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3Com 3+ Open Connection For NetWare
DocumentID: 659199
Revision Date: 29-Feb-96 8:29:48 PM

The information in this document applies to:
WordPerfect® 5.1 for DOS

Problem

Solutions: FYI:
3Com's 3+Open Connection For NetWare
The 3Com Corporation has released a product that can turn any 3+Open workstation into a workstation that is both a 3+Open workstation and a Novell NetWare workstation. It is currently installed in the Network Lab and in the Problem Resolution group's network room.

Setup
The setup is simple. The workstation is booted up and logged into the 3+Open server. You must then switch to A: drive and run IPXSETUP. IPXSETUP requires that you have a copy of Novell's SHGEN diskette, and will ask for it when needed. The installation is straight forward and menu driven.

The program to access NetWare is a batch file NWLOAD. NWLOAD runs a modified IPX, then a modified version of NET3. These modified programs are assumed to be flawless, but keep in mind that they may be suspect if strange problems are encountered while running a WPCorp product with this setup.

After logging on to a NetWare server, 3Com gives drive N: and above to NetWare and leaves all drive pointers M: and below pointing to the 3+Open server or local drives. This is default and can be changed with the /Lastdriv=X: parameter when calling the NWLOAD batch file. NetWare can take any drive it is told to, but 3Com cannot take any drive pointer assigned to NetWare.

A side note here is that if you use NetWare's MAP to reassign a drive that is in use by 3Com, then 3Com's "map" program, NET USE, will show that both NetWare and 3Com servers are used by this drive. This is a problem and only NetWare is using that particular drive letter.


Problems
The 3Com documentation assumed that there was only one NetWare server and did not document the fact that you could run NWLOAD with parameters to correctly log a user into the correct server on a large NetWare internet (a interconnected network like here at WP). To do this, the batch file would be run with a SERVERNAME/USERNAME parameter.

Example
3Com's NET3 simulator may find WPDEV as the default NetWare server, if you have no account on WPDEV, you would be forced to fail the login attempt and then login again, by hand, to your home server. If, however, you called the batch file by typing NWLOAD SERVER/SERVERNAME you would be automatically logged into your default server.

Limitations
If Office is installed on each NOS (Network Operating System), you would only get notification from one system or the other but not both, even though you had Office on each system. Another limitation is memory. With communication programs loaded to talk to both Network Operating Systems, there is less than 400K left on the workstation. Many WPCorp products would run fine, however SHELL and WP 5.1 will not.

Suggestions
One way a WPCorp customer could use this software is in a Connection Server which links two dissimilar LANs together. This would allow both systems a simple way to send mail to one another, without the problem of two network cards.

NOTE: This information is dated. Currently, there are several ways to attach a workstation to multiple Network Operating Systems (NOS's). There are better ways of managing memory, and many of the compatibility problems have gone away. This technology also works on all current versions of DOS (up through 5.00).

Answer:

Details:


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