WinGroup 95 Product Information

	  Congratulations on choosing WinGroup 95 as your solution to 
            		network application integration!

				Table of Contents

	1. What is WinGroup 95?
	2. Why WinGroup 95?
	3. What's the Problem?
	4. WinGroup 95 Compatibility
	5. WinGroup 95 is THE SOLUTION!
	6. DISCLAIMER


1.  What is WinGroup 95?

WinGroup 95 is a utility designed to share Network applications among 
Microsoft's suite of Operating Systems.  It looks and acts for all 
intensive purposes like any other Group in the Program Manager with two 
exceptions.  First, it doesn't actually run inside the Program Manager, 
it is in fact an independent executable.  Thus is will run under any 3rd 
Party Program Manager Replacement.  Second, it has its own, editable, 
open architecture file format that allows Network Managers to maintain 
it simply by editing its configuration file.


2.  Why WinGroup 95?

The WinGroup 95 Utility was borne of a lack of network integration 
provided by Microsoft for environments consisting of Windows for 
Workgroups and/or Windows 95 and/or Windows NT Workstation running on a 
Novell and/or Windows NT Network.  While it is our anticipation that 
Windows NT will in fact become the dominant Server and desktop operating 
system within the next two years, there will be significant integration 
needs through that time and beyond.

3.  What's the Problem?

The introduction of Windows 95 has spurred a considerable amount of 
interest and concern among Network Administrators for both its 
opportunity to increase desktop capabilities and its destabilization of 
current network management.

4.  WinGroup Compatibility - WinGroup has been tested and approved to 
run on the following operating systems.

	a.  WINDOWS 3.11 and WINDOWS FOR WORKGROUPS 3.11

Through 1994, the most common network configuration consisted of Windows 
3.11 workstations connected to Novell Servers.  Applications loaded on 
the server were accessed on the desktop by clicking on icons located in 
shared Groups (GRIP) files located on the server.  It was relatively 
simple to create, maintain and protect these Group files.  The use of 
these group files was necessitated by the fact that Microsoft did not 
provide and integrated method in the operating system to share server 
applications.

	b.  WINDOWS NT

Realizing this deficiency, Microsoft transferred the group file 
information into the Registry in Windows NT.  Thus these files were now 
maintained in a database that could either be maintained by the 
workstation (in its local Workgroup Registry) or at the NT server (in 
the domain Registry).  Microsoft defined two types of Groups, Common and 
Personal.  When logging into the local registry, Personal Groups are 
owned and available to individual users (not shared).  Common Groups are 
shared among all users on the workstation and are suppose to contain 
applications loaded on the local hard drive.  When logging into a Domain 
server, the Common Groups still come from the local registry and contain 
apps found on the local harddrive.  Personal Groups come from the Domain 
Registry, meaning the network.  Thus to provide access to network 
applications, the network Administrator must create, maintain and 
protect these groups.  Windows NT does contain a profile Manager Utility 
that allows for the migration of Profiles to user groups.  The draw back 
of this method is significant in that it over-writes the users preferred 
settings (i.e. colors, sizings, groups, icons, etc.).  It also 
complicates the deployment process as icon/group changes are no longer 
performed in a single place as current Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 
installations require separate management.

	c.  WINDOWS 95

Like Windows NT, Windows 95 contains a registry of the Menu bar 
contents.  However Microsoft added a container application for exiting 
Group Files so that a Windows 3.11 Group can be added to the Menu Bar 
either by conversion or single entry inclusion.  In the case of 
conversion, the same methods of deployment and maintenance apply from 
Windows NT.  In the case of inclusion, the methods are the same as 
Window 3.11.


5.  WinGroup is THE SOLUTION


The quandary Network Administrators are now faced with is how to manage 
networks containing workstations using Windows, Windows 95 and Windows 
NT.  It is possible to use an NT Server Domain Profiles on all three 
platforms.  However this means revoking users ability to personalize 
their own systems.  It also assumes that a slew of installation 
constraints for all three operating systems was followed to the letter 
including such things as installing them into the default directories.  
Since in the REAL WORLD that isn't likely, a simpler solution is to use 
WinGroup 95.


6.  DISCLAIMER

WinGroup 95 is not a panacea nor is it the final or best answer to this 
problem.  We at AQUIA ComTec recognize this fact and are working 
diligently on new releases to improve the current product and to explore 
more integrated and intelligent solutions.  Thus we encourage you to 
contact us with your ideas, complaints, praises, etc. so that we can 
learn how to better meet your needs.

Please read and agree to the license agreement (LICENSE.TXT) included in
the software package prior to using this software!

Thanks Again for choosing WinGroup 95!