Phasing out of DECNET and Pathworks Mail under Windows 95/DOS By Manfred Chan

In order to be y2k compliant, the DECNET and all the services depending on it, especially the Pathworks Mail, under Windows 95/DOS were phased out on 31 August 1999.

These services were:

“Email - PATHWORKS MAIL”
“Personal Directory M: - Connect”
“Personal Directory M: - Connect (Any Account)”
“Change Account Password (Email, Open VMS)”
“PC240 - Terminal Emulation Program”
“Check Disk Quota (Email, Open VMS)”

Courses on how to migrate from Pathworks Mail to Eudora Pro were organised in June and August to help our colleagues to switch to the more popular e-mail system. As for the other services, users were recommended to use WS_FTP to replace the M drive for file copying, to physically login VMS to change the password or to check for disk quota instead of doing it through the LAN menu, and to use SIMPTERM (already available on the departmental LAN menu) to replace the PC-240 Terminal Emulator.

Departmental system administrators still using DECNET to communicate with other departments or other external sites through the central backbone were advised to migrate to TCP/IP as the central backbone has stopped routing DECNET from September 30 1999. However, if the DECNET was used within and hence confined to a department only, the phasing out of DECNET on the backbone would not affect the department concerned.