19.1 History: From Frontier Town to Bustling Metropolis

The original Browse Service staked its claim alongside the LANMAN1.0 dialect , back in the frontier days of OS/2. Its descendants stayed on and prospered through the LM1.2X002 and LANMAN2.1 days, and then quietly faded into legend. There aren't many systems around today that still earn their keep by running LAN Manager style browsing, as it is known, yet the legacy lives on. Windows systems generally have a server configuration check-box to enable LAN Manager browser announcements, and Samba has an LM ANNOUNCE parameter for the same purpose.

When Windows NT rode into town, it brought along a newfangled Browse Service. Like its predecessor, the new system was built upon the NetBIOS API. It was an improvement over the older version in that it could exchange and combine Browse Lists with remote Browsers on distant LANs, thus bringing the world a little closer together. That version of the Browse Service is the same one most folks still use today, and it is the one we will be studying in detail.

Then came the Information Superhighway, and Windows 2000 arrived in a bright blue limousine with a fancy new Browse Service hanging on its arm. The W2K browsing system is designed to run on naked TCP transport, and it is built on top of Active Directory and the LDAP protocol. As you may have come to expect by now, covering Directory Services is more than this book is trying to achieve so we won't spend a lot of time on W2K browsing. Besides, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are both backward compatible with previous Windows versions, and can still support the older NetBIOS-based Windows Browse Service.

Another thing that has changed since Windows 2000 arrived is the name of the Network Neighborhood. These days, it is called "My Network Places." A discussion of the implications of the shift in metaphor from one relating the network environment to a cohesive and open community to one of self-centered virtual oligarchy is also way the heck beyond the scope of this book.