Re: off-topic: scheduled backup to external hard drive

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from BrennerNY@xxxxxxxx on Mon, 3 Apr 2006 15:53:28 EDT


> Patricia says Win2k seems to perform better with Xywrite. Does anyone
> else on the list have experience with both and prefer XP?

There's very little difference. Both are fine. And I don't see any advantages
to Win98 -- quite the opposite.

> A properly configured network. This involves running a
> Windows Wizard, binding protocols to the Network card,
> naming each PC and making sure they're all in the same
> workgroup, and probably a few other steps I've forgotten

It doesn't involve running a Windows Wizard, and you certainly don't need
Network Neighborhood (a pathetic PITA, and slooooow). Setting up an UNC
network is incredibly simple, and then you have complete interoperability
between computers on your LAN. Additionally, XyWrite deals with UNC names
extremely well -- it is very easy to CAll files on other computers. You need:

-- a router, to protect your LAN (which can be wide open, behind the router)
-- make sure your computer has a network name. Keep it short and simple:
DELL, ROBERT, T41
-- assign shares for every drive you want to address on every local box. This
is one-time only. You can use the default shares if you want, or assign your
own sharenames. I assign my own, a single capital letter corresponding to the
drive letter. Impossible to get confused that way, because UNC paths are then
almost identical to DOS paths.
-- if you want to network 9x and NT boxes together, you need to be aware of one
quirk: the 9x box (and, for that matter, any other NT box) can logon to an NT
box without further ado as long as it presents valid credentials (a valid
Username/Password combo) for the target NT box; but 9x boxes won't allow other
boxes to log on to 9x unless the NT user has the *same* Username and Password
as the current user of the 9x box. In other words, by some wierd way of
thinking, 9x won't let you log in unless it's "really" you, the current user,
who has the "right" to log in. Utterly moronic, but there it is. The solution
is to create a new user in 9x, who has full administrator rights, and who has
the same Username/Password combo as your NT machine(s) -- and thenceforth to
log onto 9x using that new name. Keep everything as simple as you can. If you
control all the boxes, then give them all the same User/Pass names -- and
anybody else who uses the computers can just like it or lump it. !NOBODY! on a
LAN should be allowed to be secretive -- it's plain dangerous, *YOU* need to be
able to access all machines freely to fix other users' mistakes (get rid of
their malware, etc). You, the Administrator, expose yourself to real danger in
an open LAN, if you just let everybody do what they want, because once malware
gets past the router into your LAN, it can have a field day.
-- learn how to use NET.EXE. It's a very powerful utility, especially the NET
USE command. XySearch is full of examples of NET USE commands, and of UNC
commands. But the principle is to set up a logon script on each LAN computer,
a BAT or CMD file, which is run when each computer boots, and which logs every
machine on the LAN onto every other machine on the LAN. You need only log on
successfully to *one* share on a remote computer in order to log on to *all*
shares! So your BAT file might contain a bunch of lines like this (one for
every computer on the LAN except the current computer):

 in 9x:
NET.EXE use \\T41\C password
NET.EXE use \\ROBERT\C password
NET.EXE use \\DELL\C password
 in NT:
NET.EXE use \\T41 /USER:Username password
NET.EXE use \\ROBERT /USER:Username password
NET.EXE use \\DELL /USER:Username password

For each command, you'll see "Command completed successfully" (if you've done
it right).

After that, you're all tied together. On any machine, you can command
 dir \\T41\D\XY4\*.txt
 list \\DELL\E\DOCS\index~1.htm
etc.
In XyWrite|NB:
 ca \\DELL\G\NB8\WELCOME.TXT
 cal \\DELL\F\XY4\This is one real long filena*.txt

If you don't understand any of these concepts, Google them.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------