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Chapter 1

Planning a Network Topology

addressing system, as TCP/IP does. IPX uses the hardware address coded into each

computer’s network interface adapter to identify that system on the network.

Although it is possible to use the IPX protocols alone for Windows file sharing, few

network administrators do this. IPX does not provide the Internet connectivity that

most networks need. In most cases, administrators use IPX only for NetWare connec-

tivity in cases where all NetWare servers are not and cannot be configured to use TCP/

IP. For example, if a network still has a few old NetWare version 3.x servers that users

need to access occasionally, the design might call for the installation of the IPX proto-

cols on the workstations, but in most cases the computers will have TCP/IP or NetBEUI

installed as well for native Windows communications.

Using NetBEUI

NetBEUI was the default networking protocol of the Windows NT 3.1 and Windows for

Workgroups operating systems when these systems were first released in 1993. At the

time, PC networking was in its infancy; networks were relatively small and centrally

located. NetBEUI uses the NetBIOS namespace to identify the computers on a network,

a practice that Windows retained until the release of Windows 2000, which switched to

the DNS namespace. Windows Server 2003 still includes support for NetBIOS naming,

but the operating system no longer includes the NetBEUI protocol module.

Tip

Although Windows Server 2003 does not include NetBEUI, there are still occasions

when you might want to install the protocol, such as for testing whether a network

communications problem is being caused by a TCP/IP configuration error or a network

hardware fault. You can still install the NetBEUI module on a Windows Server 2003 computer,

using the installation files included with Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home

Edition. These files are located in the \Valueadd\Msft\Net\Netbeui folder on the Windows XP

distribution CD-ROM.

NetBEUI is a relatively simple networking protocol that provides basic file sharing ser-

vices for Windows computers. NetBEUI is a single protocol—not a suite—and does not

require any individual configuration, as TCP/IP does. This is because NetBEUI uses the

NetBIOS name specified by the installer during the Windows Setup procedure as the

computer’s identifier on the network. NetBEUI also cannot provide Internet connectiv-

ity as TCP/IP can.

NetBEUI is intended for use on small LANs and is not suitable for a large enterprise net-

work. This is because the NetBEUI protocol cannot route traffic between networks and

therefore cannot support internetwork traffic. Both TCP/IP and IPX use separate iden-

tifiers for the network and for the individual computers on the network. A single IP

address contains both a network and a host identifier. IPX uses the hardware address

to identify the computer, and the NetWare installer assigns another address to each