Information on the User Notification Feature.
Information for Virtual ISPs.
Methods of handling 10 digit dialing.
Dialing without Country/Area Codes.
How to display a custom logo bitmap.
How to preset User Details.
How to have ISPWizard initiate browser installation.
Information on customizing the Internet Explorer throbber (spinning "e")
Information for ISPs offering access through ADSL.
Information on Miscellaneous Connection options.
Information on Dialup Numbers.
How to handle multiple mail domains.
Information on Network options.
Information on checking user input.
How to create a special desktop shortcut.
Information on showing a menu at completion.
How to use variables in various fields.
How to use ISPWizard to do online Sign-ups.
How to have ISPWizard configure more than one email address.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Information on the User Notification Feature.

Please read the notification feature documentation here.

Virtual ISPs often have a number of special requirements:

• Support for a suffix or domain on usernames:
• Dialup username suffix can be set under: Connection, Advanced Options, Misc, Dialup Username Suffix
• POP3 username suffix can be set under: Mail, Advanced Settings, Authentication, POP3/IMAP Username Suffix
• Large list of dialup locations that needs to be converted to a format that ISPWizard can read
• Download converter.xls to do the conversion.  (Require MS Excel 97 or later - contact us here if you need assistance)

Methods of handling 10 digit dialing.

There are several ways of handling 10 digit dialing:

1. Enter all 10 digits for the dialup number and disable country/area codes.  See Dialing without Country/Area Codes for some notes on this solution.
2. Ask the user if they need to use 10 digit dialing:  Select Connection, Advanced Options, Dialing Properties, Prompt user to use 10 Digit Dialing
3. Enter preset rules for 10 digit dialing: Select Connection, Advanced Options, Dialing Properties, Preset Rules for 10 Digit Dialing
• You can also allow the user to override the preset rules by showing an option on the setup screen.

Please note that, except for the first option, because Windows 95 and NT 4.0 do not natively support 10 digit dialing, ISPWizard uses the calling card capabilities to effectively force 10 digit dialing on those systems.  This does have the side effect of disabling any other calling card in use and also causes all dialup connections to use 10 digit dialing.

The ISPWizard Dialer has the added benefit of allowing users to easily enable/disable 10 digit dialing with the Dialing Properties dialog.

Dialing without Country/Area Codes.

Configuring your connections to dial without using Country and Area Code rules has several advantages and disadvantages:

The Advantages are:

• It doesn't matter if the user has incorrect settings on their system - e.g. their Country or Area Code are not correct for their actual location.
• Can be used to force 10 digit dialing regardless of which operating system the user is using.

The Disadvantages are:

• If the user changes their location, the system will continue to dial what it thinks is a local number.  This is not always a disadvantage since it reduces the risk of them dialing a time charged call.
• Outside Access and Codes to disable Call Waiting are disabled.  A workaround for this can be enabled by selecting the option: Automatically prepend outside access and call waiting codes when dialing without area code rules under dialing properties.

How to display a custom logo bitmap.

You can display your company logo by selecting the Logo Bitmap option under the General tab.

Beginning with ISPWizard Version 4.00, the form will be automatically resized to fit the bitmap if it is larger than the width of the form - the minimum width is now about 318 pixels.  24 bit color bitmaps are supported however they may appear poorly on displays with less than 16 bit color depth.

How to preset User Details.

There are several ways of presetting user details - to access this feature, go to Advanced, User.

1. Username, Password and Email Address can be preset with the first option: Preset User Details
2. Read User Details at Runtime from a File:
 
This text file can be created by any other program and can be located in either the same directory as the setup program or in the Windows Temp directory.  If the file is found in the Windows Temp directory it will be automatically deleted after being read.  Only enter the name of the file - don't include any paths or backslashes.

The basic format of the file is as follows:  One entry per line with the left part of the line preceding the equals sign being case insensitive.  Don't include any spaces around the equals sign.  The order of the lines is normally unimportant.
 

Fullname=John Smith
Username=jsmith
Password=abcdefh
EmailAddress=johnsmith


Some additional entries that you can use depending on the options that you have chosen.

