SoftWindows and RealPC updates: follow-up items

Following up on yesterday's item about the SoftWindows and RealPC updates:

SoftWindows patch coming to update SoftWindows 95 Joe Merola reports that the recently released SoftWindows 98 5.0.9 does not update SoftWindows 95. FWB informed him that they are aware of this and are now working on the patch to fix it.

Getting on the Internet with SoftWindows and RealPC Last time, we mentioned a reader's inability to connect to the Internet via SoftWindows. Adam Frix replies:

It does work! It has always worked. Do be aware that by default, RealPC/SoftWindows should be set up to share the Open Transport environment. It does this by use of two special Winsock files that were written by Insignia and which replace the native Windows files by the same name. IMPORTANT: the Windows network control panel will show that nothing is installed. This is normal. But anything that would otherwise hook into the Windows TCP/IP environment, will hook into the RealPC-provided TCP/IP environment (which is actually just sharing Macintosh Open Transport) without any modification (such as the AutoSOCKS program).

If the user did anything within Windows to add or configure anything within the Windows network control panel, Windows will install its own Winsock files - and the sharing of IP information with Mac Open Transport will not work. RealPC's Winsock files are required for this sharing to take place.

So should this setup not work for some reason, it's easy to put RealPC's winsock files back into place. I point the reader to page 163 of the RealPC manual for instructions. It's listed under "Simultaneous Protocol Support" under the subheading "Simultaneous IP Connections."