Your account will always be able to send mail. In order to read mail, you need to configure your email client program. In Eudora, click the Check Mail button in the button bar and enter your email password when asked. Eudora will save the password. You will need this password if you want to read mail from home. Note that if your Waterloo Polaris account has been deleted and recreated, you must configure Eudora with your password again the first time you use it.

Most faculties have automated synchronization of passwords between Waterloo Polaris accounts and other related (Unix) accounts, such as the email server. If you log on to Waterloo Polaris with your email password, your Waterloo Polaris password is changed to match it. Then you only have to remember one password for all accounts associated with your Waterloo Polaris account.

You can change your email password several ways:

1. by logging in to your email server (via telnet, Start/Programs/Network Software/Telnet Presenter) and running the "passwd" command.
2. by running Eudora's password changing tool found under Special/Change Password in the Eudora Light menu.
3. by running the Change Password tool in Configure Waterloo Polaris, or the "password" command in a DOS shell.

Your email password will not change even if your Waterloo Polaris account is deleted and recreated. However, beginning in the Fall 1999 term, all Waterloo Polaris accounts will remain active as long as you are a student at UW (and for a transitional period afterwards).

If you already know your email password, you can log on with it when your Waterloo Polaris account is recreated from "scratch" and it will be automatically syncrhonized with your email password (in most faculties).

Exit the application then use the Configure Waterloo Polaris tool. Some Windows applications won't see a change done while they are active. Changing printers this way will only affect the current log-in session.

Create a file called "privexec.bat" and put a "route" command in it. E.g. route prn laser@development lpt1 default@gaff lpt2 colour@office lpt3 laser@wheel

The printer routed to network port "prn" is set as the default printer in Windows95.

Most departmental software is now on drive Q, which is loaded for all Waterloo Polaris users. You should be able to locate the software you are looking for there.

Some departmental software may still be located on a Watstar server mounted as drive K. Users in a paricular department automatically get the K drive when they log on. To access another department's software occasionally, open a DOS shell window and type the following command "access k: $server_name95@server_name" to get the department software from a server called "server_name" on drive, K. To do this every time you log on, add the above "access" command to the end of a text file called n:\privexec.bat

Windows is preloaded when you log on, but network connections need to be established. The log-in time is approximately the same as for any network-connected PC, and is significantly affected by the speed of the hardware and network connection in your workstation.

Also, the first time a user runs Windows95 on a new account is slower since the W95 directory and other directories used by Win95 are created on the account by the server.

N.B. It will cause problems with your account if you interupt the log-in or log-off procedures to try to speed things up.

Polaris uses the Windows95 networking functions which are only available while Windows95 is running. However, as of Fall 1999, you can use a Web Browser that is part of the log-in screen to access your email through a Web interface, without logging on.

If your user registry file or other files in the W95 directory become corruputed, you may experience problems with programs crashing, etc. It is also possible that the particular workstation your have logged into is not updated correctly, or has some other problems. Try logging on to another workstation. If it is OK there, report the problem station at the nearest consulting office. If it is still messed up, you should also go to the nearest consulting office.

First you have to go to a place on campus where you can pay with your Watcard (eg. a Graphics Services Copy Centre, the Book Store, Brubacher's, or the SLC Turnkey Desk) and put at least $5 on your Watcard. Then you go to the Watcard swiper in your Faculty, usually near your computer consulting office. You can transfer the money to your laser printing account in amounts of $5 per swipe. Note that each Faculty currently has its own printing accounting system, although we intend to unify these in the near future. So, if you want the ability to print in a computer lab of another faculty, you must establish a printing account there too. Printing money stays on your account continuously.

You can also pay cash for printing services in the IST-CHIP (Computer Help and Information Place) in MC-1052.

It's in the form of: userid@artsmail.uwaterloo.ca [or engmail, ahsmail etc., depending on your faculty] To prevent confusion over possible future changes to your local email address (due to changes in email server names, etc.), you can use userid@uwaterloo.ca. This address will work as long as your full address is entered correctly in the UW Directory database (UWDir) and it won't change as long as you're at the University. Note that if you choose not to have your name appear in the UWdir campus directory service when you register, you will not be able to use userid@uwaterloo.ca as an email address.

Check which printer is set as your default printer. To do this go to Start / Settings / Printers and right-click on each printer icon until you find the one with "Set as Default" check marked. Or, run Configure Waterloo Polaris and look under Printers; the bottom printer listed is your default. If this printer is a "text-only" printer, such as default@gaff or n2dw@*, Windows programs will be limit the fonts available in applications to mono-spaced fonts. To get all fonts back, just select a laser printer as your default printer. You can change printers with the Configure Waterloo Polaris tool.

You can install your own TrueType fonts by placing them in a directory called N:\fonts on your home directory. They will be automatically loaded the next time you log on to your account.

Unfortunately, there are no printer drivers on Waterloo Polaris which can generate PostScript for these printers. The Adobe drivers which were available on Watstar cannot be installed under Waterloo Polaris because they expect to be able to write to a locked partition of the hard disk.

Colour printing is available on "colour@vega" in the IST-CHIP (MC-1052) on a pay-cash basis. There is a colour printer in Engineering on "colour@office" with output filed in CPH-2367.

While each account is assigned much less than the several gigabytes of disk space which might be available on a home PC, the disk space assigned is intended for file storage only (not application storage), so it should be adequate. We already have over 500 gigabytes of disk space assigned to user accounts. It is expensive to provide and back-up this space. In Fall 1999 we will be moving to more centralized file servers which can more efficiently provide disk space as needed using quotas. The new file servers will allow us to provide more disk space. Users will also be able to retrieve their own backups (free of charge).

