Installing NetWare Services for Windows 2000

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Both Novell and Microsoft provide a number of ways for clients to access NetWare and Windows 2000 Server resources. Novell provides client software for MSDOS, Microsoft Windows 3.x, Microsoft Windows 95/98, Microsoft Windows NT 4 Workstation, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. Microsoft has NetWare client software for Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4 Workstation, and Windows 2000 Professional. With the installation of any of these clients, a computer can be a client of Windows 2000 Server and NetWare simultaneously. Windows 2000 also provides the ability to access NetWare resources without the need to install any client software through the use of GSNW.

Novell Clients

Novell client software for Windows 3.x, Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4 Workstation, and Windows 2000 Professional provides full compatibility with NetWare, its utilities, and third-party applications written using the NetWare application programming interface (API). Unlike earlier versions of NetWare clients for Windows-based environments, Novell currently provides full 32-bit client support.

Microsoft Clients

Microsoft provides its own clients for NetWare access. Windows 95 and Windows NT 4 Workstation supply a NetWare client that can be used to access legacy NetWare 3.x bindery-based servers. Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Windows NT 4 Workstation, Windows 95, and Windows 98 provide software to allow clients to log on to an NDS-based server (such as NetWare 4.x and 5.x). These clients provide better integration with Windows-based networking, they require less memory overhead (due to shared libraries), and they are full 32-bit applications. The Microsoft-based NetWare clients provide almost complete support of the NetWare APIs, although not all third-party applications will work if they use older or uncommon NetWare API calls.