DOS: THE ALTERNATIVE OPERATING SYSTEM

Microsoft Interlink


Please check that the files 'interlnk.exe' and 'intersvr.exe' are installed in the DOS directory on both computers. The computer you use to type commands is called the client. The computer connected to the client is the server. The client uses the servers drives and printers, and the server displays the status of the connection between the computers. For example, suppose you have connected a laptop and a desktop computer. The laptop computer has three drives: a floppy disk drive (A) and two hard disk drives (C and D). The desktop computer also has three drives: two floppy disk drives (A and B) and a hard disk drive (C). The following table lists the drives on each computer.

Laptop drives

A
C
D
E
F
G

Desktop drives



A
B
C

When the computers are connected using Interlnk, the drives on the desktop computer (the server) appear as additional drives on the laptop computer (the client). In addition to drives A, C, and D, the laptop computer now includes drives E, F, and G.

The following illustration shows how the drives of each computer are redirected;

Drive E of the laptop computer (client) represents drive A of the desktop computer (server). If you make drive E current on the laptop computer, the commands you type affect drive A of the desktop computer. For example, if you type the following command on the laptop computer. MS-DOS displays a list of the files in the root directory of the desktop computers hard drive:

The drives on your laptop and desktop computers will probably be redirected differently than the ones in this example. When you connect your computers and get Interlnk running, the server will display the way your drives are redirected.


What You Need to Use Interlink

Before you use Interlink, make sure you have the following hardware, software, and available memory;

A free serial port on both computers computers or a free parallel port on
both computers

A 3-wire serial cable, 7-wire null-modem serial cable, or bidirectional
parallel (Laplink) cable

MSDOS version 6.x on one computer and MSDOS 3.3 or later on the
other

16 kilobytes (K) of free memory on the client and 130k of free memory
on the server


Setting up the Client

To set up INTERLNK.EXE on the computer(s) you plan to use as a client;

Make sure the INTERLNK.EXE file is located on the computers
hard disk

Open your CONFIG.SYS file by using a text editor such as MSDOS
Editor. (Your CONFIG.SYS file is located in the root directory of
your startup drive.) To open your CONFIG.SYS file using MS-DOS
Editor, edit c:\config.sys

Add a device command that specifies the location of the file. You can
also specify options for redirecting drives and printers. For more
information about the options you can specify, type the following at
the command prompt; c:\help interlink.exe. The following example
specifies that the INTERLNK.EXE file is located in the DOS
directory on drive C:. The command also specifies that
INTERLNK.EXE should redirect five drives instead of the default
three drives;device=c:\dos\interlnk.exe /drives:5

Save the changes to your CONFIG.SYS file, then quit the text editor

Restart the computer by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL


After you add the device command for INTERLNK.EXE to your CONFIG.SYS file, Interlink displays the status of the redirected drives and ports each time you start the client computer. You can also view the status of redirected drives and ports by typing the following at the command prompt; c:\interlnk

For example, the following is a status report for a computer that has five redirected drives and two redirected printer ports:

Microsoft Interlink Version 1.00

Port=LPT1
Drive letters redirected: 5 (D: through H:)
Printer ports redirected: 2 (LPT1: through LPT2:)

This Computer

(Client)
-------------
D:
E:
F:
G:
H:
LPT1:
LPT2:

Other Computer

(Server)
-----------------------
A:
B:
C:
D:
E:
LPT2:
LPT3:

The Port line indicates which port Interlink is using to to the other computer. Interlink displays the sizes and volume labels of hard disk drives on the server. For example, drive C on the server is 85 megabytes (MB) and is labeled "MS-DOS_6."

For more information about the INTERLNK.EXE device driver, type the following at the command prompt; c:\help interlnk.exe


Starting the Server

You do not need to make any changes to your CONFIG.SYS file to start the Interlink server, type the following on the computer you are using as the server at the command prompt; c:\intersvr Interlink displays information about redirected drives and printer ports on the servers'screen.

The column labeled "This Computer" lists all drives and printer ports on the server. The column labeled "Other computer" lists the drives and printer ports on the client, in addition to the drives and ports on the server that are now available on the client.

A status bar at the bottom of the screen displays the staus of the Interlink connection. The Transfer field indicates wether the client is reading from or writing to the server. When the client reads from or writes to the server, Interlink displays an asterisk (*) next to the drive letter that indicates which server drive is being affected. The Port field shows which server port Interlink is transferring information.

For more information about the Interlink server, type the following at the command prompt; c:\help intersvr


Establishing a Connection Between Computers

Interlink establishes connections between all redirected drives and ports when you do one of the following;

Restart the client computer when the server is running
Type the following at the command prompt; c:\interlnk
Make one of the redirected drives on the client computer the active drive


Breaking the Connection Between Computers

To break the Interlink connection between computers, stop the server by pressing ALT+F4 on the servers keyboard. To restart the server, type the following at the command prompt; c:\intersvr