Agent requires a TCP/IP protocol stack that support Windows Sockets (winsock) 1.1. Here is a list of winsock drivers that we have tested and verified compatibility with, or that our users have reported success with. Click on the names for information about specific versions that have been tested, and setup options or other tricks required to make them work.
We know that we have compatibility problems with the following drivers, and are investigating the problems:
We've tested version 3.11N, which is the "lite" version that's been bound into popular Internet books. It works with Agent, but it doesn't have a "dial-on-demand" mode to fully support our offline operation. You'll have to manually connect and disconnect from your service provider.
Internet In A Box / CompuServe NetLauncher
We are not compatible with version 1.0, which does not support the async GetHostByName function. We are compatible with versions 1.0a and above. For information about upgrading to version 1.0a, see Spry's Web pages .
Note that there appear to be two updates, one to the DLL and one to the dialer. Versions 0.55 and earlier of Free Agent require the new DLL but the old dialer. All later versions of Free Agent (and all versions of Agent) work with the latest DLL and dialer.
The CID program that is included in CompuServe's NetLauncher package is basically the latest version of Spry's winsock driver. If you're using it, you should therefore make sure you have upgraded past version 0.55 of Free Agent as described above.
Microsoft WFWG, Windows 95, and Windows NT
We've tested Agent with Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, and Windows NT 3.5, using their standard protocol stacks, and found no problems.
If you're using one of the 32-bit versions, you'll need to install the winsock.dll that is supplied with it before you can use Agent (or any other 16-bit Winsock application). Our experience has been t hat Windows 95 installs it automatically when you install the TCP/IP networking protocol, but we've had at least one user report that they had to install it manually.
Agent is compatible with version 1.6 of Netcom's NetCruiser software, but not with earlier versions. Here are the steps to configure NetCruiser to work with Agent:
NOTE: You MUST be connected at the time in order to receive the Settings|Startup Options menu option!
NOTE: After connecting with NETCOM, you must close the news blurb that appears each time you log on before the Winsock driver will load! All you should see is the large NETCOM Logo on the screen.
Once that's done, you'll need to configure Agent to work with the NETCOM servers. Go to the System Profile tab of the Options | Preferences dialog box and enter the following server names:
News Server: nntp.ix.netcom.com
Mail Server: smtp.ix.netcom.com
We are compatible with the latest version of Netware Winsock, although earlier versions had a bug that prevented them from working. The latest version is available from Novell's ftp site as LWP42T.EXE.
Make sure you have the file NOVASYNC.EXE in \net\bin or in your path. This file provides the asynchronous support for Novell's driver, and you will get 10050 or 20050 (WSAENETDOWN) errors if it isn't found.
We've tested versions 1.0B and 2.0B, and although both of them work we recommend 2.0B. Version 1.0B of the driver contains a bug that can cause Agent to stop responding while it's downloading an article. This isn't a serious problem, because things return to normal after the article is loaded, but you won't have the problem at all if you use 2.0B. Version 1.0B also doesn't support PPP, so you'll need 2.0B if you have such an account.
(We've heard reports of bugs in version 2.1B that can cause serious performance problems. We're told that the Trumpet people are aware of these, and that a workaround is to go to the Setup dialog box and disable the Van Jacobsen CSLIP compression option. We haven't tested this ourselves, though, so we can't guarantee the results.)
There are no special setup requirements to make Trumpet work with Agent, unless you have a dial-in connection and want to use Agent as an Offline newsreader. To operate effectively in that case, you must configure Trumpet Winsock to dial in and hang up on demand. To do that, run TCPMAN.EXE, open the Dialler menu, and select the Options item. On the ensuing dialog box, select the Automatic login and logout on demand radio button. This makes it run the login.cmd file whenever it needs to go online (typically when it's loaded), and the bye.cmd file when it is unloaded.
While you're in this dialog box, you should also set the SLIP inactivity timeout field to 0. This will prevent Trumpet Winsock from hanging up if Agent is inactive for an extended period, as can happen when purging and threading. When you've made all these changes, press OK to dismiss the dialog box.
The next thing to do is to tell Trumpet Winsock how to recognize when it is on line. To do this, select the File | Setupmenu item and look at the Online Status Detection section of the dialog box. This tells Trumpet Winsock how to recognize when it is on-line to the Internet. If you're using a normal modem, you should check the DCD (RLSD) check option. This tells Winsock to use the modem's carrier detect line to detect its online status. Trumpet Winsock will probably fail to dial your service provider if you check any of the other options, because it will think it's already online. Press OK when you have this option set correctly.
Once you've done all that, you can test your setup by manually running TCPMAN. It should start executing the login.cmd script as soon as it starts up. If it doesn't, and you don't see any error messages, chances are that it thinks it's already online. If this happens, go to the File | Setup dialog box again and verify that you set the right Online Status Detectionoption.
If you have, the problem could be that your modem is reporting that it's online even when it isn't. Many modems have the ability to force their DCD (carrier detect) line to be on whenever the modem is powered on and ready. For Trumpet Winsock to work properly, the modem must instead be reporting the true state of DCD, so that Winsock can tell when it's actually connected.
You'll probably have to break out your modem manual to figure out how to proceed from here. Some older modems control this with a dipswitch setting, but most modern ones use AT commands to set it. For many modems, the command &C1 will cause the DCD line to correctly report the modem's state. To test this, use a terminal program to talk to your modem and issue whatever command your modem requires. Then close the terminal program and start TCPMAN. If it now starts executing the login script, you've got things wired -- almost.
The one remaining chore is to save this modem configuration change, so that it works this way every time you turn it on. To do that, get out the modem manual again and find the command that saves the current configuation as the default power-on setup. For many modems, the appropriate command is &W or &W0 . Make sure your modem configuration is really the way you want it, and then use your terminal program to issue the command to save the configuration.
(You might be thinking that you could save yourself the trouble of doing this last step by simply including the &C1command in the setup string in your login.cmd file, so that it got executed every time Trumpet Winsock tried to go online. There's a chicken-and-the-egg problem here: Winsock won't even execute the file unless it knows it's offline, but the modem will be telling Winsock that it's already online until it gets the command. The modem must be correctly set up before Winsock is loaded.)
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