Click above to get retro games delivered to your door ever month!

 The workstation environment
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Before using the NOVLIB functions found in this chapter, you should have an
 understanding of the environment that NetWare maintains within a
 workstation. This section introduces the workstation environment and
 explains how it interacts with the file server to provide network services.
 DOS workstations communicate with NetWare file servers with the help of two
 memory-resident programs. One of the programs is the workstation shell,
 normally NETX. The other is the IPX delivery service. The shell formulates
 network requests and hands them to IPX, which is responsible for
 transmitting the requests to the file server and receiving the responses.
 The shell performs its duties by intercepting the DOS interrupts 0x21 (used
 to call standard DOS functions), 0x24 (used to handle critical errors), and
 0x17 (used to print to the parallel port). When the workstation calls one
 of these interrupts, the shell examines the request and determines whether
 it should be handled by DOS or NetWare. If the request can be handled by
 DOS, the shell passes it on to the regular DOS interrupt routine.
 Otherwise, the shell builds a NetWare request that it sends to the file
 server.