When running on a PC network, A-Shell needs a unique identifier to individually identify each PC on that network. For this purpose, it makes use of the NetBIOS computer name. This error will result if the NetBIOS computer name is not set on a PC in a networked environment. In NetBIOS or NetBEUI technology networks (including most Windows networks), this name is set automatically.

The one big vendor not using the NetBIOS computer name is Novell. There are three techniques for setting the name for Novell networks. The first depends on the client technology you are using (NETX, or ODI, or MSIPX and NDIS, and so on), but it can be possible to specify the name in the workstation’s net.cfg file. The second works for clients running W95 or higher and consists of adding the Client for Microsoft Networks to your network stack. The third technique is to set the MACHINE environment variable in the server’s system login script. This will need to be set differently for each workstation, which may be done in the same script by testing values of PSTATION, which will contain the hardware Ethernet or Token Ring addresses. More information is available in Installation, and in the Novell documentation.