Q In order to avoid some Year 2000 issues, we're decommissioning our mainframe and migrating applications to our intranet. Is there a way to inventory intranet assets to make sure I'm not going to run into Year 2000-compliance problems there, too?

A On an IP network, you can identify infrastructure devices such as routers, switches and hubs via the Simple Network Management Protocol. Or, you can use a scanning tool to identify all the devices. In an ideal world in which every desktop had a network management agent, you could solve your asset inventory problem by using the mapping capability of the network management platform. But in the real world, where network desktop management agent software is less common, you face the more difficult task of surveying networks down to the BIOS revision data. As for the workstations and PCs, you can "sniff" physical MAC addresses to identify each machine by the maker of the network card. SNMP tools can tell all you need to know about SNMP-enabled systems. SMS can be used to gather data in Windows environments. For NetWare, you can use ManageWise. For cases in which touching and tagging is unavoidable, a diskette-based inventory and reporting script can gather the relevant data, then transmit it over the network to a central collection point. Simultaneously, the program installs a desktop management agent on the system.

Q We installed the Windows 95 dial-up networking upgrade on laptops so remote users could get Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol access to our intranet. But now these laptops are having trouble connecting to our server. What can I do?

A Under Dial-Up Networking, highlight the connection icon for your dial-up server and then choose Properties from the File menu. Click the Configure button found in the Connect using: section of the dialog box that appears. Then click the Options tab in the dialog box appearing next. You can now un-check the "Bring up terminal window after dialing'' box located in the Connection control section of the options box. This should solve the problem.

Blass is a network architect at Houston-based Sprint Paranet, a distributed computing systems services provider.