10.5 Network Tweaks

The networking subsystem for Windows 2000 and NT is pretty flexible. Most of the things you can change are exposed through the Network control panel and its various tabs, subdialogs, and property pages. However, there are some things you can change on your own that will smooth your network operations.

10.5.1 Create a Shared Favorites Folder for All Network Users

A standard Windows 2000 or NT installation gives every user her own Favorites folder. Since Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office both use this folder extensively, you might find it useful to build a shared Favorites folder containing IE shortcuts or Office documents you want to make available to all your users.

Building a shared Favorites folder is pretty easy. The first step is to build the folder itself: on one of your file servers, share the directory you want to use as the shared Favorites folder. It can be an existing directory, or you may create a new one. Be sure to set appropriate share and NTFS permissions.

Next, on each machine you want to use the shared folder, you need to change the value of HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Favorites from its existing setting to the path to the new folder. For example, if your shared folder is on a machine named armageddon in a share named favorites, your new Favorites value would read \\armageddon\favorites. You can make this change as part of a group or system policy by adding a new policy template; you may also put it in HKU\.DEFAULT so that newly created accounts inherit the setting.

You can also use this setting to specify a custom path for each user on a shared drive. For instance, after creating user directories under a shared folder, the value of the Favorites Registry setting for user1 might be \\armageddon\users\user1\favorites.

10.5.2 Automatically Use Dial-Up Networking to Log On

You can configure Windows 2000 and NT 4.0 to use DUN to log onto your selected domain by default. Normally, when you have DUN installed and active you see a checkbox in the logon dialog that allows you to use DUN to establish a connection to your network for logon; setting this value selects the checkbox by default. You might do this on a laptop or other computer that can connect to your LAN only via DUN.

To make this change, add a new REG_SZ value named RasForce to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and set its value to 1. After you reboot, the "Logon using Dial-up networking" checkbox is automatically selected. Windows 2000 changed the functionality of this value slightly, allowing the user to manually clear or select this checkbox, regardless of the RasForce setting. Under NT, adding this value and setting it to 1 permanently selects the checkbox, and you can't deselect it. This means that if your NT machine can't access your remote network, you can't log on. (As a workaround, you can restore from an ERD or edit the Registry using RegEdt32 's network connection function.)

10.5.3 Enable the WINS Proxy Agent

NT machines can act as Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) proxies; these proxies answer name-resolution requests from machines (such as Macintoshes or Unix machines) that don't speak the WINS protocol. In NT 4.0, the only way to enable this proxy mode is via a Registry change (in earlier versions, there was a checkbox in the TCP/IP control panel).

To turn a machine into a WINS proxy, add a new REG_DWORD value, HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\EnableProxy, and give it a value of 1. This enables the target machine to route WINS resolution requests to an available WINS server.

10.5.4 Set the Number of Rings for Answering Incoming Dial-Up Networking Calls

If you're using a TAPI or Unimodem-based device to answer incoming DUN calls, you may have noticed that the standard method of adjusting the modem.inf file to control how many times incoming calls may ring before the modem answers them doesn't work. This is by design, but it's not well-documented. The solution is to add a new Registry value to indicate the number of rings you want to allow. Add HKLM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RasMan\Parameters\NumberOfRings as a REG_DWORD, then set its value to the number of rings you want to use (between 1 and 20). Once you reboot your computer, DUN answers only after the specified number of rings have occurred. Note that if you're not using a TAPI/Unimodem modem, this value is completely ignored.

10.5.5 Turn On Logging for Dial-Up Networking

You can enable logging for Dial-Up Networking connections by changing the value of HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RasMan\Parameters\Logging from its default of to 1. When you do, DUN logs details of the initial connection in %systemroot%\system32\ras\device.log; this log reveals what data DUN sends to the remote device and what responses come back. This log is invaluable when you're trying to troubleshoot DUN connections that fail at initial establishment.

10.5.6 Keep a Dial-Up Networking Connection up After You Log Out

Windows 2000 and NT 4.0 automatically terminate DUN connections when you log off. This is a sensible feature (even though it's a change from previous versions), since it keeps you from inadvertently running up big connection or long-distance bills during a time when you're not even logged on to your machine. However, there may be times when you want the connection to stay up even when no one's logged on. For example, keeping the connection open when no one's logged on enables the DUN-connected machine to share files and printers with other network users.

To keep DUN connections active even when the user who started them has logged out, add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\KeepRasConnections as REG_SZ. Set it to 1, and connections will stay connected when users log out; set it back to to enable the standard behavior of automatically disconnecting DUN.

10.5.7 Set the Dial-Up Networking Automatic Disconnect Timer

You can set the deadman timer that causes DUN connections to hang up after a certain period of inactivity. The default value for Windows 2000 is 0, which instructs the system to never automatically hang up. NT 4.0, on the other hand, hangs up idle connections after 20 minutes by default. You may change this value in the Windows 2000 Registry to any period between 1 and 0xFFFFFFFF seconds (or between 1 and 1000 minutes for NT)--enough of a range for any scenario. To effect this change, edit the REG_DWORD value named HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RemoteAccess\Parameters\AutoDisconnect and set it to the number of idle seconds you're willing to tolerate before hanging up the connection. Remember that you can also set AutoDisconnect to zero, which causes the connection to always stay up until manually disconnected.