 
EmailUsername=smith
EmailPassword=defghi
NewsUsername=example
NewsPassword=example
HomePage=http://www.ourdomain.com
IPAddress=192.168.1.1
NetMask=255.255.255.0
GatewayAddress=192.168.1.254
DNSAddress=192.168.5.254,192.168.5.253
Proxy=proxy.example.com
AutoProxy=autoproxy.example.com


If you want to also preset the chosen dialup number, you can do so by using the following lines:  The details will be used to create a new entry in the dialup numbers list and it will be selected by default when the program starts.

 
DialupDesc=Added Entry
DialupCountry=1
DialupAreaCode=234
DialupNumber=567 8901


DialupCountry and DialupAreaCode are optional - if they are not provided, the connection will be made with Country and Area Codes disabled.  DialupNumber MUST appear last in this group but otherwise the order is not important.  If you want to add more than one entry, you should be able to do so using this method, however the numbers will appear in reverse order in the list that ISPWizard shows:  The last entry will appear first and will be selected as the default.

Starting with ISPWizard Version 4.00, you can now specify a new dialup number completely on a single line - e.g.

 
Dialup="New Dialup Number",1,"234","456 7890"


The parameters for this line are the same as for a single line within an access number list file, and can contain other fields such as POP specific username prefix/suffix, etc.

Additional fields relevant to online signup:
 

SignupUsername=sampleusername
SignupPassword=samplepassword
RestartSignup


The RestartSignup command can be used to have the signup program disconnect and redial, optionally with a different username/password as specified with the previous lines.  You can also specify an alternate dialup number for the program to connect with using the Dialup= line.

To have the signup program close and abort the signup process, you can specify the following lines:
 

MessageTitle=Sample Message Title
Message=Signup Process has been aborted!
Quit


The MessageTitle and Message lines are optional - you can just specify Quit to have the program exit silently without showing any additional messages.


The User Details file can also be appended to the end of the setup program executable.  One of the best uses for this is to have the user details pre-entered after the user has just signup up to your service online.

You can either come up with your own program to append the user information or use one of the following methods:
 

1. Enter the following command at the DOS prompt or Windows command line:
 
COPY /b setup.exe + details newsetup.exe

Where setup.exe is the name of the program that you have created with ISPWizard, details is the name of the text file containing the user details and newsetup.exe is the name of the file that will be created.
 

2. Under Linux/Unix/BSD you can use the following command:
 
cat setup.exe details >newsetup.exe

The filenames for this case are the same as for the DOS command above.
 

3. Use this sample program: Append.exe.  This little program is fairly crude at the moment but let us know if you have any problems with it.
 
 

How to have ISPWizard initiate browser installation.

Go to Advanced, Browsers and click Add.  Enter the required information:  Description and Filename.

If you want ISPWizard to check to see if the same or newer version is already installed, select the browser type and enter the version information.  For Internet Explorer, enter the build number: e.g. 5.50.xxxx  For Netscape, enter the main version number: e.g. 4.77

When the setup program starts, it checks to confirm that each browser installation file is available - if it is not, it will be removed from the list - if no browsers are available, the option will not be shown on the setup screen.  After this, it checks to see if the same or newer version is installed for the first browser that is left in the list - if the same or newer version is already installed, the install checkbox will be automatically unchecked.

If you are having problems with the program not giving the option to install a browser, check the filenames that you have entered - the filename needs to be relative to the location of the setup program - don't include any drive letters since the drive letter of the CDROM drive can be other than the standard D drive.

To Obtain the Browser installation files:

The latest version of Netscape can be found on their FTP server: ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/english/  - navigate down to the installation files.

For Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can use the active setup program to download the programs to the hard drive without actually installing them, however this isn't recommended as the files will only be specific to the version of Windows that you perform this on.  A much better method is to request Internet Explorer on CDROM from the Microsoft web site at:  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/webcd/default.asp

Please note that you probably need to contact either Netscape or Microsoft for permission to distribute their browsers.  Both Netscape and Microsoft offer programs for ISP's to distribute their browsers with a license.
For the Microsoft Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK), go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ieak/en/default.asp.
For the Netscape Browser Distribution Program, go to: http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/partners/bdp.jsp

Information on customizing the Internet Explorer throbber (spinning "e")

You can set ISPWizard to change the spinning "e" logo to whatever you wish:  To access this option, go to Advanced, Browsers, Internet Explorer Options.

The large bitmap should be 38x38 pixels and the small bitmap should be 26x26 pixels.  Although you can use other sizes, they won't appear correctly.

