Unfortunately, we have discovered problems with early beta versions of Apple's new Mac OS 9.0, due for release in October of 1999. It appears that the installer proper, MacSLIP, and/or KClient are incompatible with 9.0. For this reason, the installer refuses to run if the system version is greater than or equal to 9.0. It presents a special alert telling you to call TSS to get a newer version of the installer, then it quits. We will have to prepare a new version which works with Mac OS 9.0 before October.
As usual, the resource requirments have increased this year.
The physical RAM requirement is now 24 megabytes.
The minimum amount of free disk space is now 20 megabytes on the startup disk for a CD-ROM install, 50 megabytes on the startup disk for a network install, and 60 megabytes on any disk for the installed "NU Software" folder.
We continue to require Mac OS 8.0 or later. This had not changed from last year's installer.
We have dropped support for 68K Macs and for MacTCP.
If you try running the installer on a 68K Mac, it presents an alert telling you that it requires a Power PC, then it quits.
Note that both Netscape Communicator and Acrobat Reader require a Power PC Mac. So even if we supported 68K Macs in the installer, the software we install wouldn't run!
We have removed the BOOTP configuration feature. We don't need this anymore because we no longer support MacTCP.
We removed all references to MacTCP and BOOTP in the online help text.
We removed the remnants of System 7: ObjectSupportLib, Macintosh Easy Open, etc.
We no longer support a floppy disk version of the installer. It has simply grown too big to make floppies feasible.
In the dialog which asks how you want to get the software, we got rid of the floppy disk option, leaving only the "over the network" and "from the CD-ROM" options. If you don't have enough disk space for a network install and you are not running off the CD, neither option is viable, and the "Continue" button is disabled. Special new help text explains your two options in this situation: (a) quit and make more disk space available, then run the installer again, or (b) quit and get the CD-ROM disk from TSS, then run the installer again from the CD.
TSS is offering a new service this year for people with laptops without CD drives who want to run the installer for a dialup connecton. These people can make an appointment and bring in their laptop. TSS will run the installer using a ZIP disk and external ZIP drive.
TNS is planning to use subnet masks other than 255.255.255.0 in the future for static IP nets. The subnet mask is now a third parameter you must configure properly for static Ethernet connections, in addition to the host IP address and router IP address. The default value is 255.255.255.0.
On modem installs, we removed the check for the iMac which we had used to preselect the "iMac internal modem" modem model. All new-world Macs, including the B&W G3s, return the same gestalt value, so this was preselecting the iMac modem when it was inappropriate.
The Aristotle file server no longer exists (it is now a folder on the new Plato server). For this reason, we removed the "Aristotle" subcommand from the "NU Software" command in the Apple menu. We also removed the "Aristotle" shortcut from the Fetch configuration.
The new Plato file server supports AppleShare over IP, even over IP-only dialup connections (e.g., with MacSLIP). The "Plato" subcommand of the "NU Software" command is now an AppleShare/IP alias file for all users, direct and dialup.
To make the new AppleShare/IP alias for Plato work, we now install AppleShare 3.8.1 if it or a newer version isn't already installed.
We added MacSLIP modem models for the 3Com Megahertz 3CXM556 PC card modem and for Apple's PowerMac G3 Internal 56K modem.
We add the NU time server at "time.acns.nwu.edu" to the list of time servers configured in the Date & Time control panel, if it's not already in the list. We do not, however, configure the control panel to use the server or change any of its other settings.
Email addresses no longer always end in "nwu.edu". For example, people in Kellogg now have "vanity" email addresses in the form "alias@kellogg.nwu.edu". In addition, some people (e.g., Kellogg students) are now not permitted to change their aliases. For these reasons, the installer now gets and uses the full preferred email address from Ph instead of just the alias, and it no longer permits you to try to change your alias or any other information in your Ph record. You can change the information the installer uses to configure the applications, but you can no longer change the information in your Ph directory entry using the installer.
We install the new Eudora Pro 4.2.1.
We updated the Eudora inbox "Welcome to NU" spam message and added two more spam messages about IT jobs and IT CBT training.
