Okay. The next question, I think, is very similar to one that's been asked: How can I connect Windows NT^® Workstation to ICS?

Mike: Windows, NT Workstation does not connect to ICS at all, because the functionality is not there. Windows 2000 has its own version of ICS, but it only works with Windows 2000 machines.

Heidi: Okay. Next question: If I can't get ICS working after running the wizard, is there a troubleshooting document available that I can use to figure out what went wrong?

Mike: That's more along the lines of a support question. There is a wizard that will run you through some detection processes and assist you with troubleshooting the network in general.

Heidi: But do you know of any troubleshooting documents that we have posted on online support currently? Or do you have any suggestions for queries of the Knowledge Base (KB)?

Mike: I would query the KB on ICS and ICS setup. I do not know the document numbers right off hand. I know there are a number of documents on setting up ICS.

Heidi: Okay. The next question is: I use the Windows Millennium machine to connect to the ISP and connect a Windows 2000 system to it. I can't access the shared folder on my Windows 2000 system from Windows Millennium Edition. Does this come back to ICS sharing with Windows 2000 again?

Mike: Not really. That, most likely, has to do with user permissions on the Windows 2000 machine.

Heidi: Okay. So, this individual needs support for Windows 2000?

Mike: They need support for basic networking between Windows Millennium Edition and Windows 2000. ICS doesn't have a lot of responsibility for connecting from one machine to another machine. That's just the regular networking TCP/IP stack. What is most likely occurring is that the person logging on to the Windows Me machine does not have permission on the Windows 2000 machine.

Heidi: The next question in line is:. When setting up wireless networking between Windows Millennium Edition and Windows 95, my ISP settings in the dial-up networking (DUN) were corrupted. Is there a fix for this?

Mike: There is no fix that I know of.

Matt: Other than the customer going back through and setting up the dial-up connection over again, he can delete the current connection that's in there. And then, once again, he can either run the ISP software or go in and manually create a new connectoid, and see if that doesn't resolve the issue.

The next question is: Does Windows Millennium Edition have firewall options to the Internet through dial-up networking or DSL?

Mike: For Windows Millennium Edition, to dial you can use ICS, which utilizes network address translation, and is the closest thing to a firewall you're going to get with using Windows Millennium Edition. However, through a DSL, I would suggest using either a third-party firewall or a hardware firewall.

Heidi: Okay. Before we get to the next question, I do want to encourage all of you to submit some feedback to us. We sincerely appreciate your comments regarding the program overall, any comments you have about today's topic, or suggestions for topics you'd like to see in the future. You can send feedback to the alias, feedback@microsoft.com. If you do use that alias, be sure to include "Support WebCast" in the subject line.

Okay, moving on to the next question, with regards to the use of a proxy server: If the computer that has the direct connection to the Internet is running a proxy server, is there anything else special you have to do?

Mike: If it's running a proxy server, then you need to have the proxy client installed on the client computers. However, you will not be using ICS in that particular instance. You will go through the proxy server instead.

Heidi: Okay. Next question: I have to use dial-up for some accounts I access over the Web, but principally, I use DSL. Can Windows Millennium Edition be set up to utilize two different connections simultaneously?

Mike: That's an excellent question. It can be done.

Heidi: It can be done, but as far as how to do it, we're not able to get into that kind of depth during the broadcast here.

The next question is: How many computers are allowed to connect at one time?

Mike: I assume that you mean connect using ICS. There is no hard and fast rule or number. We suggest no more than five computers on the Internet at any one time. The reason for that is a bandwidth issue. You could technically go over that, but it would degrade the signals.

Heidi: Okay. The next question is: Should I have to run NetBUI in order to have my Windows Millennium Edition and Windows 2000 clients communicate, or will TCP/IP work just as well?

Mike: TCP/IP should actually work better. NetBUI can be used, but it isn't necessary.

