Networking in Windows 95

DataCAD How-To's

NETWORKING DataCAD SYMBOLS AND TEMPLATES

To share common files across a network (like templates, symbols and drawings) you will need to store all of them on one computer. This could be a dedicated "server" in the office, or it could be the computer with the largest hard drive, or the computer that is least often used. Just make sure there is enough hard drive capacity to hold all the files to be shared. We'll call this the HOST COMPUTER. To do this you will have to create some new directories (folders), then "map" them to a common drive letter on both the HOST and the CLIENT computers. Don't get discouraged if this is confusing right now. It's explained in more detail below.

(These examples were written for the Windows platforms, without network software like LANtastic or Novell.)

Definitions:
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HOST COMPUTER: The computer which the templates and symbols will be located on.
CLIENT COMPUTER: Any other computers which are networked.

On the HOST and CLIENT computers:
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1. If you have not already done so, you need to set up each computer to work across a network. I will assume that you have already installed the network card and its software driver (if you haven't, see the How-to on our Networking page).
2. In Explorer, go to the "My Computer" icon and open it.
3. Open "Control Panel", then open "Network". Click on the "Identification" tab.
4. Next to "Computer name:" give this computer a unique name. Each computer must have a different name. I would suggest you do not use the name of the person using this computer, since that will make things difficult if the computer is later moved to a new user, or the employee leaves the office. We decided to use Alpha, Beta, etc.
5. Now type in a "Workgroup:" name. This must be the SAME name on all the computers on the network. We used "WMA".
6. Now type in a "Computer Description:". You can type anything that helps you ID the computer. Using the same name as the "Computer name:" might make things easy.
7. Go to the "Access Control" tab and make sure "Share-level access control" is checked.
8. Go to the "Configuration" tab and click on "File and Print Sharing...". Make sure both boxes are checked. Click on "OK".
9. Click on "OK" to accept all the settings you have made.

On the HOST COMPUTER (the "HOST" for the templates and symbols):
======================
On the HOST computer you need to create some new directories (folders) to place the DataCAD SYM and TPL directories in. Then you will "map" these directories so that the computer thinks that they are new hard drives (called S:\, for symbols, and T:\, for templates) instead of folders. Then the CLIENT computers will similarly "map" these same directories (on the HOST computer) so that the CLIENT computer also thinks that they are new hard drives (called S:\ and T:\). In this way, the HOST computer and all the CLIENT computers on the network will be able to find all the DataCAD symbols on the S:\ drive, and all the templates on the T: drive.

For this example we will assume that you have only one actual hard drive -- C:\. If you have a second hard drive, or a "logical drive partition" called D:\, or E:\, etc., you can use one of those drives instead. Just make sure you have at least 120MB or more available on the drive so there will be plenty of room for your symbols.

1. In Explorer, create two new folders (File/New/Folder). Call them "Symbol" and "Template" (don't use an "s" on the end of "Template". This would be 9 characters in length, and we need to use a DOS command later, which can only use 8 characters).
2. Open the "Symbols" folder and create another folder called "Sym".
3. Now open the "Template" folder and create another folder called "Tpl".
4. In Explorer, right click on the newly created "Symbol" folder, then select the "Sharing..." option.
5. Select "Shared As:". The "Share Name:" will, by default, be named with the folder name ("Symbol"). Leave this as the share name. This will be the name that all the CLIENT computers will see. It will make sense later when you are working on the CLIENT computer(s).
5. Now go down to "Access Type:" and select the "Full" option. This will allow users on the network to both read and write to this drive.
6. Click on "OK".
7. Do steps 4. thru 6. for the next folder ("Template"), leaving the share name as "Template".

Now you need to force this computer to see each of these folders ("Symbol" and "Template") as hard drives instead of folders. We want to name them S: (for Symbols) and T: (for Templates). The steps are different for Windows NT and Win95/98:

8. In Windows NT this is easy:
    a. Go to Explorer and select Tools/Map Network Drive.
    b. Next to Drive:, select the "S:" drive from the drop-down list.
    c. Now make sure the cursor is in the box next to Path:, then direct your cursor to the Change Directories box below.
    d. Double click on the NT computer's name (ours is called "Omega", so we double click on the "Omega" icon).
    e. Click on the "Symbol" folder and that path will automatically be added in the box next to Path:. It will look something like this: \\Omega\Symbol
    f. Make sure the "Reconnect at logon" box is checked.
    g. Click OK. Now at the bottom of Explorer's list of folders and drive letters you should see one called something like:
                -"Symbol on XXXXX(S:)" (where XXXXX is the
                    name of the host computer. For us that's
                    "Omega")
f. Now do the same thing again, but select the "T:" drive, and select the "Template" directory.

