DOS 7 (Win98) NET START -v- WORKSTATION service

[RetroMIDI]

Battling to understand how to get DOS network up and running in command
prompt only mode.

What is the difference between NET and WORKSTATION?

NET START completes successfully, yet ...

When I then try NET VIEW, I am told that the WORKSTATION SERVICE is not
started. And it fails to start!

-1- What batch command would start the workstation service (if it WAS
going to start).

-2- What is the difference between NET and WORKSTATION?

 

[Ari Lukumies]

Battling to understand how to get DOS network up and running in command
prompt only mode.

What is the difference between NET and WORKSTATION?

Net(.com/.exe) is the network command program (also containing such
subcommands as 'use', 'view' etc), Workstation is the service running
on a network workstation (such as a PC). To start up the base network,
one (depending on the version of NET used) normally uses

NET START

and to start the workstation service:

NET START WORKSTATION

On the DOS systems with which I have once built a network using bare
DOS, you first needed a driver for the network card (see, for example
www.3com.com and look for one of their cards, such as 3c509 that does
have DOS drivers developed for), a router/listener program to handle
the routing services (to whom to connect to) and the listener services
(if you're to share some of your own resources) and the network
component (ie. NET, etc). At one point, microsoft used to have these
available at their ftp site (ftp://ftp.microsoft.com), but I'm not
sure if they do anymore; also, Novell once had a product named NWLite,
that contained the necessary networking components.

-atl-