Home Networking with Windows 2000 Professional

With Windows 2000 Professional (Win2K Pro), you can easily set up a home network between desktops without using a server. In addition to combining some of the best features of Windows NT Workstation and Windows 98, Win2K Pro offers many new capabilities for home networking. Among the features you can enable are file and print sharing and Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), a nifty feature that lets several computers share one Internet connection. Add to this Win2K Pro's NT-style user account management and permissions, and you have a reasonably powerful engine for home networking. Win2K Pro is also strongly backward compatible. You can introduce Win2K Pro into a peer-to-peer networking setup between Win9x clients, or introduce Win9x clients into a Win2K Pro setup.

Because Win2K Pro comes with NetBEUI and other legacy protocols, networking different generations of Windows clients isn't a problem. Most people will use TCP/IP as their primary transport protocol in a peer-to-peer Windows network. However, to resolve Windows computer names, you need to have NetBEUI installed.

Setting up a basic Win2K Pro peer-to-peer home network—a network between clients only, without a designated server—is easy. Many major players in the home networking market, such as Farallon and D-Link, have made or are making their products compatible with Win2K Pro, providing several cheap and easy home networking-specific solutions.

Choosing a Connection Technology
The first thing to do when planning your home network is to pick the type of hardware you'll use to connect your computers. In the business world, the standard network connection technology is Ethernet, which requires a NIC and dedicated physical cabling. Ethernet also requires hubs to perform the negotiation the network requires.

Many companies, such as 3Com, Intel, Linksys, and D-Link, make good Ethernet hubs. Most such companies package a kit with NICs and a hub for the small office/home office (SOHO) marketplace. (If you hesitate to open your computer to install an internal NIC, consider external USB NICs, which simply plug in to your computer's USB port.) Our favorite brand for basic Ethernet equipment is NETGEAR (http://www.netgear.com), whose SB104 starter kit costs $85 and includes a hub, some cable, and two NICs—enough to set up your network and connect two computers. The SB104 allows 10Mbps data transfer. The next step up is NETGEAR's FB104 kit, which lists for $89.99 and provides the same equipment but allows 100Mbps transfers. The hubs that come with these kits have four ports; if you plan to network more than four computers, you're better off buying the necessary pieces of equipment individually and picking up hubs with more ports.

If you're networking older Ethernet technology, you'll need 10Mbps Ethernet. Better yet, buy 10/100Base-T hubs that autosense at each port. Autosensing hubs cost more but let you mix and match equipment. A typical 8-port 10/100Base-T autosensing hub costs about $170 (street price), making it a good investment.

The downside to Ethernet is that it requires dedicated cabling. Many home networkers opt for the more economical and convenient phoneline networking technology. This technology lets you network computers by plugging them in to the same active phone line. Phoneline networking NICs slide data transfers into the phone signal. Because the NICs do the necessary negotiation, you don't need a hub, and you don't need to buy or install cable.

Many people ask us about Intel's popular, easy-to-use AnyPoint Home Network. However, AnyPoint isn't available, and probably won't become available, for Windows 2000 (Win2K). But don't be disappointed—you don't want AnyPoint anyway. AnyPoint limits you to using the phone line either to network or to make a conventional call, not both. Other more advanced technology lets the phone line support simultaneous networking and conventional phone calls, such as a dial-up connection to your ISP.

The downside to phoneline networking is that it tops out at 10Mbps transfers, and most phoneline networks run at only 1Mbps. With time, the speed of phoneline networking will increase, but Ethernet will always be faster and more powerful and is the better choice if you intend to use streaming media over your home network.

If you decide to use phoneline networking, you might want to check out D-Link's DHN-910 starter package for $119 (http://www.dlink.com). D-Link is a speed powerhouse, providing 10Mbps speed. The kit includes two phoneline NICs, phone cords, and a games CD-ROM.

Farallon (http://www.farallon.com) offers phoneline, Ethernet, and even wireless networking packages. Details were unavailable at press time because Farallon was still working on Win2K compatibility for its products. Home networkers who want to network Macs and PCs together should keep Farallon in mind, however. Cross-platform networking is Farallon's specialty, and the company has software that makes Internet connection sharing work between Macs and PCs. But if you don't need cross-platform capability, you're probably better off using another package: Farallon's phoneline networks top out at 1Mbps.

An Important Decision: FAT32 vs. NTFS
Win9x machines use FAT32, the older of the two major Windows file systems. NTFS is the newer file system. For the purpose of peer-to-peer networking, NTFS's primary advantage is that it provides additional security settings for folders and files. To see which file system a drive uses, double-click My Computer, right-click the drive, and select Properties. The information on the General tab includes which file system that drive uses.

Although NTFS is more feature-rich than FAT32, you might need to use FAT32 because systems other than Win2K and NT systems, such as Win9x, can't read local NTFS drives. For example, if you have a double-boot system with Win2K and Win98, Win98 can't read NTFS drives on the system. This limitation doesn't interfere with networked file sharing: A Win2K machine can translate a file from an NTFS drive into something a Win9x machine can understand and can serve the file to a Win9x computer. But if you format a drive on a Win9x machine as NTFS, the Win9x machine can't read files on that local drive because Win9x can't translate NTFS. Consequently, if you create a Win2K Pro and Win9x dual-boot machine, you'll most likely want to keep all your drives in FAT32.

To change file systems, you need to either convert or reformat the drive, depending on which direction you're moving. If you're moving from FAT32 to NTFS, you can simply convert the drive by using the command

convert <drive>: /fs:ntfs [/v]

The optional /v parameter gives you details about the conversion process as it proceeds.

Moving from NTFS to FAT32 requires backing up your drive, reformatting it, and restoring your data. To reformat a drive, open the Control Panel Administrative Tools applet and double-click Computer Management. From the Computer Management console, expand Storage in the left pane and select Disk Management. On the resulting display, right-click the drive you want to reformat and choose Format from the drop-down menu. If you're reformatting your system drive, you'll need to create a boot disk and run FDISK. For details about these procedures, see Microsoft's Help files.