Heidi: Okay, excellent. The next question is: Can I have more than one subnet?

Mike: Yes. Unlike Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition can have two subnets using ICS.

Heidi: Okay, excellent. The next question is: Does home networking use auto IP configuration?

Mike: Windows Millennium Edition, as well as the home networking portion of it, in general, does use auto IP configuration both with ICS and without ICS.

Heidi: Okay. What are the major areas of problems when setting up a home network with Windows Millennium Edition?

Mike: There were some initial issues with individual NIC cards, and the biggest issues that we see right now are with network card drivers.

Heidi: Okay, next in line: How would you recommend removing the Windows Millennium Edition networking and ICS so that you can have a clean install? I'm assuming they mean how can you remove those components and reinstall them based on the question about the corruption. Is there a way to remove specific components from Windows Millennium Edition and reinstall them, or would you have to reinstall Windows Millennium Edition completely?

Mike: It would really depend on where the corruption happened. You can right-click Network Neighborhood and select Properties. You can remove the individual components there, for example, TCP/IP or the Internet Connection Sharing and the logon for Microsoft Networks. You can also remove the individual connectoids to DUN by going in to dial-up networking and removing the individual dial-up adapters that you have. And then, you can remove DUN by following these steps: On the Start menu, point to Settings; click Control Panel; double-click Add/Remove Programs; click the Windows Setup tab; and then clear the DUN checkbox.

Heidi: Okay. Are there any issues with running the ICS wizard twice in a row?

Mike: No. As a matter of fact, sometimes running the ICS wizard twice corrects problems that were evident when it didn't work correctly the first time.

Heidi: What issues should I consider when using firewall software such as Zone Alarm?

Mike: When running Zone Alarm, the biggest issue that we see is that you might want to run something like NetMeeting^®. Zone Alarm uses the Network Address Translation (NAT) protocol, which does not permit all ports to be opened. What sometimes happens is, your connection will work going out, but the other party cannot come in, which is the basic function of a firewall. You'd have to have a product that would allow you to open ports to allow for that type of participation from the other person.

Heidi: Okay, terrific. Next question: When I take my work laptop home, it doesn't recognize the home network. Should it be able to see my home network as well?

Mike: It should, in Windows Millennium Edition, very easily be able to see your home networking. Windows Millennium Edition does not hold on to leases the same way that Windows 98 does. When you disconnect your media from a Windows Millennium Edition machine, it should recognize that the media has been disconnected and then release your IP address. When you get home, when you plug it in, as long as your home network is not set up with static IP addresses, it should either set the automatic IP address, or if you have ICS, it should get an IP address from the DHCP server in ICS.

Heidi: Okay. Next in line: Does Windows Millennium Edition support wireless home networking?

Mike: Yes. The type of networking is not really determined so much by Windows Millennium Edition. As long as the drivers for the NIC cards are available, then Windows Millennium Edition will support any type of cabling, be it hard-wired or wireless.

Heidi: Okay. Is there a hardware compatibility list for things like NICs for Windows Millennium Edition?

Mike: Yes. The same hardware compatibility list that is used for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000 also shows Windows Millennium Edition at this point.

Heidi: Okay so, there's one Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) that covers all of those products?

Mike: Right. When you go to the list, which is at http://www.microsoft.com/hcl/, it will tell you the product and then, tell you what operating systems that works on.

Heidi: Okay. With that question answered, we've cleared the queue of all the questions that were submitted during today's broadcast. I want to thank all of you for attending. I do hope you found the contents and the Q&A valuable.

Once again, if you do have a few moments, we certainly appreciate any feedback you have for us. We hope that you have a chance to join us again in the near future. And one last reminder, if you missed part of the content or would like to review it, get the PowerPoint slides, or read the transcript, please visit http://support.microsoft.com/webcasts/, and you'll be able to access all information regarding Support WebCasts.

Thanks so much for joining us today and have a great day. Thanks and good-bye.