Copyright 1995, Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine. Reprintedby permission.

Stories from the Field:

Graduating to Windows 95

By Walter Boyd, MCP, MCT

The Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Irvine focuses heavily on new technologies. That's why it'sthe first business school in the country to roll out Windows 95,on notebook computers issued to graduate students. Here's whatwas involved in the upgrade, and how the new operating systemis working so far.

Imagine taking a course in which you enter the amphiteater withyour notebook computer and connect to a 10 megabit 10Base-T networkand Internet connection at your seat. You log on, collect e-mail,then download the instructor's PowerPoint presentation beforethe lecture. During the lecture, you add notes to the PowerPointslides, take an electronic quiz at the close, and receive yourscore before you leave the room. Back in your office the nextday, you discuss yesterday's lecture with fellow students throughan e-mail chat session.

At the University of California at Irvine's Graduate School ofManagement (GSM), all that is happening today. And the notebooks,distributed at attractive prices to 160 graduate students, arerunning Windows 95.

On September 9, just over two weeks after Windows 95 was launched,the graduate school distributed 160 notebook computers runningWindows 95 to new graduate students. On Aug. 24, it installedWindows 95 on its 40 additional lab computers. How is it thatUCI was able to move so quickly? And how is the new operatingsystem working as a replacement for Windows 3.1?

"Well, it's interesting," says John Clarke,the director of UCI's Graduate School of Management computingservices. "A lot of my counterparts in other business schoolshave said, Windows 95 was released too close to the start of classes,so it's not a good idea. But with the preview program, we hadWindows 95 running in here for months. Despite the fact that noteverything worked perfectly, the beta versions, I thought, werea significant improvement over Windows 3.1, flaws and all."

"It is not uncommon for our students to run Powerpoint, Exceland Word at the same time," says Ray Colline, technical servicespecialist with the GSM. "Windows 3.1 didn't handle thatvery well. With Windows 95, we have eliminated the problem ofinadequate system resources. We also like its multi-tasking abilities.I can be downloading a file from the Internet in the backgroundwhile I'm reading my e-mail or working on an Excel spreadsheet."

Leader in laptop use

"We were the first business school in the country to putin electronic classrooms," Clarke says. "Our three largestamphitheater classrooms--80 students in the largest--have electronicconnections at every seat." This is UCI's second full yearof electronic classrooms. Clarke decided to install power andnetwork (10base-T) connections at every seat two years ago sothat students didn't have to rely on battery power, and couldreceive e-mail, log onto the Internet, and print class notes onone of the laser printers at the rear of the classroom.The instructoralso has a special podium designed for holding a notebook computer,along with network and Internet connections.

Figure 1. The graduate school's largest amphitheaterprovides electrical and network connections at every seat forup to 80 laptops.

The school, a leader in computer use for students, is in its ninthyear of distributing portable computers to students. The graduatestudents who get notebooks as part of the program are in the school'sexecutive MBA program--older, working students who control a staffand budget in the workplace and continue to work while attainingan MBA. Next year, the school plans to expand the program to includeall incoming MBA students. This year, approxamately 50 percentof the current daytime MBA students havepurchased laptops, taking advantage of a $300 tuition credit,attractive financing, and extensive free training.

The hardware on which Windows 95 is running in the graduate schoolconsists of 160 laptops, and an additional 40 machines in thelab. The notebooks are 75 MHz 486 NECs with 12M of memory and350M hard drives. Windows 95 and Office 95 account for 120M ofthe available hard drive space. The lab machines are HP 486/66Nwith 16M of memory, 850M drives and 17-inch monitors. For an additional$500, students can upgrade their laptops with a better display,bigger hard drive, and a faster modem.

To make RAS connectivity feasible, the school includes a PCMCIA28.8 modem card. Without the card, they found the internal 14,400-baudmodem far too slow for RAS connectivity. "Students in lastyear's class have the option to upgrade their systems to Windows95," Colline explains, "but we don't encourage it becausethey have only 8M of memory."

