A Step-by-Step Pictorial Guide to Setting up Win95 TCP/IP

 

 

I. Setting up your PC's network

 

1. Click (when I say click, I mean "click the left button of the mouse". Right-click means click the right button) Start, then Settings, then Control Panel. Then double-click the Network icon. If your PC already has TCP/IP protocol installed, you will see a window as in Picture 1. If this is the case, skip to step 5.

 

Picture 1

 

2. If your PC has not had TCP/IP installed yet, click the Add button to get Picture 2. Click on Protocol, then Add (alternatively, just double-click Protocol). You will get Picture 3.

 

Picture 2

 

3. Click on Microsoft in the left panel, then scroll the right panel down and choose TCP/IP. Then click OK. Win95 will install all the TCP/IP drivers and tools (for example, the generic Telnet and FTP programs). You may need the Windows 95 CD-ROM for this. After the installation, just reboot the computer as asked.

 

Picture 3

 

II. Setting up a dial-up networking connection to your ISP

 4. After Win95 reboots, double-click "My Computer" icon, then "Dial-up Networking" icon. Yours will look something similar to Picture 4. (Ignore the other icons; those are my ISP's either in the past or present. More on these later.) Double-click "Make New Connection" icon to get Picture 5.

Picture 4

 

5. Enter a name under "Type a name for the computer you are dialing:". Here, I just call it Netcom1. If you are dialing into a campus modem, either the modems supported by the central campus or by the EML, call it appropriately "socrates" or emily6" or something like that. Look under "Select a device:" to see if that is the modem with which you want to connect to the ISP or the campus. Then click on Next to continue. You will get Picture 6.

 

Picture 5

 

6. Enter the ISP's (or campus) phone number (this is the number you will need to dial in to). Then click Next to continue. You will get Picture 7.

 

Picture 6

 

 7. Click on Finish to finish. You will get a new icon named "Netcom1" (or your own chosen name, e.g., "emily6") as in Picture 8.

 

Picture 7

 

8. Right-click on Netcom1, then click on Properties. You will get Picture 9.

 

Picture 8

 

Picture 9

 

9. Click on the "Server Types" tab. Then Make sure the boxes are checked as shown in Picture 10.

 

Picture 10

 

That is: only check the "Enable software compression" and "TCP/IP" boxes. (It does depend on how your ISP is configured, but this is usually the case from my experience.) Then click "TCP/IP Settings" to get Picture 11.

 

10. Usually, your ISP uses dynamic IP addressing, so for the top panel, choose "Server assigned IP address". Enter the ISP's primary and secondary (the latter if necessary) DNS server addresses. For campus home-ip users, the DNS addresses are 128.32.16.9 and 128.32.135.52. If you are dialing into the EML modems, you would specify 0.0.0.0 (see "help ppp" for details). The DNS information is the same as for home-ip users.

 

Picture 11

 

11. Click on a series of OK to finish the setup.

  

III. Connecting to your ISP

 12. Double-click the newly created icon (in this example, Netcom1) and you will get Picture 12. Type in your account name and password, then click Connect to dial up.

 

 

Picture 12

What is the box "Save password" for? Well, this is the "improved" Dial-up interface that comes with the newer Windows 95. If you bought your computer recently, then it is very likely that it came with this new version. The original Win95 version may not have this (I do not remember now). What this box is for is so that you do not have to type in your password every time you dial in. Obviously, it also means that anyone can connect to your account. So, beware. We recommend that you do not save your password!

The procedure varies slightly if you are not using scripts, especially if you are connecting to the EML. Instead of using Picture 12, "Connect To", go back to Picture 8, "Dial Up Networking", and do Properties -> Configure -> Options. Click on "Bring up terminal window before dialing." This will give you a terminal window when you dial in that prompts you for host and ppp connection and so forth. After you enter all the necessary information, there may be some garbage that appears on the screen. Just type F7 and you should get in.

  

IV. Caveats and FAQs
  1. As you can see in Pictures 4 and 5, you can have as many ISP's as you like. All you need to do is create different dial-up icons for them, configure them as explained (of course with their respective dial-in numbers and DNS's, etc.).
  2. Q: How do I find out what my ISP's dial-in number and DNS's are? A: Go to its site. Most of ISP's have this type of information on-line.
  3. Q: What modem should I buy? A: Get an X2 or Kflex (the 56Kbaud modems). There are a couple of reasons, but the foremost is most (if not all) ISP's that support these new (faster) modems do not charge more for connecting at this higher speed. Especially the newer ISP's (eg, Zorro, Inreach, Wired 2, etc.), because they're new, have mostly these newer modems. Just make sure you buy one that will allow a free upgrade to the ITC standard some time in 1998. This is also helpful if you plan to run eXceed. [Note: the campus supports modem speeds up to 14.4K, so buying a 56K modem will only enable higher transmission speeds to an ISP, not to the campus.]
  4. Q: Why do I want to subscribe to an ISP when I can connect to the department or campus for free? A: Unless you're a faculty member, you're dreaming. First, the phone lines are busy most of the times. The only time that I thought was pretty free was real early in the morning. Second, speed is only 14.4 K. Third, if you shop around, you can pay as little as $10 a month. Check out the free bi-weekly Microtimes and Computer Currents.
  5. Q: What ISP should I choose? A: Really hard to say. But a lot of ISP's nowadays have a trial period. Try them for about a week or so, logging in at different times of day to see (a) If you have problems connecting (i.e., whether phone line is busy) and (b) the connection rate. For (b), if you get consistently 48K to 53K, that's a very good connection.
  6. Q: Okay, so I think I'd go with a 56K modem. Is there anything else I should know? A: Yes, whether your apartment is still in the 19th century. Not all phone lines are created equal. Your phone line may not support high speed. To test to see if it does, go to US Robotics's site (www.usr.com) and download a utility to do just that.

thach@socrates.berkeley.edu
Last modified: 21 August 1997