A WinGate Name-Resolution Problem

One of my customers is experiencing a name-resolution problem. The customer is running Deerfield.com's WinGate proxy application on Windows NT Server 4.0. Unfortunately, this setup rules out running WINS because of incompatibilities between the WINS and WinGate services. I used Pervasive Software's Pervasive.SQL 2000 to implement a client/server database on the network. The workstations are running Winsock 2.x on Windows 95 machines, and the Pervasive.SQL software running on the workstations can use TCP/IP or NWLink to connect. If I use TCP/IP, WinGate seems to prevent the connection from occurring. If I use NWLink, the server name is never resolved—a diagnostic program displays an Unable to Connect via NetBIOS 0x14 (No Call Name) error message. I've added HOSTS and LMHOSTS entries for the NT server on the clients, but I'm not sure whether these files apply to NWLink connections. Any suggestions?

First, HOSTS and LMHOSTS files apply only to TCP/IP, not to IPX and SPX. NWLink uses NetBIOS exclusively as the default namespace to resolve network names—as evidenced by the NetBIOS-related error message you received.

If the systems all reside on the same segment, you should have no problems. NetBIOS name resolution should occur through broadcast, as long as you've properly configured Pervasive.SQL 2000 on the client and server to work with IPX-based connections. (This tricky configuration can be a potential roadblock. I've wrestled with Pervasive.SQL clients—and their Btrieve predecessors—many times in the past.)

If you're using IPX and multiple segments are involved, the intervening routers might not be configured to pass NetBIOS traffic (e.g., through bridging or Cisco's "smart" IPX-based NetBIOS proxy-ing), which enables machines on various segments to find one another. Regarding your TCP/IP solution, if you believe that WinGate is interfering, you might want to contact Deerfield.com to see whether the company provides a facility to bypass the use of the WinGate proxy for specific connections.

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