Microsoft Offers TCP/IP Fundamentals for Windows

TCP/IP, an acronym for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, is a suite of protocols supported by Microsoft with the Windows family of platforms. Essentially, through its components, TCP/IP is used for communications on both private networks and on the Internet. As far as the world wide web is concerned, the most common aspects of TCP/IP are IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) and IPv6. The Redmond company is offering extensive documentation on TCP/IP as it is supported in Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 and Window XP. TCP/IP Fundamentals for Microsoft Windows is available for download.

“This online book is a structured, introductory approach to the basic concepts and principles of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol suite, how the most important protocols function, and their basic configuration in the Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 families of operating systems,” revealed Keith Combs, Microsoft IT Pro Evangelist, citing an excerpt of the documentation’s description.

TCP/IP Fundamentals for Microsoft Windows covers a wide range of subjects starting with an introduction and the history of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The Redmond giant also offers an overview of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite architecture, as well as insight into IP addressing, subnetting, IP Routing, the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, a view of the Domain Name Space as well as Windows support for DNS, and additional TCP/IP related information. In the end, readers will be able to understand the stage where TCP/IP is today after more than 30 years since its creation, and the manner in which this evolution is reflected in the four Windows server and client platforms.

“This book is primarily a discussion of concepts and principles to lay a conceptual foundation for the TCP/IP protocol suite and provides an integrated discussion of both Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6),” Combs added.

TCP/IP Fundamentals for Microsoft Windows is available for download here

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Enable Internet Connection Sharing In Windows Vista

You have a Windows Vista computer that’s connected to the broadband internet via a ADSL modem or router.This article helps you how to share your Windows Vista computer’s broadband internet connection (turning first computer into a router) with other computer's in your house or office without using additional router's or even a network switch in some cases.The configuration's for sharing broadband internet connection between two or more computer's in Windows Vista is given:

Case 1:Share Between Two Computers

If you want to share your broadband internet connection with only one additional computer on your house or office you’ll need an addition network (LAN) card installed on your computer if your broadband ADSL modem connects to your computer via the onboard or connected network (LAN) card.

If your broadband ADSL modem connects to your computer through a USB cable you probably won’t have to purchase an additional network (LAN) card because one will be available.

Connect the two computers together with a regular CAT5 network cable which is easily obtained from computer hardware shop. If you don’t want to run a wired connection in your network or you want to make the shared broadband internet connection wireless for a laptop, connect the computer sharing it’s internet to a wireless access point via a CAT5 cable and connect to the wireless access point wirelessly with the computers accessing the shared internet connection.

Case 2:Share Between Three or More Computers

If you want to share your broadband internet connection with two or more additional computers (a small office network) in your house or office you’ll need additional network (LAN) card's if your broadband modem is not connected to your Windows Vista computer with internet access through a USB cable. You’ll also need to purchase additional network cards (same as the number of shared connections), a switch, or wireless access point to network the computers you’re sharing the internet connection with.

Connect the computers to the main computer sharing it’s broadband internet via a network switch and CAT5 network cable or a wireless access point and wireless devices installed on each computer accessing the shared internet.

Steps To Enable Internet Connection Sharing in Windows Vista

• Click the Windows Vista Start orb and from the start menu select Control Panel.
• Click on the link Classic View on the left side of the Control Panel window.
• Open the Network and Sharing Center from Control Panel.
• Click Manage Network Connections on the left side of the Network and Sharing Center window.
• Right-click the network connection you want to share and from the context menu then select Properties.
• Select the Sharing tab at the top of the Network Connection Properties window.
• Check off "Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s network connection".
• Click OK to save the changes.
• After this you can connect your computer, switch, or wireless access point to the extra network connection on the computer sharing it’s internet connection via CAT5 network cable.

Important:Note that if you turn off the main computer connected to the broadband modem, all of the other computers connected to it will lose their internet connections as well.

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Error Fix:“Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage” or “Server Not Found”

When you are browsing a web page using any web browser such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox in Windows Vista or in Windows XP, occasionally some error messages will display,says “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage” or “Server Not Found”.Also when connecting your computer to a remote server, the connection may return an error message says“Host not available”.There are many possible reasons that may cause the above problems in Windows Vista.The major reasons for this issue in Windows Vista will be the network connectivity issue, such as network disconnection, DNS resolving problem, or remote web server issue, which may be cause the network temporarily down. If you have ensured that this network issues is non-existent and no issue exists on your Windows Vista computer or on your ISP network, and have tried various solutions specific to Windows Vista network problems, try the following tweak to fix these issues:

• Open Windows Vista Registry Editor by type in regedit in Start menu Instant Search field and then press Enter key.
• The Windows registry editor will opens and navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

• Locate and right click on EnablePMTUDiscovery registry value in the right pane of the Windows Vista registry editor, and then select Modify option from the context menu.
• In the opened value data text field, change the value 0 and enter 1 as its new value, then click OK button.
• Exit Windows Vista registry editor and restart your computer.

Enabling the Windows Vista registry key of EnablePMTUDiscovery instructs the TCP/IP to try to automatically detect the MTU for all connected networks along the path to a remote host, which may be different from the MTU of local network to avoid packet fragmentation and so faster performance.By default, this Windows registry key does not exist in the registry, which when found, the computer assume this feature is enabled. Some software applications or some updates add in the EnablePMTUDiscovery registry key and disable it to harden the security of the system. When disabled, the registry key value data is “0″ by default in Windows Vista, and TCP/IP settings uses a default MTU size of 576 bytes for all communications and data transfers across remote networks, which may intermittently cause problems and unreachable packets.The above trick works on all versions Windows Operating systems after Windows 2000.

For more information read from Microsoft:You receive an error message in Internet Explorer 7: "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"

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Test Websites For Compatibility Using IETester

All developers wish they could install multiple versions of Internet Explorer as every version is different from the other, and it’s real pain for developers to code and test their websites in every version of IE. There are many users of use IE6 as their primary browser, and since Vista gets IE7, it again renders websites differently than IE6. To top it all, we now have IE8, which again renders websites differently than any prior versions.

Some web services like Browsershots have been very useful to test websites in various version of different web-browsers. Recently, the release of IETester will make things much easier now. IETester is a free web-browser that allow you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8 beta 1, IE7, IE 6 and IE5.5 on Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Now you can test websites in various versions of IE, all at the same time in different tabs side by side.

IETester is still in alpha stage, and with comes many limitations. You can read them below as listed by the developer.

• When resizing, the content may disappear. (Will be fixed in the next version)
• The Previous/Next buttons are not working properly
• Focus is not working properly
• Java applets are not working
• Flash is not working on IE6 instance

Download IETester 0.2.2 Alpha

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