[comp.dcom.lans] WESTERN DIGITAL'S VIANET, MS NETWORKS

pfluegl@balboa.eng.uci.edu (Manfred J. Pfluegl) (10/12/89)

I am in pretty bad mood right now. In our lab we installed a network
of IBM AT's and compatibles. As networking software we choose Western Digital's
package called VIANET. The hardware boards are also coming from Western Digital
(WDC 8003, WD8003E, and WD8003 plus). Over the last year I experienced several
major problems: 

1) Frequent crashes when the networking software is running.
   It seems that crashes in applications like editors (XYWrite, MS Word) are
   are the most common ones.

2) We also get the error message 'General Failure on drive Z:' from time to
   time when we use 'xcopy' over the network.

3) Our PS/2 model sometimes crashes during the execution of 'nonet'.

4) We cannot open more than 15 files although the description claims that
   up to 255-x (where x is a small number around 30) files can be opened
   concurrently. Without VIANET running it is working properly.

I am also in contact with Western Digital directly. They are very helpful
but couldn't give me any explanations for the above problems.

My question now is: Are there any other VIANET users out there?
If so, do you also experience problems? Could you overcome any of these
problems? 

Additionally, I am getting interested in other software products especially
MircoSoft Networks. Can you give me general information from the user
perspective? How convenient is it to install, to use, ...? Are there also
software bugs? ....

Any help is more than welcome.

Thank you, Manfred

PS: Since I am cross-posting please respond either via email or post in
    newsgroup comp.dcom.lans only.

**************     MM   MMPPPP    Manfred J. Pfluegl 
          *****    MM  M MP   P   pfluegl@balboa.eng.uci.edu
           *****   M  M  MPPPP    pfluegl%balboa.eng.uci.edu@orion.cf.uci.edu
            *****  M     MP  	  pfluegl%balboa.eng.uci.edu@RELAY.CS.NET

harper@rigel.uucp (David Harper) (10/13/89)

In article <3433@orion.cf.uci.edu> pfluegl@balboa.eng.uci.edu (Manfred J. Pfluegl) writes:
>I am in pretty bad mood right now. In our lab we installed a network
>of IBM AT's and compatibles. As networking software we choose Western Digital's
>package called VIANET. The hardware boards are also coming from Western Digital
>(WDC 8003, WD8003E, and WD8003 plus). Over the last year I experienced several
>major problems: 
>
>   (descriptions of various forms of grief deleted)
>
>PS: Since I am cross-posting please respond either via email or post in
>    newsgroup comp.dcom.lans only.
>

Please post to comp.dcom.lans if you have any experience with VIANET - I have
it on order now and, based on the above, am beginning to wonder what I have
got myself into.  I made my purchase based on two separate reviews in PC
Magazine, since it was the only thing I saw (in my price range) that had the
features I was looking for.  Did I $crew up?


Dave Harper    -     Convex Computer Corp.            E-mail address:
3000 Waterview Pky.  Richardson, TX 75081             harper@convex.COM
(214) 497-4525 (W)   (214) 727-4206 (H)