NETBEUI question

[Kerry Brown]

I have a customer who has installed NETBEUI as well as TCP/IP on a small
workgroup (16 computers). The computers have a mixture of Win98 and XP Home.
They were having some problems with printer sharing so someone installed
NETBEUI and it solved their problems. They have contracted me to develop a
long term plan. I have recommended they move to Server 2003 and XP Pro on
all their computers. They are starting to do this by upgrading from XP Home
to XP Pro on the accounting computers. Server 2003 is a while away yet due
to budgetary concerns.

While upgrading their computers from Home to Pro the install came up with
NETBEUI being incompatible and it was automatically uninstalled during the
upgrade. I reinstalled it once the upgrade was complete. One of the printers
they need to connect to is on a computer still running Win98 and the
printing does seem to work better with NETBEUI installed. Once they convert
all the computers to XP Pro and install Server 2003 I'll set up WINS and DNS
and they won't need NETBEUI but it bothers me that the upgrade install said
it was incompatible and uninstalled it. Is "incompatible" Microsoft's way of
saying "no longer supported" and I can safely ignore the warning for now? Is
there any reason not to reinstall NETBEUI when upgrading from XP Home to
Pro?

Kerry

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have a customer who has installed NETBEUI as well as TCP/IP on a
small workgroup (16 computers). The computers have a mixture of Win98
and XP Home. They were having some problems with printer sharing so
someone installed NETBEUI and it solved their problems. They have
contracted me to develop a long term plan. I have recommended they
move to Server 2003 and XP Pro on all their computers. They are
starting to do this by upgrading from XP Home to XP Pro on the
accounting computers. Server 2003 is a while away yet due to
budgetary concerns.
While upgrading their computers from Home to Pro the install came up
with NETBEUI being incompatible and it was automatically uninstalled
during the upgrade. I reinstalled it once the upgrade was complete.
One of the printers they need to connect to is on a computer still
running Win98 and the printing does seem to work better with NETBEUI
installed. Once they convert all the computers to XP Pro and install
Server 2003 I'll set up WINS and DNS and they won't need NETBEUI but
it bothers me that the upgrade install said it was incompatible and
uninstalled it. Is "incompatible" Microsoft's way of saying "no
longer supported" and I can safely ignore the warning for now? Is
there any reason not to reinstall NETBEUI when upgrading from XP Home
to Pro?

You can ignore it for now.

A simple search on Microsoft's web site (or using Google) brings up these
articles (you may have known about one or both..)

The NetBEUI Protocol Is Not Available in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306059

Quote:
"Support for the NetBEUI network protocol has been discontinued in Windows
XP."
and
"You can install NetBEUI in Windows XP, but it is an unsupported protocol."

How to install NetBEUI on Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301041

Quote:
"This article describes how to manually install the unsupported NetBIOS
Extended User Interface (NetBEUI) protocol on a computer that is running
Microsoft Windows XP."

 

[Kerry Brown]

Kerry Brown wrote:
You can ignore it for now.

A simple search on Microsoft's web site (or using Google) brings up these
articles (you may have known about one or both..)

The NetBEUI Protocol Is Not Available in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306059

Quote:
"Support for the NetBEUI network protocol has been discontinued in Windows
XP."
and
"You can install NetBEUI in Windows XP, but it is an unsupported
protocol."

How to install NetBEUI on Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301041

Quote:
"This article describes how to manually install the unsupported NetBIOS
Extended User Interface (NetBEUI) protocol on a computer that is running
Microsoft Windows XP."

--
<- Shenan ->
--
The information is provided "as is", it is suggested you research for
yourself before you take any advice - you are the one ultimately
responsible for your actions/problems/solutions. Know what you are
getting into before you jump in with both feet.

Thanks for the reply. I have read the support articles before and knew how
to install NETBEUI. It just threw me off when upgrading from Home to Pro it
was automatically uninstalled as being incompatible. I'm just trying to make
sure there is not some underlying problem with NETBEUI (other than not being
routable and causing a lot of unnecessary traffic) that was going to cause a
problem. They only have one subnet and not much network traffic (just
printer sharing and a couple of little used file shares) so I reinstalled it
until I can convince them to upgrade all the computers to XP and install a
server.

