>I have 2 windows 95 workstations set up and I want to to run a batch file when logining in on to a winnt40 server. The network setups are almost identicle but the software is not. They are both using dos 4.00.1111. My server IP is 90.0.0.1 and I am running a simple copy command in the bat file.
>copy \\90.0.0.1\Client\forms.lnk c:\windows\desktop
>
>This command works fine in one of the workstations and the file copies, but not in the other. I says "error 53: the computer name specified in the network path cannot be located". They both use the exact same batch file because they both log on to the exact same server. The one that keeps failing can ping and log onto the server, but it just cant run that command. I tested other machines and I got mixed results just like above. I do not want to use the compter name I need to use the IP address. Anybody know why this would happen?

Win95 does not reliably resolve UNCs in the form \\IP address\share name - I'd suspect that they're using different mechanisms for resolving NetBIOS to IP mappings. With Win9x, the proper procedure is to use a NetBIOS name, and resolve the NetBIOS name to an IP address through the LMHOSTS file, a WINS server, or DNS; I'd guess that there are differences in how TCP/IP is configured between the two systems. You can look at the configuration detail using the command line:

IPCONFIG /all

or

WINIPCFG

In addition, it's generally not advisable to copy a shortcut where differences in the context of the shortcut due to drive mappings or user privileges may well exist; you'd be better off creating the shortcut programmatically using scripting (installing WSH and using VBScript to create the Wscript.Shell object and create the shortcut using the CreateShortCut method is cleaner.)

The alternative is to use NT or Win2K, both of which can resolve UNCs based on IP addresses unambiguously.