NetWare Lite and Personal NetWare are a series of discontinued

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

s developed by

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi- platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the l ...

for DOS- and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

-based

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tech ...

s aimed at personal users and small businesses in the 1990s.

NetWare Lite

In 1991, Novell introduced a radically different and cheaper product from their central server-based

NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The original NetWare product i ...

product, NetWare Lite 1.0 (NWL), codenamed "Slurpee", in answer to Artisoft's similar

LANtastic LANtastic is a peer-to-peer local area network (LAN) operating system for DOS and Microsoft Windows (and formerly OS/2). The ''New York Times'' described the network, which permits machines to function both as servers and as workstations, as al ...

. Both were peer-to-peer systems, where no dedicated server was required, but instead all PCs on the network could share their resources. Netware Lite contained a unique serial number in the

EXE file .exe is a common filename extension denoting an executable file (the main execution point of a computer program) for Microsoft Windows, OS/2, and DOS. File formats There are numerous file formats which may be used by a file with a extensio ...

s that prevented running the same copy on multiple nodes within a single network. This basic copy protection was easily circumvented by comparing files from different licenses and accordingly editing the serial number bytes. The product was upgraded to NetWare Lite 1.1 and also came bundled with DR DOS 6.0. Some components of NetWare Lite were used in Novell's NetWare PalmDOS 1.0 in 1992. A Japanese version of NetWare Lite named "NetWare Lite 1.1J" existed in 1992 for four platforms (

DOS/V DOS/V is a Japanese computing initiative starting in 1990 to allow DOS on IBM PC compatibles with VGA cards to handle double-byte (DBCS) Japanese text via software alone. It was initially developed from PC DOS by IBM for its PS/55 machines ...

Fujitsu FM-R The is a Japanese personal computer, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with IBM PC compatibles. ...

, NEC PC-98/ Epson PC and

Toshiba J-3100 The Toshiba T3100 was a portable PC manufactured by Toshiba released in 1986. It featured a hard drive, 8 MHz Intel 80286 CPU and a black & orange 9.6" gas-plasma display with a resolution of 640x400 pixels. The portable had for the time a ...

) and was supported up to 1997. Updates were distributed by Novell as DOSV6.EXE, DOSV.EXE, TSBODI.LZH. NetWare Lite 1.1 came bundled with

NLSNIPES ''Snipes'' (diminutive for Snipers) is a text-mode networked computer game that was created in 1983 by SuperSet Software. Snipes is officially credited as being the original inspiration for NetWars. It was one of the earliest text mode mul ...

, a newer implementation of Novell's Snipes game.

Personal NetWare

Significantly reworked, the product line, codenamed "Smirnoff", became Personal NetWare 1.0 (PNW) in 1994. The

ODI ODI may refer to: * Object Design, Incorporated, a defunct database software company * One Day International, cricket match * Open Data Institute, a UK not-for-profit company promoting open data * Open Data-Link Interface, an implementation of th ...

/VLM (for Open Datalink Interface) 16-bit DOS client portion of the drivers now supported individually loadable Virtual Loadable Modules (VLMs) for an improved flexibility and customizability, whereas the server portion could utilize Novell's

DOS Protected Mode Services DOS Protected Mode Services (DPMS) is a set of extended DOS memory management services to allow DPMS-enabled DOS drivers to load and execute in extended memory and protected mode. Not being a DOS extender by itself, DPMS is a minimal set of ...

(DPMS), if loaded, to reduce its conventional memory footprint and run in

extended memory In DOS memory management, extended memory refers to memory above the first megabyte (220 bytes) of address space in an IBM PC or compatible with an 80286 or later processor. The term is mainly used under the DOS and Windows operating systems ...

and

protected mode In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as virtual memory, paging and safe multi-taskin ...

. The NetWare Lite disk cache NLCACHE had been reworked into NWCACHE, which was easier to set up and could utilize DPMS as well, thereby reducing the DOS memory footprint and significantly speeding up disk performance. Personal NetWare came bundled with the network-enabled game NetWars 2.06. A Japanese version of Personal NetWare 1.0 named "Personal NetWare J 1.0" existed for four platforms (

, NEC PC-98/ Epson PC and

) and was supported up to 1995. Updates were distributed by Novell as P10J0?.EXE (with ? replaced by 1 - 5), PNDOSV2.EXE, PNDOSV1.LZH. The Personal NetWare 1.0 product saw five maintenance upgrades for the Western issues and two for the Japanese versions as well as various comprehensive updates to the corresponding VLM client driver suite (1.0, 1.1, 1.20, 1.21) as part of the Novell Client Kit for DOS & Windows up to November 1996 in the Western world and up to April 1997 in Japan. They added many new MLID ( Media Link Interface Driver) drivers, including drivers for SLIP and PPP, as well as extra codepages and languages. A full version of Personal NetWare (save the interactive tutorials) also came bundled with Novell DOS 7 in 1994 at a price similar to that of the stand-alone version of Personal NetWare. Portions of Personal NetWare were incorporated into Novell's LAN Workplace for DOS and NetWare Mobile for DOS products, and as such compatible

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

drivers became available for the system as well. Later, Personal NetWare was bundled with full versions of

Caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber ...

OpenDOS 7.01, DR-DOS 7.02 and 7.03 between 1997 and 1999; however, these bundles were delivered with the same Personal NetWare files shipping with Novell DOS 7, not the upgraded files, which had been made available for download by Novell since 1994. The ODI/VLM client stack with TCP/IP drivers also found its way into the DR-WebSpyder distribution in 1997. When Novell in 1996 introduced its ODI32/ NIOS 32-bit DOS/Windows client ( Client 32), it used NetWare Loadable Modules (NLMs) instead of VLM modules. While the NIOS client could reduce the conventional memory footprint down to 2 to 5 KB in total, the lack of something like a "PNW.NLM" module (in analogy to the VLM client's PNW.VLM) made it impossible to use the new client in conjunction with a Personal NetWare server.

NetWare clients for DOS

* NETX-based 16-bit client for DOS * ODI/VLM-based 16-bit client for DOS * ODI32/ NIOS-based 32-bit client for DOS (not for NWL and PNW)

LAN WorkPlace for DOS

NetWare Mobile

References

External links

*
DR-DOS 7 online manuals also covering Personal NetWare, ODI/VLM and TCP/IP
* https://www.novell.com/developer/ndk/odi_lan_driver_components.html * https://www.novell.com/developer/ndk/novell_developer_kit_unsupported.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Personal Netware Personal NetWare Novell NetWare Proprietary software