Interoperability with NetWare

NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS-compatible transport protocol is the Microsoft 32-bit implementation of the Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange (IPX/SPX) protocol suite. Use this protocol to connect to NetWare servers by using Client Service for NetWare or Gateway Service for NetWare.

NWLink provides only the transport protocol to support communications with NetWare file servers. To log on to a NetWare network from a Windows 2000 Professional–based computer, you must use Client Service, or a NetWare client such as Novell Client for Windows 2000.

Because NWLink supports the Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) or is NDIS-compliant, the Windows 2000–based computer can simultaneously run other protocol stacks such as TCP/IP to communicate with TCP/IP–based computers. NWLink can be bound to multiple network adapters.

Note

NetWare 5.0 uses TCP/IP as the native protocol, and IPX is not installed by default. Therefore, to use NWLink to connect to NetWare 5.0 servers, enable IPX on the NetWare 5.0 servers. To use TCP/IP to connect to NetWare 5.0 servers, use Novell Client for Windows 2000.

NWLink supports the networking application programming interfaces (APIs) NetBIOS and Windows Sockets. These APIs allow communication among computers running Windows 2000 and between computers running Windows 2000 and NetWare servers.

In addition to using NWLink to connect computers running Windows 2000 and computers running NetWare, you can use NWLink whenever you need IPX/SPX. For example, you can use NWLink to connect proxy servers or servers running Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), SNA Server, SQL Server, or Exchange Server, when an IPX/SPX-based protocol is used.

Note

NWLink requires little or no initial client configuration on small nonrouted networks.