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Jason Zandri’s latest article in the ‘Learning Windows XP Professional in 15 Minutes a Week’ series takes a look at Microsoft’s implementation of Novell’s IPX/SPX protocol, the NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol.
Welcome to this week’s installment of ‘Learn Windows XP Professional in 15 minutes a week,’ the 17th article in this series. This article will cover the NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol.
NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol
The NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol is Microsoft’s implementation of Novell’s Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange (IPX/SPX) protocol.
Windows clients can be configured to use NWLink to access client and server applications running on Novell NetWare servers or on intranets where IPX/SPX or NWLink is the protocol of choice. Windows clients running NWLink and the Client Service for NetWare or NWLink and Gateway Service for NetWare can connect to NetWare servers and use their file and print services.
NetWare
clients can access client and server applications running on
Windows 2000 servers by using the protocol as well. NetWare
clients running IPX with NetBIOS, Named Pipes, or Windows
Sockets can connect to systems running Windows 2000 with
NWLink installed and use applications and services on
those systems. NetWare clients running IPX can also connect
to systems running Windows 2000 Server with NWLink and File
and Print Services for NetWare installed for file and print
services.
NWLink supports Winsock and NetBIOS over IPX networking application programming
interfaces (APIs), which provide interprocess communication
(IPC) services.
Winsock supports existing
NetWare applications written to comply with the NetWare
IPX/SPX Sockets interface and NetBIOS over IPX supports
communication between NetWare clients running NetBIOS and
systems running Windows XP Professional and NWLink NetBIOS
In order
for any of this to occur on an intranet, the NWLink
IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol must be
installed and properly configured on the Windows XP
Professional system.
[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] –
NWLink is not installed by default during the
installation of any of the current Windows client and server
operating systems. By default, you must be a member of the
Administrators group to install protocols on any given
system.
Windows
95 installed NWLink by default during the operating system installation.