We made the Eudora inbox window a bit larger to accomodate the new preview pane at the bottom of the window.
We configure Eudora to never present the registration dialog. NU users are already registered under our site license.
We now install and configure Netscape Communicator instead of Netscape Navigator. We configure the mail and news components of Communicator as well as the browser proper. Eudora and NewsWatcher, however, remain our recommended mail and news programs.
We now install the Macromedia Shockwave and Flash plug-ins.
Unfortunately, the current version 4.6.1 of Communicator which we install this year does not understand the preference file formats of all of the earlier versions of Navigator and Communicator. This includes Navigator 4.0.5 as installed by the 1998 installer and Navigator 3.0.2 as installed by the 1997 installer.
If you update last year's Navigator 4.0.5 to this year's Communicator 4.6.1, the installer converts the old Netscape preferences for your primary user profile to the new format. All of your old settings are retained, and none of them are changed. Unfortunately, the installer is not able to convert any alternate profiles that you might have created. If you have multiple profiles, you will have to recover them using Netscape's "User Profile Manager" program. See the NU Installer document for details.
If you update Navigator 3.0.2 from two years ago to this year's Communicator 4.6.1, the installer must discard all of your old preference settings. The installer replaces them by our current standard NU recommended settings. You do not, however, lose any of your old bookmarks.
In each of these two update situations, the installer presents a special new information window that describes the problem.
On a clean install, we now ask you which home page you prefer: the main NU home page at www.nwu.edu or the NU student "Here and Now" home page at hereandnow.nwu.edu.
On a clean install, Communicator is configured with "news.acns.nwu.edu" as the news server address. You can read and post news articles without having to do any additional configuration.
On a clean install, Communicator is configured with the proper information for the full user name, the mail server address and username, and the return address. Users can read and send mail without having to do any additional configuration.
With Netscape Navigator in the previous installer, Eudora Pro and NewsWatcher were set as URL helper programs. Now that we have switched to Netscape Communicator, which has its own mail and news components, we have removed this feature. Unfortunately, it turns out that we had to do this to make the mail and news components work at all.
On a clean install, in addition to saving any old Netscape preferences folder(s) on the desktop, we now also save any "Netscape Registry" file. In addition, the presence of this file in the Preferences folder is another signal to the installer that Netscape Navigator or Communicator is already installed.
On a clean install we configure Communicator with the new NU LDAP directory server at ldap.nwu.edu.
On a clean install we preset the preferences to not open the "taskbar" and we turn off "smart browsing".
We install the authoring version of QuickTime 4.0.2, including PictureViewer, QuickTime Player, and the web plug-in for Netscape Communicator.
We now install QuickTime directly. We no longer leave a copy of Apple's installer on the desktop. There are new "PictureViewer" and "QuickTime Player" subcommands in the "NU Software" Apple menu command.
We preset QuickTime's "Connection Speed" preference to Intranet/LAN for direct network connections and to "28.8/33.6 Modem" for dialup connections.
To protect against possible viruses, QuickTime's "CD Autoplay" feature is turned off.
We install Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0.
We now install Acrobat Reader directly. We no longer leave a copy of Adobe's installer on the desktop. There's a new "Acrobat Reader" subcommand in the "NU Software" Apple menu command.
We install version 5.9.1 of Virex, with the July 1999 virus definitions.
We include the new Virex PDF user manual.
We fixed a problem involving an incompatibility between the installer and the Virex control panel which caused -23 errors at the end of the download operation on network installs.
If you have the Virex control panel installed, we present a new special message telling you not to worry about the goofy alert which appears during the installation of the software telling you that "The Virex Control Panel could not be found in its expected location."
We now install the Virex contextual menu file and control stip module in their proper locations in the System folder.
The NewsWatcher preferences file was updated to contain the full group list as of 7/12/1999.
We have reviewd and revised all of the extensive online help text used by the installer.
We have updated the installer checklist document. This is the SimpleText document that appears at the very end of the installer run and which the installer leaves on your desktop.
We have updated the "Read Me First!" file on the CD.
We have updated the "Introduction to Macintosh Networking at NU" document.
We have updated the "NU Installer Doc".