Each faculty has purchased a Network Appliance for user file storage. It is device which contains a large quantity of disk space (with "RAID", or redundant disks for "hot" backups). NetApps are optimized for throughput of data to and from the hard disks and over the network. With this technology we can replace the multiple Watstar PC servers in each faculty with a single, reliable, fast and secure file server.

A hidden directory, called "snapshot" is available from any of your directories on a NetApp. The procedure for accessing the snapshot directory is slightly different in Unix than it is in Windows.

From Windows

The snapshot directory is not visible in Explorer or My Computer views of your file system. To get at it, go to Start/Run and type in: n:\~snapshot. You will see hourly and nightly snapshots, the most recent starting with the file extension 0. If the file you are trying to recover is older than the snapshots, then you must request a restore of files from backup tapes.

From Unix

If you are accessing your files on the NetApp via a Unix account, you use the command cd .snapshot from any directory on your account.

Your home PC (or non-Polaris-networked PC on campus) must be configured properly before you can remotely mount your account file space(s) here on campus. In the Network Control Panel:

• Under Identification, you must have a computer name and workgroup set, but these names are arbitrary.
• Under Access Control, select Share-level Access Control
• Under Configuration, make sure you have added Client For Microsoft Networks, along with the TCP/IP protocol and the adapter for your Ethernet card (or dialup adapter). Also, set your Primary Network Log-on to be either Windows Log-on or Client for Microsoft Networks.

When asked for a userid in either the Windows Log-in or MS Network Log-in you must use your UW userid. Your password can be anything you like. If it is the same as your Polaris password, you won't be prompted to type in a password again when you access your Polaris or Unix accounts.

People whose home PCs are running Win98 or NT (NT 4.0 or Win2000) have the additional problem that there is a mismatch of password encryption schemes. Win98 and NT enforce encrypted passwords, while on campus we have mostly Windows95 and Unix Samba servers using plain text passwords. The solution for home users is to change a registry setting to convert to plain text passwords.

• Start Regedit (Start/Run/regedit).
• Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\VNETSUP
• In the menus, Edit/New/DWORD value
• Enter neme: EnablePlainTextPassword
• Right-click on the the new name and select Modify
• Enter the value 1 (select hexidecimal)

In Windows NT 4.0 (SP3 or greater) do this:

• Start Regedit
• Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\Rdr\Parameters\
• Add the following value: EnablePlainTextPassword:REG_DWORD=1

In Windows 2000 do this:

• Start Regedit
• Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkStation\Parameters\
• Add the following value: EnablePlainTextPassword:REG_DWORD=1

  Restart your computer to have plain text passwords take effect.

  PCs attached to ResNet in the UW residences have a direct connection to the campus network and are assigned Internet (IP) addresses in the UW domain (e.g. 129.97.x.x). People who have a fast internet connection supplied by an ISP other than UW ResNet, such as Sympatico HSE, have the additional problem of being in a different IP domain than is UW. To get around this problem, you must enter the IP address of the UNIX or NT server you are trying to connect to, rather than its name. For example to connect to www.eng via Samba you would enter the Network path: \\129.97.50.98\your_user_id. To mount a network drive, right-click on the My Computer icon and select Map Network Drive. Enter the network path as above. To temporarily mount a network drive without assigning a drive letter, you can just type the Network Path in under Start/Run.

Files saved to the Desktop are initially saved to the Windows working disk, which in our case is the read-write D drive on the local workstation. Such files are copied over to the user's N drive for permanent storage during the log-off process. When you delete a desktop item, it is deleted from D:\W95\Desktop, which is the working directory, but when you log off, the corresponding files in N:\Desktop are not deleted, and so reappear on your desktop the next time you log on. To permanently remove files from your desktop, you must also delete them from N:\Desktop (using, e.g., Windows Explorer).

Files saved to the Desktop are initially saved to the Windows working disk, which in our case is the read-write D drive on the local workstation. Such files are copied over to the user's N drive for permanent storage only during the log -off process. Therefore, files saved to the desktop may be lost if the workst ation crashes or if the logoff process is interupted in any way. It is safer to save your work directly to N:\My Documents or to other folders you have created on your N drive.

We have set limits (quotas) on the storage space available to you. If you run out of storage space on your N drive, your account will begin misbehaving, because the Windows user registry information and other files copied to the N drive at log-off time will not be able to be copied. Also, if you have saved files to the Windows desktop or directly to the D drive, they will be lost without warning if there is insufficient space to store them on the N drive. Applications may also misbehave if there is not enough space to store a file you are working on. You can check your N disk usage as a percentage of your quota using the Quota Tool in the Configure Waterloo Polaris application, or by typing quota in a DOS shell. There is also temporary storage available on the D drive, which is deleted when you log off.

As long as you are logged on to your Waterloo Polaris account and are running Windows95, you can share folders, hard disks, and printers with others on the network. To activate sharing, open the My Computer icon on the desktop and right-click on the folder, disk drive or printer you wish to share. Select Sharing from the menu and enter passwords for read-only and / or read-write access. Only items which can be shared will have Sharing option available. If you find you can't share anything, then go to Start / Settings / Control Panel / Network and turn on File and Print Sharing. N.B. N drives housed on Network Appliance file servers cannot be shared via Windows sharing because they are not Windows file systems. You can get arount this by copying files or folders you want to share to the D drive and sharing from there. The D drive is deleted when you log off the workstation. N.B. Waterloo Polaris network printers cannot be shared. Only local printers or printers attached to remote Unix or NT hosts can be shared.

Nothing. When you are prompted to enter one when you first log on, you can just select "OK" to confirm a null password. If you enter a password, that is OK too, but you will be forced to type it in, or cancel, each time you log on.