Kerry

 

[Lil' Dave]

Thanks for the reply. I have read the support articles before and knew how
to install NETBEUI. It just threw me off when upgrading from Home to Pro it
was automatically uninstalled as being incompatible. I'm just trying to make
sure there is not some underlying problem with NETBEUI (other than not being
routable and causing a lot of unnecessary traffic) that was going to cause a
problem. They only have one subnet and not much network traffic (just
printer sharing and a couple of little used file shares) so I reinstalled it
until I can convince them to upgrade all the computers to XP and install a
server.

Kerry

Bottom line, XP's firewall has no protection against NETBIOS attacks. The
"no support" line is a veil for that lack of protection.

 

[HeyBub]

Thanks for the reply. I have read the support articles before and
knew how to install NETBEUI. It just threw me off when upgrading from
Home to Pro it was automatically uninstalled as being incompatible.
I'm just trying to make sure there is not some underlying problem
with NETBEUI (other than not being routable and causing a lot of
unnecessary traffic) that was going to cause a problem. They only
have one subnet and not much network traffic (just printer sharing
and a couple of little used file shares) so I reinstalled it until I
can convince them to upgrade all the computers to XP and install a
server.

NETBEUI is a conduit to all manner of attack and it can't be made secure.
Once a virus/trojan/malware hits one computer on the network, BANG!,
everybody has it.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thanks for the reply. I have read the support articles before and knew how
to install NETBEUI. It just threw me off when upgrading from Home to Pro
it was automatically uninstalled as being incompatible. I'm just trying to
make sure there is not some underlying problem with NETBEUI (other than
not being routable and causing a lot of unnecessary traffic) that was
going to cause a problem. They only have one subnet and not much network
traffic (just printer sharing and a couple of little used file shares) so
I reinstalled it until I can convince them to upgrade all the computers to
XP and install a server.

Thanks Lil' Dave and HeyBub. I knew there had to be a reason.They have had
problems with network aware virii in the past. When they told me this I
assumed it was the Win98 clients that were the cause of the virii problem.

Kerry

 

[Jeff]

Do other firewalls - such as in Routers or from ZoneAlarm software - provide
protection against NETBIOS attacks?

 

[Jeff]

On the other hand, as I think you said you found out, if you have to network
between XP and W98, Netbeui may be the only thing that allows the network to
connect. Right? I've had the same experience. Could not get it to work
until I instaled Netbeui.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Kerry Brown]

On the other hand, as I think you said you found out, if you have to
network between XP and W98, Netbeui may be the only thing that allows the
network to connect. Right? I've had the same experience. Could not get
it to work until I instaled Netbeui.

Jeff

You can use TCP/IP to network XP & W98. There can sometimes be problems
browsing the Network Neighbourhood. Solving the issue can be time consuming
checking all the settings on each computer paying special attention to
NETBIOS over TCP/IP, binding order etc.. If you have W95 machines in the
works it can get even more troublesome. In a nutshell, it can be made to
work but NETBEUI or IPX/SPX is often installed as a band-aid to quickly get
things working.

The network I am working on was, I believe, originally Windows 3.11 for
Networks and has grown over the years to include W95, W98, Me, XP Home and
now XP Pro clients. The last time I worked on it was several years ago when
W98 was current. I told them at that time they needed to standardise on one
configuration and stick to it. I recommended Windows 2000 Pro. That was my
last call there until my replacement couldn't keep things band-aided (sp?)
together anymore and they called me back in. I'm trying to clean up the mess
as cheaply as possible for them until they can afford to upgrade to Server
2003 and all XP Pro clients. They needed some security with fine granularity
on the accounting/payroll computers hence the XP Pro upgrades. To make it
work the previous tech had installed every possible protocol and shared C:
on all the computers with full control to everyone. He then set the NTFS
permissions on C: to full control for everyone and allowed it to be
inherited. It is a bit of a nightmare to say the least.

Kerry