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This is only a preview of the April 2001 issue of Silicon Chip. You can view 34 of the 96 pages in the full issue, including the advertisments. For full access, purchase the issue for $10.00 or subscribe for access to the latest issues. Articles in this series:
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COMPUTER TIPS: Making ICS Work For You
Tweaking Internet
Connection Sharing
by GREG SWAIN
ICS Remote Disconnection Utility
Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
– included with Windows 98SE and
Windows Me – allows a host computer
to share its Internet connection with
other PCs on a network. However,
apart from demand dialling, it gives
the clients no control over the Internet
connection.
This free “Remote Disconnection
Utility” (RDU) allows users on client
machines to easily connect and disconnect the host from the Internet.
What’s more, it notifies other users of
any intention to close down, so that
they can prevent the disconnect.
RDU also allows users to "lock" a
connection, to prevent disconnects
Changing The Host IP Address
By default, when ICS is installed,
the host computer (the one with the
modem) is assigned a fixed IP address
of 192.168.0.1. But what if you want
to change this because another computer on the network already has this
address?
The first step is to assign a new IP
address to the network card. Launch
the Network applet from Control
Panel, then select the TCP/IP entry
Disabling The DHCP Service
There are several reasons why you
might want to turn off the DHCP
service that’s installed by default
with ICS on the host PC, including
avoiding conflicts with other DHCP
servers on a network.
To do this, launch the Registry
Editor (Start, Run, Regedit) and drill
down to HKEY–LOCAL–MACHINE,
System, Current Control Set, Services, ICS Sharing, General and
right-click the “Enable DHCP” entry
in the Data pane. Click modify from
74 Silicon Chip
while they are away
from their machines,
and includes a simple messaging utility. It is automatically launched at start-up and minimised
to the System tray.
The latest version of rdusetup.exe
(1.75Mb) is available from Twiga Limited’s web site at www.twiga.ltd.uk
for your network card and click Properties. Enter the new IP address – eg,
192.168.0.5 – and click OK, then follow the bouncing ball to restart your
computer (it’s a Windows tradition;
why does Santa Claus wear a red suit?).
The next step is to launch the
Registry Editor (Start, Run, Regedit)
and drill down to HKEY–LOCAL–
MACHINE, System, Current Control
Set, Services, ICS Sharing, General.
Right-click the “IntranetInfo” entry
and modify the data value of the first
the drop down list, change the data
value to 0 and click OK.
When you restart the machine, the
DHCP service will be disabled.
You can now give the clients static
IP addresses. Give each client a unique
address in the range from 192.168.0.2
to 192.168.0.254 and assign each a
subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.
Finally, enable DNS on each client,
and add 192.168.0.1 (ie, the IP address of the host) to the DNS Server
Search Order, then click the Gateway
tab and enter a default gateway of
192.168.0.1.
A message with a countdown timer
pops up on other machines when a
user makes a request to disconnect.
number (before the comma) to the new
IP address of the host (in this case,
192.168.0.5). Finally, go to HKEY–
LOCAL–MACHINE, System, Current
Control Set, Services, ICS Sharing,
Addressing, Settings and modify the
Start value to the second address in the
IP range; ie, to 192.168.0.6 (the DHCP
service will now hand out addresses
starting from this number).
Take care with Registry hacks – the
risk is all yours. Alternatively, you
can use a third party configuration
utility such as ICScfg (see panel next
page).
GENERAL TIPS
ICS Configuration Utility For Port Mapping & Other Hacks
Disable the Down Arrows in
Windows Me’s Start Menu
for the Hangup Timer is 300
seconds and it’s usually not a
bad idea to increase this to 600
seconds (10 minutes)
Note, however, that ICS
defaults to disconnecting after
either this time or after the
“Disconnect if idle” setting in
If you’re not too confident about
hacking the Registry, this handy
ICS configuration utility could be just
the shot. It’s called ICScfg (written
by Harley Acheson) and you can
download it free of charge from
www.practicallynetworked.com
(icscfginst.exe; about 1Mb).
ICScfg can be used to add, close
and otherwise manage ports in ICS.
This makes it easy to close down
port that are normally enabled by
ICS but are not required for your application, for example. Closing down
unused ports can give increased
security against hackers.
ICScfg also makes it easy to enable or disable the DHCP service,
enable or disable auto-dialling and
adjust the hangup time (ie, the idle
disconnect timer). The default value
Do you hate the way Windows
Me hides entries in the Start menu
for programs that you haven’t used
recently? Clicking on those double-headed down arrows to reveal
them again can be a real pain.
Fortunately, this feature is easy to
disable. Just right-click the Taskbar,
choose Properties and uncheck the
“Use personalised menu” entry –
see below.
Internet Explorer, which ever is the
shorter.
Other facilities include the ability to
view the ICSlog.txt file and to change
the range of IP addresses handed out
by the DHCP service.
By the way, ICScfg does nothing
that cannot be achieved by manually
hacking the registry – it just makes it
easier to do.
Finally, note that this utility is for
Windows 98SE and Windows Me
only; it doesn’t work under Windows
2000.
Logging ICS sessions
Logging can be handy when it comes
to troubleshooting unwanted dial-outs
with ICS. The amount of information
supplied is minimal but at least you
can check the dial-out times.
To enable logging, fire up the Registry Editor, go to HKEY–LOCAL–MACHINE, System, Current Control Set,
Services, ICS Sharing, General and
change the data value for the “Enable
Logging” entry from 0 to 1.
When you reboot, ICS will write
Making ICS Demand Dial
If ICS refuses to dial out on demand
when a client attempts to initiate a
session, check that the “Always dial
my default connection” option is enabled in Internet Explorer on the host
Keep Your Hard Disk Healthy
a log file to c:\windows\ICSlog.txt.
This file is renamed to ICSlog.old each
time you reboot. You can drag short
cuts to both these files to the desktop
to make them easy to access when
troubleshooting.
machine (click Tools, Internet Options,
Connections).
If that’s OK, check the DialupEntry
value for ICS in the registry. If it’s "",
change it to "x". Check also that the
DialOnDemand value is "1" and reboot
for the changes to take effect.
Applications that fail to close
down correctly can leave temporary
(.tmp) files littered on your hard disk.
To free up disk space and ensure
system stability, it’s a good idea to
regularly delete these.
To do this, shut down all applications, then delete all the *.tmp files
from your c:\windows\temp folder.
Note: never delete .tmp files if you
have applications open, otherwise
you could lose data.
It’s also a good idea to regularly
run the ScanDisk, Disk Defragment
er & Disk Cleanup utilities that come
with Windows Me/98 (click Start,
Programs, Accessories, System
Tools).
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