REVIEWS

Whoever said that DOS was dead forgot to tell the engineers at Novell. With the release of Client32 for DOS and Windows 3.1x, Novell is breathing a bit more life into DOS. Client32 for DOS/Windows brings the technology Novell released in the Windows95 Client32 to DOS and Windows 3.1x environments.

Client32 is the next step in the evolution of clients from Novell. Client32 brings some new features and enhancements over the last VLM shell. These include better fault tolerance, a GUI login program for Windows and Automatic Client Update (ACU).

As Novell clients progress, they seem to grow and become more bloat ed. NETX is simple a nd requires only a single executable (aside from the support files it needs). The VLM shell has one executable, but many loadable module files. While it's more flexible, it is also more complicated to configure. Now with Client32, we have a multitude of files. But we also have a choice: should we use the 32-bit .LAN drivers or the older 16-bit .COM drivers? What's the difference?

The difference is how much conventional memory each driver uses. Client32 has just a 3KB memory footprint, and if you don't have too many TSRs, it will attempt to load into upper memory. This is a great improvement over previous clients which need memory for LSL.COM, .COM, IPXODI.COM and VLM/NETX. If 32-bit server drivers are not available for your network card or don't function with Client32, then you are forced to use the 16-bit ODI drivers that take up more conventional RAM.

Installing Client32, in most cases, is a painless process. There is both a DOS and Windows installation p rogram. We didn't have a ny trouble getting Client32 installed on the various test machines we upgraded. On one workstation the installation was painless. The install took the 32-bit version of the NE2000 driver and away it went. In a matter of minutes the workstation was converted from the old VLM shell to Client32. On another older machine we upgraded, there wasn't a 32-bit version of the network driver available, but the old 16-bit .COM driver worked like a charm.

Another great improvement in Client32 is the improved fault tolerance. Yes, the VLM shell had so-so fault tolerance that could reconnect the workstation back to the server, but Client32 goes one step beyond that. Not only will it reconnect to the file server, but it will restore all the workstations open file handles! Now your programs won't even know what happened when the server goes down and comes back up.

We gave this a whirl with several tests. One test included using RCONSOLE and killing the connection to the workstation. RCONSOLE keeps about four files open to the file server. Using the MONITOR.NLM, we deleted our connection to the server. In a short time, the connection re-appeared on the connection list as Client32 restored the connection to the server. Looking at the re-established connection, all files that were open when we removed the connection were also restored. This is a great improvement when it comes to the prevention of data loss.

For the first time, users can now log in under Windows and have full login script processing. With Client32, Novell provides a GUI login program. This program will log in and execute login scripts to co nnect all drive mappings, environment variables and print queue captures set. Previously users could have Windows restore selected drive mappings and print connections, but that was a manual process to setup and maintain. The only thing w e didn't like about the GUI login program is that in its default configuration, it shows the simplest possible login screen. This is great for one server or one NDS tree networks, but it isn't all that useful for larger networks. Fortunately, this can be remedied in one of two ways. The configuration can be changed via the NWUSER utility or adding the /A option to the command line of the login program.

Client32 also includes a new utility called Automatic Client Update (ACU) that gives network administrators the ability to upgrade client workstations' network shell. The new version of the Client32 INSTALL.EXE is more scriptable so upgrades can be performed without user intervention. ACU includes a set of programs that will detect if an upgrade is needed. By adding a few commands to the system login script, the install program can be launched if an upgrade is needed. This little set of utilities could save network administrators lots of time when hardware is standardized. If it isn't, then making sure all t he various driver files are available for the clients can become a nightmare. Unfortunately the best source of documentation on ACU doesn't come with Client32. You'll have to check out the Novell's May 1996 Application Notes. It describes the ACU and Client32 for DOS/Windows in great detail.

James E. Drews is a network administrator for the Computer Aided Engineering Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He can be reached at drews@engr.wisc.edu