The hardware setup

The lab consists of the 40 desktop machines and "laptop alley,"a row of 10 network, power and phone connections where laptopusers can attach to the network when they are not in one of theelectronic classrooms. Once logged in, they can access all ofthe GSM network services and the Internet. Printing is handledby six laser printers and an HP XL300 color printer. Two ScanJetIIC color scanners are also available. Students are usually assignedhome directories on the NetWare servers for data file storageand run all application programs from their workstations. Thedesktop machines are used primarily by the regular daytime MBAstudents, while the fully employed MBA students use their laptops.

The network configuration is twisted-pair Ethernet cables connectedto Hewlett-Packard SNMP hubs, with both NetWare and NT servers.The school started with NetWare servers; this year, one classwill run an NT server with RAS. When students dial in with a RemoteAccess Server connection, Clarke explains, "they'll get thesame network connection that they get in the electronic classroom,although slower. We put in all 28.8 modems." The RAS serveris an HP Net Server with 64M of RAM, 4G of disk space, and aneight-port Xircom 28.8 modem card.

Clarke admits to performance problems when, for example, an entireclassroom attempts to download a quiz from a central server. "Thattaxes our system. It's a bear, and we're looking at it. We hada couple of times in which the network became saturated and gotpretty slow." Fortunately, Clarke says, they put in Category5 wiring when the electronic classrooms were installed. They'renow replacing the common twisted pair hubs with switched hubsfor better performance. "When 50 students login and downloada large file simultaneously, it overloads the capacity of theEthernet network," according to Colline. They hope the useof switched hubs will successfully divide that load between severalEthernet segments.

Remote Access Server

The inclusion of Remote Access Server (RAS) with Windows 95 wasimportant, Clarke says, because it provided a good Internet connectionthrough PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol). PPP supports both TCP/IPand IPX protocols over a dial-up link with error detection. "Sowith one stop," Clarke explains, "we have connectivityto NetWare servers, to the NT domain, the NT servers, and thefull range of Internet services, including the World Wide Web,FTP servers, TelNet, the University of California on-line referencelibrary, large on-line databases through the U of Cal availableonly through IP, electronic mail exchange through IP connectionsto cc:Mail router, etc."

Formerly, students had to use different systems to dial in fore-mail, and another for IP connectivity. That setup, Clarke says,was hard to configure with SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol).SLIP supports only TCP/IP and provides no error detection. "Nowwe have this one dial-in, and all needs are met."

"We just started using RAS, which is integrated with NT,but that's one of the real advantages we see in using NT."RAS is important because students can fly in to attend coursesonce a month from remote locations. They then need the abilityto access e-mail and the Internet remotely.

Clarke admits to speed problems with RAS. "It's never beena speed demon. At 14.4, RAS wasn't really viable. At 28.8, it'spossible. It would be nice if it were faster."

"Appletalk Remote Access is the fastest thing I've seen outthere. I'll bet that the performance of RAS will come a littlecloser to ARA," Clarke says.

Clarke is experimenting with getting ISDN installed at the school,since RAS supports the use of ISDN for a high-speed dail-up connection.An ISDN line is hardly more expensive than a second phone line,Clarke says, and offers an access speed of 128 kilobits. (PacificBell offers ISDN to home users in Clarke's area at $250 for installation,waived with a two-year commitment, $23 per month, no connect-timecharges between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m., and four cents a minute between7 a.m. and 5 p.m. ISDN rates in other parts of the country aresignificantly higher, if the service is available at all.)

ISDN is already installed in each of the electronic classroomsto enable video tele-conferencing. Using PictureTel and a high-resolutionprojection system, business and acadamic guest lecturers fromas far as Helsinki, Finland have held two-way interactive discussionswith GSM students.

