Downloading the Computing Centre-supported Internet software packages and installing them individually can be rather tedious and prone to error. Steve has assembled the four main clients (Netscape Communicator, winQVT, WS_FTP and Simeon) plus a hosts file into a single file called ALL.EXE which can be downloaded from his FTP server excession.cc.kcl.ac.uk. This file is currently 18.6 Mbytes in size and is a good test for a newly-completed network connection.
Some users might prefer Eudora to Simeon - you can download a copy of this from the pandemonium FTP server.
Most Windows95/98 or Windows NT 4 computers come with Microsoft's Internet Exlorer web browser (IE) pre-installed which can be used to download ALL.EXE in the absence of the Internet software you are about to install. If Internet Explorer isn't installed for some reason (eg, the PC has an early version of Windows95 which didn't have IE bundled with it), then you can instead use the command line FTP program to do this. (Windows installed the FTP program when you added the TCP/IP protocol in the Network Control Panel after you first installed the Ethernet adapter).
You need to save this file somewhere on the hard disk - many systems have a C:\temp directory and this would be a good place to put it but if it doesn't exist, then create it first using Windows Explorer.
Once you've downloaded ALL.EXE to a temporary directory on the computer you're going to install the software on, you can simply execute this program to unpack the following files:
Then you can create a folder called tcp_ip inside your Program File folder where you can put all your Internet software in separate folders; putting all your Internet software together in a group folder such as tcp_ipmakes it easy to find and update, otherwise the various Installshield setup utilities will install the packages all over the place. You don't have to call this folder tcp_ip - you can call it whatever you like (Internet, for example) but back in the days of Windows 3.1, the NEP team settled on tcp_ip and it stuck.
With the exception of qvtnt398.exe, all the files are Installshield setups which prompt you for the installation directory; this should be:
After you've created the directories (folders), just accept the defaults (unless you really want something different) and the install programs will run through quite quickly. Both Netscape and Simeon will prompt you to restart your computer when they've finished installing - doing this immediately after the installation isn't strictly necessary and to save time, you can do this just once after both Netscape and Simeon are installed.
Qvtnt398.exe is a bit different - it's simply a collection of files from a working qvtNET installation compressed into a single self-extracting ZIP file. If you execute it, it will unpack itself. Create a folder called winqvt under the tcp_ip folder, move the qvtnt398.exe file into it and execute it.
Next, you need to move the hosts file into the Windows directory (normally C:\WINDOWS. The hosts file is not absolutely essential on a network that, like King's, uses DNS for Internet name to IP address lookups but winQVT will use a local hosts file if present to give you a menu of hosts you might want to connect to regularly, matching full Internet adresses to any aliases you might prefer to use. For example, in the hosts file you've just downloaded, the King's mail server mail.cc.kcl.ac.uk has the alias mail and clicking on this when you select the Telnet terminal function of winQVT will open a Telnet connection to the mail server.
Fire up Netscape and you'll be prompted to create a user profile. If only one person is going to be using the machine, then you might as well press the return key in answer to all the prompts and create a blank default profile for that single user. If the user wants several profiles, then it's up to him/her to do this and not waste your time. Once Netscape has got past this and is displaying the default Netscape home page, you can set up two important preferences:
There are other things that can be set up - sending/receiving mail or Usenet news using Netscape, font preferences, etc but these are up to the user to set up. In any case, the CC doesn't support the use of Netscape for email.
Start up Simeon and you'll be prompted for the address of the mail server - this is mail.kcl.ac.uk. Later on, you will be prompted for the address book host and SMTP servers - these are also mail.kcl.ac.uk. Then you'll be asked for the user's email address and real name (check these with the user if possible as some users' email addresses are not what you'd think they are and some users want to use different 'real names' from the one they are known to you by!).
When you have completed the basic set-up, the user can then try retrieving mail by entering his/her email username and email password.
Fire up winQVT and you'll be prompted for the directory you put the hosts file in - this should be C:\windows. Once you've done this, the greyed-out OK button will turn black and you can click on this to continue to select a printer; answer the qusetions as appropriate - winQVT will pick up any installed default printer from Windows anyway so you can hit the return key to answer 'yes' in most instances.
Now you can try it out - click on the terminal icon and you should see the Start Terminal Session window listing several popular hosts, such as mail, libertas, etc. Double-click on one of these and you should see a login prompt for the service you have connected to. If you don't see the list of hosts, then the hosts file isn't where you've told winQVT it is!
WS_FTP doesn't really need any configuration but the list of pre-configured FTP sites that appears when the connect button is clicked on can always be edited by the user to reflect her/his needs.
the Internet Plumbers, November 25th, 1997
Updated February 23rd, 1999