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| Installation
/ Setup |
| Even
a monkey could handle this. |
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As
we noted earlier, life is simple while setting up
the DHN-920 kit from D-Link.
A picture tells the story so we'll just show you the
artwork.
That
is all there is to it, to allow two or more
computers in your house to communicate with the
Microsoft Networking Client that is already resident
in Win9X.
When
we plugged the unit into an available USB port on
our test systems, Windows 98 detected it immediately
and we were prompted to insert the driver CD.
It all went without incident, perfectly.
We
then setup TCP/IP connections under Windows
Networking and before we knew it, we had a
network. The whole process took less than 20
minutes and again, no tools whatsoever were needed.
In
action - click to view
What
wasn't so breezy was the Internet Sharing Software
that D-Link bundles in with the units. D-Link
bundles MidPoint Lite in with their product and it
was not so trivial to set up Internet Sharing with
this software.
Click
for full view of MidPoint Lite Control Panels
We
did finally get the client machine to access the
internet via the server's cable modem connection
after a lot of manual intervention that would baffle
most novice users. The software was fairly
full featured, including the ability to share one
set of email and news accounts. However, it
was very hard to set up and not all that
reliable.
Why
D-Link didn't opt to use Network Address Translation
(NAT) technology, which requires no additional setup
on the other PCs in your network, is beyond
us. We used Sygate from Sybergen
Networks for the remainder of testing. It
set up in less than 5 minutes. We shared our
resident cable modem connection with one other
client machine in the H.H. Lab and we didn't even
have to touch a DNS setting or the like. This
kit with Sygate software instead of this MidPoint
stuff, would be MUCH better off.
Well
then, let's look at the performance side of things
here.
Reliability,
Benchmarks and The Rating
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