Working through problems

Clarke says cautiously, "We're still working through someproblems" with Windows 95. One particularly annoying probleminvolved those laptops which had Windows 95 pre-installed by themanufacturer. The manufacturer failed to provide the Windows 95distribution media (an unfortunately common practice). When studentstried to install the Megahertz PCMCIA Ethernet adapter, all appearedto go smoothly until the point at which the Windows 95 disk containingthe correct driver was requested. Lacking the appropriate disk,the student then had no choice but to abort the install. Ideally,this should have left the system in the same condition as it wasprior to the attempted install. But in this case, entries leftin the Windows 95 Registry resulted in error messages about missingdrivers every time the user restarted Windows 95. These entrieshad to be hunted down and manually deleted from the Registry beforeanother installation could even be attempted. The workaround wasto place 30M of distribution files on every laptop so that thecorrect files were always available.

Clarke's technical staff also found the available documentationon Windows 95 somewhat inadequate. For instance, they wanted moredetail and examples of using the Policy Editor to enforce userprofiles for groups of students in different programs. There are"a couple of technical issues that we ran into.... We usedthe Windows 95 Resource Kit, but it would have been good if ithad gone a bit deeper," says Henrik Frank,Manager of Instructional Computing and one of the staff memberswho handled the actual installation.

Regarding network performance, Frank and Colline concluded thatthe Microsoft Network is too slow. Specifically, they felt WindowsNT Server fails to match the performance of NetWare 3.12 as afile server, though they are pleased that RAS is offered as partof Windows NT Server.

There are also some concerns about keeping the software updatedon all of the systems. They have examined SMS as one possiblesolution, but didn't feel is was "production ready"yet and have decided to wait for a more mature release of thatproduct.

Colline and Frank also said Windows 95 seems to require just asmuch end-user support as did Windows 3.1. But they attribute muchof that to the newness of the operating system, and expect supportwork to drop over time as users become accustomed to the new interface.

Both Clarke and Colline felt that some of the available third-partyvendor-supplied drivers still needed further work. "Someadditional testing time would have helped us to reduce many ofthose problems," says Clarke. "If Windows 95 had shippedin June or July we would have had the entire GSM, including facultyand staff, up and running when school started."

Clarke also cautioned that Windows 95 should be installed on machinesbefore the application software is loaded. "We have had tore-install a lot of application software after the students loadWindows 95."

Future plans

There are about 250 accredited business schools in the country,and many more unaccredited.

But the real potential in electronic classrooms running a systemlike Windows 95, of course, lies with undergraduate students.Clarke speaks of benefits like electronic quizes every week withresults scored instantaneously, providing immediate feedback forboth student and instructor. "With a notebook, a studentcan use it at home, in the office, in remote cities."

Many GSM professors have found innovative ways to use the newtechnology. Economics professor Neal Stoughton,for example, has created a web page onan NT Server. Through the web page, his finance students haveaccess to the course syllabus and all course readings and references.Students who want further explanation can exchange e-mail withStoughton.

As portable computer prices slowly fall--UCI spent just under$2,000 per notebook for its students--Clarke conceded that "allof these advantages become possible for the undergraduate populationsas well... As notebooks continue to drop in price, they becomemore and more approachable for undergraduates."

Conclusion

"Overall, we are quite pleased with Windows 95," saysColline. "We like the 32-bit Office 95 suite, better multi-taskingand the new user interface." With over 500 students enrolled,the Graduate School of Management at the University of Californiaat Irvine is forging ahead in information technology with an innovativeuse of Windows 95. The school's mission statement establishes"information technology" as a strategic focus--Windows95 is helping the school to produce executives trained in thelatest and most powerful tools and techniques.

Walter Boyd is a Microsoft Certified Professional and CertifiedTrainer, and a Novell ECNE and CNI. He has over 15 years of computerindustry experience and is a senior consultant with CertifiedNetwork Solutions in Salt Lake City. He can be reached via e-mail at

More...

Visit UC Irvine's Graduate School of Management's web site at http://www.gsm.uci.edu.

Also on the Web, you can get Windows 95 information from Microsoft at http://www:microsoft.com.

Windows 95 Resource Kit, Microsoft Press, 1-55615-678-2, $49.95.Call (800)-MSPRESS to order.