To restore Internet Explorer to the original spinning "e", just run ISPWizard with these options blank and it will revert Internet Explorer to it's original settings.

If you want the logo to be animated in the same way as the spinning "e" you need to tile the frames together vertically within the same bitmap - e.g. a bitmap with 5 frames should be 38 pixels wide and 190 pixels tall.

Information for ISPs offering access through ADSL.

There are basically three different types of ADSL - each type is supported by ISPWizard:

1. Always on:  No special support is required for this since the connection is always on and there is no need to create a dialup connection, so just disable creation of the dialup account.
2. VPN:  The users computer is assigned a private IP address and to authenticate to the network needs to establish a VPN connection - for ISPWizard to support this, enable the options: Use VPN Adapter Instead Of Modem, install Microsoft Virtual Private Networking and Install MSDUN 1.3 Update:  Windows 95 requires the MSDUN 1.3 update and Windows NT4 requires SP4 or higher.
3. PPP Other Ethernet:  On Windows 98/2000 and newer, you can install RASPPPOE before running ISPWizard.  RASPPPOE appears as a modem so no options need be configured in ISPWizard.  You can obtain RASPPPOE from: http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~normanb/

Information on Miscellaneous Connection options.

A couple Miscellaneous options often cause queries:

• Install MSDUN 1.3 Update
The MSDUN 1.3 update is not normally required but this option is here if you want to use it - an exception to this is that it is required for use with VPN connections.  The update will only be installed on Windows 95 systems if they haven't already got the update installed.  If the file is required, it will be installed from a file called msdun13.exe which you need to supply in the same directory as the setup program.  You can download the MSDUN 1.3 Update from: http://download.microsoft.com/download/win95upg/update/1.30/w95/EN-US/Msdun13.exe
• Always install Dialup Networking
This option forces ISPWizard to install Dialup Networking when it isn't installed even if it isn't needed because it it set to not create a dialup connection.  Primary use for this is if you are going to create the dialup connection with a separate program.
• Limit Modem Port Speed.
Some ISPs report that lowering the modem port speed helps some poor quality modems to maintain a connection.

Information on Dialup Numbers.

There are 3 main ways of entering dialup numbers into ISPWizard:

1. Have the user enter the number.
2. Use an internal list stored in the configuration file
This list is limited to 10 numbers and doesn't have any advanced options.
3. Load the list of numbers from an external file.
This has many advanced options available with no specific limit to the number of dialup numbers that can be listed.
If some settings need to be set specifically for a particular Point of Presence, you can enter these settings as part of this file.
If you have a list of dialup numbers that you would like converted to a format that ISPWizard can read, download converter.xls to do the conversion.  (Require MS Excel 97 or later - contact us here if you need assistance)

Normally, this file will be built into the setup program so that it is self contained.  Under certain circumstances, you may wish to have the setup program read the list from a separate file at run time.  Enter the name of the file to read from and the setup program will check for it in the Windows Temp directory.  If it can't be found there, it will search for it in the same directory that the setup program is located.  If it can't be located there, it will load the list that has been built into the executable.  If the file is read from the Windows Temp directory, it will be automatically deleted after it has been read.

Notes on external file format:

The first line of the file must contain the following text:

ISPWIZARDV310 -       This file requires ISPWizard Version 3.10 or higher

This identifies the file as being in the new file format - if you don't include this line, the file will be read as the older format which will mean that some fields will not be correctly read.
 

Definition of fields:

"Description", CountryCode, "AreaCode", "Local Number", "*Special", "State", "City"

Other than Text Description and Local Number, all fields are optional:
The *Special field is used for uncommon settings - it is made up of one or more name=value pairs - the full list of field names is as follows:

 

CTRY	Country ID - only if not equal to the Country Code - e.g. the Canadian Country ID is 107.
PREF	Dialup Username Prefix
SUFF	Dialup Username Suffix
DNS1	Primary DNS
DNS2	Secondary DNS
10DD	10 Digit Dialing:  0 = not set,  1 = No,  2 = Yes.
POP3	POP3 Server
SMTP	SMTP Server
NEWS	News Server
PRXY	Proxy Server
PXYP	Proxy Port
HOME	Default Home Page
DOMN	Email Domain
PPRE	POP3 Username Prefix
PSUF	POP3 Username Suffix
NETW	Network ID - rarely needed.
REGN	Region Name - Extra field in addition to State and City.
TYPE	Connection Type - Supported Protocols: 1 = V.34 2 = V.90 4 = V.92 10000 = ISDN (64K) 20000 = ISDN (128K) Add the values together if more than one protocol is supported - e.g.  3 = V.34 & V.90 10007 = V.34, V.90, V.92 & ISDN (64K)

These fields should only be used when the values differ from the values given with the main part of the configuration.

