NCSA Mosaic for MS Windows User Guide: Obtaining and Installing Software

NCSA FTP Server

If you do not already have the NCSA Mosaic software, start by creating a temporary installation directory in c:\install.

If you are running Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups download the latest version of Win32s with the OLE library extensions.

NCSA's Anonymous FTP Server

If you are connected to the Internet you can download NCSA Mosaic for Windows software and documentation at no charge from an anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server at NCSA. Follow the steps below. If you have any questions regarding the connection or procedure, consult your local system administrator or network expert.

  1. Log on to a host at your site that is connected to the Internet and is running software supporting the ftp command.
  2. Invoke FTP (on most systems) by entering the Internet address of the server:
ftp ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu

  1. Log on by entering anonymous for the name.
  2. Enter your local login name and address (e.g., rsmith@ncsa.uiuc.edu) for the password.
  3. Enter get README.FIRST to transfer the instructions file (in ASCII) to your local host.
  4. Enter quit to exit FTP and return to your local host.
  5. Review the README.FIRST file for complete instructions concerning the organization of the FTP directories and the procedures you should follow to download the README files specific to the application software you want.
Your logon session to retrieve software should resemble the following sample, where the remote user's name is rsmith@ncsa.uiuc.edu and user entries are indicated in boldface type. (The text of the README.FIRST file will likely be different because it is updated periodically; the file sizes and dates may also be different.) Remember that after you are in the directory for Windows versions of Mosaic, you will need to change your directory (cd) again to the appropriate subdirectory for your system (i.e., Win31x, Win95, or WinNT).

 % ftp ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu
 Connected to ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu.
 220 hsjdfh FTP server (Version wu-2.4(25) Thu Aug 25 13:14:21 CDT 199x) ready.
 Name (ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu:rsmith): anonymous
 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
 Password: rsmith@ncsa.uiuc.edu
 230-
 230-Welcome to NCSA's new anonymous FTP server! I hope you find what you are
 230-  looking for. If you have any technical problems with the server,
 230-  please e-mail to ftpadmin@ncsa.uiuc.edu. For other questions regarding
 230-  NCSA software tools, please e-mail softdev@ncsa.uiuc.edu.
 230-
 230-The mail archive-server is no longer supported. Of course, if
 230-  you can read this, you don't need it anyway.
 230-
 230-Note to HyperFTP users: If you log in, and cannot list directories
 230-  other than the top-level ones, enter a - as the first character of your
 230-  password (e-mail address).
 230-
 230-If your ftp client has problems with receiving files from this server, send
 230-  a - as the first character of your password (e-mail address).
 230-
 230-If you're ftp'ing from Delphi, please remember that the Delphi FTP client
 230-  requires you to enclose case-sensitive directory and file names in double
 230-  quote (") characters.
 230-
 230-You are user # 1 of an allowed 20 users.
 230-
 230-Please read the file README
 230-  it was last modified on Tue Jan  3 18:54:35 199x - 153 days ago
 230-Please read the file README.FIRST
 230-  it was last modified on Thu Jan 12 17:53:58 199x - 144 days ago
 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
 ftp> cd /Mosaic/Windows    
 250-Please read the file README.TXT
 250-  it was last modified on Wed May 31 09:16:29 199x - 5 days ago
 250-Please read the file README.WRI
 250-  it was last modified on Wed May 31 09:16:37 199x - 5 days ago
 250 CWD command successful.
 ftp> bin
 200 Type set to I.
 ftp> get w32s125.exe
 200 PORT command successful.
 550 mosaic20.exe: No such file OR directory.
 ftp> get mosaic20.exe
 200 PORT command successful.
 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for mosaic20.exe (1204168 bytes).
 226 Transfer complete.
 local: mosaic20.exe remote: mosaic20.exe
 1204168 bytes received in 4.3 seconds (2.7e+02 Kbytes/s)
 ftp> get w32sOLE.exe
 200 PORT command successful.
 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for w32sOLE.exe (2287315 bytes).
 226 Transfer complete.
 local: w32sOLE.exe remote: w32sOLE.exe
 2287315 bytes received in 4.3 seconds (5.2e+02 Kbytes/s)
 ftp> cd viewers
 250 CWD command successful.
 ftp> ls
 200 PORT command successful.
 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list.
 .index	panofr10.exe
 qtw11.zip	wplny09b.zip
 readme.1st	acroread.exe
 speak.exe	mpegw32h.zip
 lviewp1b.zip
 226 Transfer complete.
 112 bytes received in 0.0056 seconds (19 Kbytes/s)
 ftp> quit
 221 Goodbye.
 % 

Compressed Files

A file with the extension.zip indicates it is in a compressed archive format. The extension .exe can indicate a self-extracting compressed archive file.

For .zip files you must have the latest version of the PKWare software. Within the PKWare software is an executable called pkunzip.exe that decompresses .zip files. Execute the following command to retrieve the files from the compressed archive:

 % pkunzip filename.zip
For .exe (self-extracting) files, first create a directory. Put the file in that directory and enter the name of the file to decompress its contents. For example with the file mosaic21.exe, enter mosaic20 and the file decompresses.

The shareware utility PKWare (zip and unzip) is on the NCSA ftp server in the /PC/Windows/Contrib directory. (It is also available from the FTP site oak.oakland.edu.) The file pkz204g.exe, which is a self-extracting executable, is in the pub/msdos/zip directory. Create a directory and enter pkz204g. The software unzips itself. After extracting the software, add this directory to the PATH= statement of your autoexec.bat file and reboot your machine.