36 C HAPTER 2 THE BASICS: NETWORKING SOFTWARE, SERVERS, AND SECURITY

there’s a good chance that she doesn’t have permission to access the Manufacturing servers anyway— but I’ll get to workgroups and security in a little bit.) How do you join a workgroup? See the sidebar “How Do I Join a Workgroup?”

Note Workgroup names are like Windows 9x and NT 3.x/4.x machine names and can be up to 15 characters long.

So, to review what you’ve seen so far:

◆ Network browse lists allow a user at a workstation to see all of the servers on the network, and from there to see all of the shares on a given server.

How Do I Join a Workgroup?

Generally, all you need to do is to tell the networking software on your workstations and servers that they’re members of a given workgroup. There isn’t any “security” in being part of a workgroup—you pretty much just declare yourself a member and you are a member. (As a matter of fact, if you misspell the name of the workgroup, you end up accidentally founding a whole new workgroup all by yourself, which I’m sure was not your intention!)

Specifically, you designate which workgroup you’re a member of in one of the following ways:

From a DOS or Windows for Workgroups workstation In the [network] section of the SYSTEM.INI file you’ll find a WORKGROUP=parameter. (You’ll have a SYSTEM.INI even if you’re just running DOS, because the network client software creates one.) You can also set the workgroup from the MS-DOS Net- work Client Setup program, or in the Windows for Workgroups’ Network applet of the Control Panel. From Windows 9x Open the Control Panel and double-click the Network icon. In the property sheet that you see, click the Identification tab. You see the place to fill in the workgroup name.

On Windows NT 3.x Open the Control Panel and double-click the Network applet. You’ll see a button labeled Domain or Workgroup. (NT has a kind of confusing way of blurring workgroups and domains, which I’ll make clearer later in this chapter.) Click that button, and you can change the workgroup you’re a member of. Again, NT complicates choosing a workgroup somewhat, so read the rest of this chapter if you want to change an NT workgroup.

On Windows NT 4 Open the Control Panel and double-click the Network applet. Like Windows 9x, Windows NT 4 has a property sheet with an Identification tab. Click Change to change the work- group. Again, with NT you may see no references to workgroups at all; instead you see references to domains. Read on to understand the differences.

On Windows 2000 If you’re a member of a domain, then do not join a workgroup—I’ll explain that in a minute. Otherwise, right-click My Computer and choose Properties. Click the Network Identifica- tion tab and then the button labeled Properties. Fill in a new workgroup in the field named Workgroup; then close the dialog box and reboot.

On Windows XP and Server 2003 Right-click My Computer and choose Properties. (You may have to click the Start button to find My Computer.) Click the tab labeled Computer Name, then the button labeled Change. In the resulting dialog box, you’ll see the choice to become a “Member of:” either a domain or a workgroup. Click the radio button next to Workgroup and fill in the workgroup name, then close the dialog box and reboot.

WHAT’S THE POINT OF NETWORKS AND NETWORKING? 37

◆ Browse lists can get fairly long, so you can partition your entire network into workgroups, which are just groups of people that share a browse list.

◆ When you request a browse list, you don’t get the entire list of servers in your enterprise network, you only get the list of servers within your workgroup.

◆ Each workgroup has one or more servers that act as gatherers of browse information. They’re called browse masters or master browsers, and they’re picked automatically.

◆ Machines that are only workstations and don’t act as servers even in a peer-to-peer capacity do not appear on browse lists.

As the question of what machines go on a browse list and what machines don’t is important to the length of a browse list, let me list the kinds of machines that can act as servers in a Microsoft enterprise network:

◆ Windows 3.x (with the Workgroup Add-On for MS-DOS clients)

◆ DOS (with Workgroup Add-On for MS-DOS clients)

◆ Windows for Workgroups

◆ Windows 9x/Me

◆ NT Workstation

◆ NT Server

◆ Windows 2000 Professional

◆ Windows Server 2003

How Do I View a Browse List?

Microsoft has built different browse programs into its various network client software.

From a DOS or NT/2000/XP/2003 Command Line Type netview. That shows you the list of servers. You can view the shares on a given server by typing netview\\_{servername. To see the browse}

list for a workgroup other than your own, type netview/workgroup:workgroupname.

From NT, 2000, XP or Server 2003, don’t use /workgroup:in the command; instead, use /domain:. From Windows for Workgroups or Windows NT 3.x Open the File Manager, click Drive, and then click Connect Network Drive. You’ll see a window with two panes. The browse list for your workgroup and a list of the other workgroups on the network appears as the list of possible servers in the top pane and, when you click a server, that server’s shares appear in the bottom pane. To see the browse list for a workgroup other than your own, double-click the name of the workgroup in the top pane.

From Windows 9x or Windows NT 4 Open the Network Neighborhood folder. You’ll see the servers in your workgroup represented as PC icons in a folder. Double-click one of the servers, and a folder will open up showing you the shares. To see the browse list for a workgroup other than your own, double-click the Entire Network icon and you’ll see a list of workgroups. On Windows NT 4, click Entire Network and then Microsoft Network, and you’ll get a list of the other workgroups.