9. In Win95/98 it is a little less straight forward:
    a. With a text editor like Notepad, open the Autoexec.bat file in your C:\ directory.
    b. Add two lines that look like this:
                SUBST S: C:\symbol
                SUBST T: C:\template
        This tells the HOST computer to create 2 new "virtural drives", with the letters S: and T:. So in Explorer, if you click on the S: drive you will actually be seeing the contents of the C:\symbol folder. And if you click on the T: drive you will actually be seeing the contents of the C:\template folder.
    c. Save the Autoexec.bat file, then REBOOT YOUR COMPUTER.
    d. After the computer restarts, go to Explorer and scroll down the list of folders and drives. Near the bottom you will see two new ones, called:
                -"XXXXX(S:)" (where XXXXX is the name of the
                                            c:\ drive of the host computer)
                -"XXXXX(T:)" (where XXXXX is the name of the
                                            c:\ drive of the host computer)

Now you need to relocate all your existing symbols from their current location on your computer to the S:\Sym directory, and all your existing templates from their current location to the T:\Tpl directory. Unfortunately this will mean that all your current template files will have to be revised with the new path to the symbols, but once done you won't have any trouble again. For instance:

            Original paths in template (.TPL) file:
            ===========================
                    C:\SYM\00-grphc\drawing\north1
                    C:\SYM\00-grphc\drawing\wallsec1
                                    OR
                    SYM\00-grphc\drawing\north1
                    SYM\00-grphc\drawing\wallsec1

            New paths in template (.TPL) file:
            =========================
                    S:\SYM\00-grphc\drawing\north1
                    S:\SYM\00-grphc\drawing\wallsec1

There is more information about this "pathing" process on our web page (http://www.tiac.net/users/wmitrop/wma/wmahome.htm), including some shareware software to make the process easier.

On the CLIENT COMPUTER:
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1. In Explorer open the "Network Neighborhood" icon. All the currently accessible network computers will be displayed in the right pane, including both the HOST computer and your own CLIENT computer. The name used for each computer is the "Computer Name:" you created for each computer earlier.
2. Double click on the icon for HOST COMPUTER to open it. You will see all the available folders on that computer with the "Share Name:" (in this example, "Symbol" and "Template") you created earlier when setting up the HOST computer.
3. Right click on the one named "Symbol".
4. Select the "Map Network Drive..." option.
5. Pick "Drive:" letter "S:" from the drop down list.
6. Make sure "Reconnect at logon" is checked.
7. The "Path:" line will be automatically filled in for you. If it is not, type in the path, which will look like this:
            \\XXXX\symbol (where XXXX is the name of the
                                        c:\ drive of the HOST computer,
                                        and "symbol" is the name of the
                                        folder)
8. Click on "OK".
9. Right click on the folder named "Template".
10. Select the "Map Network Drive..." option.
11. Pick "Drive:" letter "T:" from the drop down list.
12. Make sure "Reconnect at logon" is checked.
13. The "Path:" line will be automatically filled in for you, of you can type it in, like in step 7.
14. Click on "OK".

15. Go to the "My Computer" icon in Explorer and open it. You will now see two new drive icons, labeled "Symbol on '<network computer name>' (S:)", and "Template on '<network computer name>' (T:)". As far as you computer is now concerned you now have two new drive partitions on the CLIENT COMPUTER -- drives S: and T:. These are called "network drives". If you double click on one you will see the contents of that drive, and you can move, copy and delete files in them. Note that in the S: drive there is the SYM folder you created earlier, and in the T: drive there is the TPL folder you created earlier.

So now when you save new symbols from any CLIENT computer, you will save them to the S: drive, like this:
S:\SYM\<symbol path/name>
Since all the computers on the network will be reading and writing templates and symbols to only ONE location, you can and should delete the SYM and TPL folders from the DataCAD directory, just so nobody accidentally starts saving them there.

On the HOST and CLIENT computers:
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1. Go to the Windows folder and open the DCADWIN.INI file in a text editor like NOTEPAD. Find these two lines in the file and change them so they read like this:
PATH_TEMPLATE=T:\
PATH_SYMBOL=S:\
2. Save the file, close it, then start DataCAD.

Now, whenever new templates are created on either the HOST or the CLIENT computers, you will be saving them with identical path names which can be read by both computers, like these, from one of our templates:
                S:\SYM\00-grphc\drawing\north1
                S:\SYM\00-grphc\drawing\wallsec1
                S:\SYM\00-grphc\drawing\testborg

Remember that template files (.TPL) are just text files which display the computer path where the individual symbol files can be found, like the paths shown above.

The Next Step:
============
To take this all one step farther, you could/should actually create MORE network drives to save other common files like drawings, plots, dxf/dwg's, and stickybacks. Just make sure you have enough space on the hard drive to house all the files. For instance, .DC5 and .DWG files, including their .BAK files, take up an enormous amount of space in a short period of time. So starting with a large hard drive is advisable (ours is 10gigabytes). Here are all the logical drives we have on our server (the HOST computer):
            F: deFault drawings (.DC5)
            G: drawinG files (.DC5)
            L: Layer files
            P: Plot files
            S: Symbol files
            T: Template files
            X: dXf & dwg files
            Y: stikYback files

Caveats:
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1. If you shut down your computers at the end of the day, remember to turn on the HOST COMPUTER first before turning on any of the other computers. If you don't, the CLIENT computers will give you an error saying they can't find the shared folders and drives on the HOST computer.
2. In this example, on the HOST COMPUTER the list of drives you see in Explorer will include a C: drive, an S: drive, and a T: drive (plus whatever other drives you might have, like a CD-ROM or ZIP drive). And the directory tree for C:\Symbol will be IDENTICAL to the one for S:\ (likewise for C:\Template and T:\).
3. When you back up files on the HOST COMPUTER, remember that you do not back up the virtual S:\ and T:\ drives, since these are really just the C:\Symbol and C:\Template folders in disguise. Just back up the C:\ drive like you normally would.