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Welcome to Minicom FAQs

 

 

License Cost and sites

Q. What does Minicom cost and how many sites can I use it on?

A. Minicom costs a one time payment of $20.00. You may use it on as many PCs on the same network, as you wish.

 

Operating Systems

Q. Which operating systems does Minicom work on?

A. Minicom works on Win'95, Win'98, Win NT 4.0, Win 2k and XP.

Minicom and Minirem Installation

Q. How do I install Minicom?

A. Run mc.exe on each PC that you want to control.

 

Q. Can I remote install Minicom and Minirem?

A. Yes, if Minirem 3.5 or later is already running on the remote PC.
If you have installed Minicom you can use Minicom Remote install to
install the purchased version of Minicom over the top of the installed version.
There will be a short disconnect while the old Minirem stops and the new one starts.

 

Q. Which files are installed and what do they do

A.
Minicom.exe - the controller or master program
Minirem.exe - the remote monitor program or slave
Comnet.dll - common network routines - always required
util.exe - required for shutdown etc.



mcrasint.dll - only required if you have a modem connected to the PC
MyPhone.exe - only required for the phone function

Several htm, txt and gif files are provided for information purposes.

Setup.dat is
provided for later de-installation.

 

Q. Why are there 2 programs, Minicom.exe and Minirem.exe and what do they do?

A. Minicom.exe is the user interface ie where you control the other PCs from.
Minirem.exe is the program which runs on the remote PCs.

Q. Do I need both Minicom.exe and Minirem.exe installed on a PC?

A. No.

Minicom.exe is the master/user interface/ controller program, you need it on each PC that you want to control other PCs from, or use functions such as Clipboard, Chatboard etc..

Minirem.exe is the slave/monitor program and you need it installed on each PC that you wish to control.

Tip:
The easy way is install all the software on each PC.
You can limit the functionality of Minicom.exe with remote configure.

 

Intranet/ LAN Setup

Q. Which protocols do I need to install?

A. TCP-IP and/ or IPX/SPX.
Our experience is that users have less problems with IPX/SPX.
However, TCP-IP has name resolution so although its more complicated, once its installed you can just give the network name of the other PC instead of the IP address.

Q. I've got IPX/SPX installed, how do I find out the Network and Node number of the PCs?

A.
Run Minicom on the PC and select "Help" "Network"
Alternatively for the Network number you can run checkout Control Panel/ Network/ NWLink, and for the Node number run winipcfg.exe.
You can check and change the network numbers on Control Panel/Network/Services/Protocols/NWLink..

Tip:
The least problem Network number seems to be 00000000.

 

Q. I have a small network and want to install the TCP-IP protocol on it to run Minicom. How do I set up the network card addresses?

A:
See Control Panel/ Network/TCP-IP "network card"/ Properties/ IP Address.
Make sure that you have the network cards set to fixed IP addresses.
Eg 150.100.100.1 for PC 1 and and 150.100.100.2 for PC2.
Set the subnet mask to 255.255.0.0 on each machine.
Make sure Wins and DNS are disabled.

For more background on LANs.

Modem (Dial-Up) Setup

Q. Which protocols do I need to install?

A. TCP-IP and/ or IPX/SPX. Our experience is that users have less problems with IPX/SPX.
(Although TCP-IP on Win'98 and Win2000 is a breeze :-) )

If you want a Win'95 PC to be a dial-up server, install IPX/SPX on both the called and calling PCs and don't forget to install Win'95 Plus! on the called PC.

 

Q. My telephone just rings when I dial into my other PC. Why doesn't Minirem answer the call?

A. Minirem isn't designed to answer the call. This should be done by setting Auto-Answer on the "Dialup Networking" setup.
( Win'95 requires Plus! and IPX/SPX installed).

Setting the PCs Auto-Answer:

For Win'95 and Win'98 systems select "Connection/ Dial-up Server".
Select "Allow Caller Access" and set the PC Password with "Change Password".

For Win NT4.0 select
"Control Panel/Network/Services/Remote Access Setup/Configure" and set the appropriate modem.

For Win 2000 select "Start/Settings/Network and Dial-up connections/Make a new connection" and create an "incoming connection"

Q. I want to do TCP-IP Dial-Up to a Win NT4.0 server. How should I set it up?

A. Install RAS Manager and Remote Access Connection Manager on the NT4.0 server.
You can set the TCP-IP address range on the NT4.0 Server, or install DHCP, and set "obtain an IP address automatically" on the connecting PC.

For more background on Dial-up.

 

Other Things

Q. Why does the cursor blink on the controlled PC when I'm remote watching the screen?

A. This depends on the video driver and is usually when the default vga.sys is installed. Check with your graphics board manufacturer for the latest driver.

 

Q. On Win NT4.0, do I need to run RASMAN if there are no modems installed?

A. No. With Minicom 3.5 and later there is a special process, RASInt.exe, to handle modem connections. If there are no modems to control RASInt doesn't run on Win NT 4.0 .

 

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