Example:

ISPWIZARDV310 -       This file requires ISPWizard Version 3.10 or higher
"Local Number Only",,,"123 4567"
"Number with Country/AreaCode",1,"234","123 4567"
"State/City Info Provided",1,"345","987 6543",,"State","City"
"Canadian POP",1,"987","654 3210","CTRY=107","State","City"

How to handle multiple mail domains.

To provide the user with a selection of mail domains, enable the option under Mail, Advanced Settings, Misc, Multiple Mail Domains.

Information on Network options.

Not all options on the Network Options tab are supported under Windows NT4 and Windows 2000/XP.

It is generally a good idea to remove static DNS settings and Ethernet Gateways since they can cause problems with dialup connections, however, removing them can cause some network connections to fail, so use caution with these settings.  Setting a large Default TCP Window size can improve download speeds on high speed (ADSL/Cable) connections but can also cause high latency for users with slow (modem) connections.
 

Reduce user error when inputting their username/password, etc. by choosing appropriate settings on the Checks tab under Advanced.

How to create a special desktop shortcut.

Choose Create Fixed Desktop Link under Advanced, Shortcuts to create a special type of desktop link that cannot be edited by the user.  Options here allow you to prevent the user from copying it or renaming it.

Information on showing a menu at completion.

Use the finish menu to give your users the option to install extra programs, etc. after they have completed running the setup program.

You can have the menu display a custom logo of up to 548 pixels wide at the top.

If one of the programs restarts the computer as part of the installation process, the menu will be automatically restarted after Windows reloads.  If you want to have the menu launch a new setup program, you need to configure the program to exit when it runs the new setup program since only one setup program can be running at a time.

If you wish to show a more visually appealing menu at completion, you can use the Execute at Completion option to run your own menu instead.

How to use variables in various fields.

Some fields can contain variables which will be automatically expanded to contain information entered by the user:

%e     =     Email Address
%f      =     Users Full Name
%n     =     Dialup Number
%a     =     Dialup Area Code
%p     =     Password
%u     =     Username
%h     =     Home Page
%m    =     MD5 Hash of Password

Additional fields contain special system paths:

%P     =    Program Files path - e.g. C:\Program Files
%S     =    System Path - e.g.  C:\Windows\System
%T     =    Temp Path - e.g. C:\Windows\Temp
%W    =    Windows Path - e.g. C:\Windows

ISPWizard Version 5 provides an improved method for handling online signups - you can read more information here.

You can use ISPWizard to perform online Sign-ups of new users.

To do this, you need to create 2 setup programs.  Configure the first setup program to create only a dialup connection with a preset username and password - set it to use the Execute at Completion option to launch the browser with the URL for your signup page.  After the user has proceeded through your signup process, they then need to run a full setup program which configures the dialup connection with their new username and password in addition to their email account.

Some notes on this:

• It's a good idea to assign a private IP address to the user when they connect with the signup account - this can be used to prevent the user from browsing the Internet prior to providing their details and therefore getting a free ride.
• After the signup process has been completed, you can have the user download the second setup program from your web site with their user details attached - see How to preset User Details for more details.
• Use the same connection name for the signup account so that it is automatically overwritten by the second setup program.

How to have ISPWizard configure more than one email address.

Please Note: Starting with ISPWizard Version 6, you can now have a single setup program which can configure more than one email address at a time - to enable this capability, you need to set Mail->Misc->Allow configuration of more than 1 email account.

ISPWizard can only configure 1 email address at a time.  If you want to have the user able to configure more than one address at a time, create a second setup program configured to only setup email accounts.  Have your main setup program show a menu at completion which gives the user the option of running the second setup program to configure an extra email address.  Read Information on showing a menu at completion for some notes on how to do this.  Since you can only have one setup program running at a time, have the second program also show the same menu if you want the user to be able to configure more than a second email address.