Introduction
Both Anzio Lite and AnzioWin are designed to be an every day telnet program. This includes the use of these products through your web browser. For those web browsers that support a telnet client, Anzio Lite or AnzioWin can be the default telnet "helper" application. If you are unsure as to what telnet is, see our white paper on A Guide To Telnet.
This document will cover the installation of Anzio Lite and AnzioWin as the default telnet application for your web browser, allowing you to simply click on a telnet URL link at any site and connect to a remote host. The most current versions of Anzio Lite and AnzioWin are always available for download from our web site. This document covers Windows 95/98/NT and Internet Explorer 4.0 or later and Netscape Navigator 4.0 or later (for other browser versions, see notes at the bottom). Releases of the Anzio Lite and AnzioWin later than version 12.0 will do this setup automatically for you.
How telnet work with browsers
There are many RFC available over the Internet and dealing with Internet protocol. One of the oldest RFC's out there is that dealing with the Universal Resource Locator (URL) type for web browses and for the Telnet protocol.
Just as "http://" refers to a link to an "Hypertext Markup Language" (html) page, and "ftp://" to the File Transfer Protocol (ftp) link, "telnet://" refers to linking to a site via the telnet protocol. Most browsers allow you to enter this text either as a manually entered URL (on the Open URL or Address line), or to set a link to click on from a web page. Hence a link or an entered URL address would show as
telnet://host.name
Additional information in the RFC also refers to how you can set automated logins for particular telnet sites. This is not as clean as it may sound however. The RFC specifies that an URL can contain the login or the login and password. This is entered as
telnet://login@host.name
or
telnet://login:password@host.name
Most browsers on the market today, support "helper" or "add-on" applications that support specific URL types. Microsoft and Netscape take this one step further by associating a MIME or File Type for file associations (from any application in fact). The file type for telnet is referred to as " URL:Telnet Protocol ".
Some of the older browsers on the market do their own definition for the telnet helper application. For Anzio Lite and AnzioWin to work, the browsers do need some way of defining the default telnet application.
Setting up windows URL type
Starting with Windows 95, (and IE 4.0 and Netscape 4.0) there is a way to set a system wide default for what telnet application should be used for a telnet connection. This is done as a URL file type under "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer":
- Go to "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer"
-
Go to the "View" menu and click on "Folder Options"
- Select the "File Types" tab
- Scroll down the list of types until "URL:Telnet Protocol
- Click once "URL:Telnet Protocol" and then click "Edit"
- Under "Actions" click the item (either "open" or "start", or you will need to add one of these), then click "Edit" again
-
The first available line of the edit dialog should read like this:
- c:\anzio\anzio32r.exe %1
- The Anzio executable name may be slightly different depending on your version
- If you are using a version prior to Anzio Lite v11.3 the line should read c:\anzio\anzioscl.exe /h: %1
- Click "OK"
- Click the "Set as Default" button on the action
- "OK" until out of the dialogs.
The %1 is important as this indicates that the URL string should be passed to Anzio as a command-line parameter (which will contain the host name).
The Windows default for this URL type is usually set to
rundll32.exe url.dll,TelnetProtocolHandler %1
If this is set to something else, be aware that another program you have installed has already changed this.
The first time you use Anzio Lite, it may ask for the default terminal type. This is dependent upon the site you connect to (so check with that site). If one is not asked for, and you seem to have screen character problems of any type, please check under the AnzioLite "Communications" menu to see what terminal type you are. "vt220" is the most common terminal type and will work on most sites.
Specific version notes
Anzio Lite and AnzioWin version 12.5
Due to numerous questions and confusion with the installer asking to become the default telnet client, we removed that setting from the Installer and placed this as an option inside Anzio Lite or AnzioWin.
Under the Help menu in the Anzio Lite and AnzioWin product, you can do a "Set as default telnet..." option to do the work described above for you:
You can reset to the Windows default or set the registry to use Anzio Lite or AnzioWin whenever it encounters a telnet:// entry in any application or browser.
Anzio Lite and AnzioWin version 12.0 through 12.4
During the installation of these versions, you are asked if you would like Anzio Lite or AnzioWin to be your Windows default telnet client. If you answer yes, the installer will add the appropriate entry into the Windows Registry (as described above) for you.
Anzio Lite and AnzioWin version 10.9 through 11.5
With the older versions of Anzio Lite and AnzioWin, it was necessary to enter the " /h:" as an item on the command line in order for the variable coming from the browser to be handled as a host name rather than a default file name.
Starting with version 11.3, Anzio Lite and AnzioWin assume that the string parameter on the command line is a default file name. If no match is found, it then tries the string as the host name. So the " /h:" is NOT needed any longer.
Windows 2000 File Types
In Windows 2000, the File Type is closely tied to the operating system and "telnet" is a more general URL type that all applications can use. Under the Control Panel is a new icon called "Folder Options" and one of the tabs for this dialog box is "File Type". You will want to scroll down to the URL Telnet type and set it up similar to the instructions above.
Internet Explorer ver. 3.0a and 3.01 have a bug
With IE v3.0a and v3.01 you can not enter "telnet://host.name" on the "Address" (top URL) line. This seems to be "broke".
Internet Explorer ver. 3.02 bug
With IE v3.02 (similar to v3.0a and v3.01) you can not enter "telnet://host.name" on the "Address" (top URL) line. However, you can enter "telnet: host.name" (you MUST enter the space after the colon).
AOL version 3.0A Users
Apparently, the above reported bug in IE v3.0 does not apply to the version of IE shipped with the AOL 3.0. This is due to the handling of the "Address:" line by AOL, rather than by IE.
Internet Explorer ver. 4.0 beta
The procedure for updating the "File Type : Telnet Protocol" described above for IE is slightly different for some early beta releases than with the final 4.0 release.
Netscape Navigator Prior to ver. 3.0
The early releases of Navigator actually were much simpler to set up for a telnet application. Under the "Options" and then "General Preferences" menu item there was a field to enter the default "Telnet Application" which was simply the command line. Early versions of Netscape did not pass anything on to the application from a telnet link, except the site name. If a link existed, such as library@jpl.com, the "library@" did not get transferred, only the "jpl.com". The "telnet://" link from the URL address line did work however.
Internet Explorer ver. 3.0 and earlier
While some of the older versions of IE did not have a specific way to set up a telnet helper application, the issue could be forced by manually changing the iexplore.ini file. Here is the brief procedure:
- Locate the [Helpers] section in iexplore.ini
- Remove the semicolon, :, found before the telnet= line
- At the end of the line, enter the full path and name of the telnet application followed by a %s, i.e. telnet=c:\anzio\anzioscl.exe %s
- Save the iexplore.ini file
Netscape Navigator & Communicator ver 3.0 and later
Internet Explorer ver. 4.0 and later
The application command line in the set up for a telnet application may require a space followed by a %1 at the end of the line. This is needed in new versions of Netscape and IE. If you have problems getting Anzio to connect to a requested host name, try adding " %1" at the end of the execute line.