Improved Network Device Support | Introducing Microsoft Windows Server(TM) 2003

Windows Server 2003 improves support for networking devices. You learn about this improved support in the following sections:

Permanent Virtual Circuit Encapsulation
NDIS 5.1 and Remote NDIS
Improved Network Media Support
CardBus Wake on LAN
Device Driver Enhancements
Wake on LAN: Select Wake Event Improvements
IrCOMM Modem Driver for IrDA

Permanent Virtual Circuit Encapsulation

The Windows Server 2003 family includes an implementation of RFC 2684. This was added to make DSL simpler for vendors to implement. The implementation is an NDIS intermediate driver that looks like an Ethernet interface but uses a DSL/Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) permanent virtual circuit (PVC) to carry Ethernet (or TCP/IP only) frames . This mechanism is commonly used in the industry by carriers and others deploying DSL. With the Windows Server 2003 family and an ATM miniport driver for a DSL device, a DSL deployment can use the following protocol configurations:

TCP/IP over PPP over ATM (PPPoA) using a vendor DSL ATM miniport driver
TCP/IP over RFC 2684 (four encapsulation types) using a vendor DSL ATM miniport driver
TCP/IP over PPPoE over RFC 2684 (four encapsulation types) using a vendor DSL ATM miniport

In addition, 802.1X authentication can be added to the RFC 2684 Ethernet interface. This variety of options meets the needs of a majority of DSL deployments. For more information, see RFC 2684.

NDIS 5.1 and Remote NDIS

The network cards and their drivers used to make the physical network available to the operating system and protocols have been enhanced in the Windows Server 2003 family. Enhancements include the following:

Plug and Play and power event notification.

Enables network card miniport drivers to be notified of power or Plug and Play events. This results in cleaner system operation during these events.
Support for send cancellation.

Allows network protocols to avoid having to wait lengthy amounts of time for network packet send requests to complete.
Increased statistics capacity (64-bit statistic counters).

This enhancement enables accurate network statistic displays, even on today's high-speed network media.
Performance enhancements.

Several enhancements were made to speed up critical network data paths and avoid unnecessary packet copies.
Wake on LAN change.

A change was made to Wake on LAN to allow you to limit wake-up packets to just magic packets (instead of protocol-registered packet patterns). This is now configurable on the Power Management tab from the properties of a network adapter.
Miscellaneous changes.

Several additional changes have been made to support common needs or requests from driver developers or to improve driver integrity.

Remote NDIS is also included as part of the Windows Server 2003 family. Remote NDIS enables the support of USB-attached network devices without the installation of third-party drivers. Microsoft supplies the drivers required to communicate with the network devices. This results in easier installation and a lessened chance of system failure because of a poorly built or tested driver.

For more information about NDIS 5.1 and Remote NDIS, refer to the Windows Server 2003 family DDK and the following Web pages:

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/tech/network/NDIS51.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/tech/network/rmNDIS.htm

Improved Network Media Support

Support for some of the newest network devices has been added to the Windows Server 2003 family and is available out of the box. This includes support for many new home-networking devices. Most of the new HomePNA (telephone line) devices are supported. Most USB-connected network devices are supported in the Windows Server 2003 family; some use Remote NDIS, eliminating the need for additional drivers. Support for 802.11 wireless devices has improved. Many of these devices also support wireless zero configuration and roaming features in the Windows Server 2003 family. The modem support in Windows has been extended in the Windows Server 2003 family to include many soft modems.

CardBus Wake on LAN

This feature allows a computer to be resumed from standby by a CardBus LAN card. An IT administrator can use this feature to aid in managing a group of servers.

Device Driver Enhancements

This feature adds network device drivers that are commonly used in home networking and removes legacy device drivers that are no longer relevant. It also improves the quality of networking drivers. Driver categories include the following:

LAN network drivers

These include 10/100 network interface cards (NICs), IEEE 802.11, and Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA).
Broadband.

Includes cable modems, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).
Modems.

These include driver-based and 56-Kbps V.90 modems.

A home user who upgrades a computer to a member of the Windows Server 2003 family discovers that the network devices he or she currently uses are already supported by this new operating system.

Wake on LAN: Select Wake Event Improvements

Wake on LAN (WOL), introduced in Windows 2000, is a hardware capability of WOL-enabled network adapters whereby the NIC can trigger bus power management wake-up events upon the receipt of certain patterns in network packets. Improvements to this functionality include the following:

WOL fully enabled, with all packet patterns causing wake-up events
WOL enabled, with only magic packets causing wake-up events
WOL fully disabled

These new features enable the following scenarios:

A user wants to have her computer go into a low-power standby mode to save power. However, she also wants the computer to come out of standby (wake up) if another computer on the network wants to use services on that computer or perform management functions on the computer.
An IT administrator wants to control WOL on computers and sets the feature to WOL fully enabled.

IrCOMM Modem Driver for IrDA

The IrCOMM modem driver allows a user to use an infrared-enabled cellular phone as a modem. When the cellular phone is placed next to the infrared port, it is enumerated and an appropriate driver is installed (or a generic driver if the model is not recognized). A mobile phone can then be used just like any other modem to create a network connection.

This driver enables the following scenario: A user has an infrared-enabled mobile telephone with the IrCOMM protocol and wants to use it as a modem to access the Internet. With this feature, a mobile computer will recognize the mobile telephone, enumerate it, and install it as a modem. The user can now dial in to the Internet in the same way as with a built-in modem.

This feature is provided only in Enterprise Edition and Web Edition.

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