I checked it on the server and found that it was in fact running. I checked the Event Log and found nothing there. The easy way out of this might have been to simply reconfigure everyone to by-pass the Web Proxy and simply use the WinSock Proxy like the boss was. But there was one itsy-bitsy problem. One of the employees needed to access an on-line service that used the web browser through a dial up connection. To do this, the WinSock Proxy Client had to be disabled. But she also needed to access the web so Plan B was not an option. We wanted it to work as designed anyway.

So, back to the server. The IIS (Internet Information Service) is the Microsoft web server that comes with Windows NT and 2000. My client runs a web site on his server and his programmer had recently moved it from the C: drive to another data drive on the server. This changed the ‘Default Web Site’. This caught my eye as a probable cause of the problem. I checked with the Small Business Server references and they said don’t mess with the Default Web Site. So I created a new Default Web Site but this had no effect.

I then noticed that IIS was configured to have the Default Web Site respond to the external IP address only. In IIS you can specify the IP address a given web site should serve. This allows for hosting several different web pages on the same server. Typically when you run SBS or have only one web site, this is set to “All Unassigned” by default, which will allow it to respond to any of the IP addresses on the server. This server has two NICs (Network Interface Cards), one for the Internet and the other for the internal network. By specifying the Internet IP address only, it precluded IIS from responding to anything on the internal NIC. This of course is where requests from the clients for Web Proxy would come from. Web Proxy is actually an add-on service to IIS and so depends on the Default Web Site. Although the Web Proxy service was running and showing no errors, it had no way to communicate with the internal network. I changed the IP address configuration for the Default Web Site back to “All Unassigned” and life was good once again.

Think outside the box
Recently a client called me in to resolve a printing problem. They had been able to print to their local printer for some time. But suddenly, whenever she tried to print, her computer would lock up and she would have to reboot to get control again. I checked it out and found that we could print to other printers on the network. I tried reinstalling the printer driver. No luck. I deleted the printer and reinstalled it. Still no luck. I figured that there must be some sort of corruption on the hard drive causing the problem. I ran ScanDisk with the surface check. This discovered no new errors but did show that there were some bad sectors toward the end of the disk. Still we could not print. Finally I decided to try running Defrag. My theory was that perhaps by moving stuff around on the hard drive, I might move the printer stuff away from some possibly bad spots on the drive. Sure enough, once the defrag finished, I tried printing and this time it worked!  Sometimes you just gotta think outside the box.

Predictions for 2001
Some time ago, PC Alamode had a predictions issue. At that time I predicted that CPU speeds would reach or exceed 1,000 MHz (1 GHz) by 2000. Looks like I was right. Now you can find CPU speeds approaching 1.5 GHz! How much faster they can or will go in 2001 is anyone’s guess. However, I don’t think this is where there will be a lot of action. Demand for PCs is starting to falter and these speeds are fast as it is. Adding RAM to a system is a great way to improve performance and with RAM at all time lows, I would see desktop systems using at least 256MB of RAM if not more. Windows 2000 likes RAM!

Speaking of Windows, it looks like Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me) will be the last of the Windows 9x versions. Windows 9x is designed for home use while Windows NT and 2000 are designed for business use. However, I have installed Windows 2000 Pro in home PCs this year with much success.  Microsoft is now beta testing its next operating system — code named Whistler. This version is supposed to be the much-awaited combining of Windows 9x and NT into a unified operating system. However Microsoft is not real good about quick releases so whether we see Whistler released in 2001 is questionable.