RAS Enter Manual Commands Feature Problems

• Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1

Remote Access Service (RAS) for Windows NT has a new feature called Manual Dial. With this feature, you can manually enter AT commands directly to the modem. This is particularly useful when troubleshooting RAS modem problems. However, there are a few minor problems with this feature that may affect its usefulness.

You can enable this feature in RAS Phone by editing a phone book entry. In the RAS Phone utility, choose Advanced, and then choose the Modem button. Select the Enter Modem Commands Manually check box at the bottom. Now when you dial the phone book entry, you will be presented with a new terminal screen. You are now able to directly interact with the modem using AT commands.

Possible Problems

Cut\Paste commands:

   If you cut and paste modem commands into the terminal screen, they are
   not sent to the modem. Only manually typed commands are accepted. This
   can be troublesome if you are tweaking long initialization strings. You
   need to type the entire command for each test.

   If you are not connected when you choose the Done button, you will
   receive the error message "All devices connected. Error 668: The
   connection dropped."

   On your next dial attempt, you may receive the error message "All
   devices connected. Error 620: There are no endpoints."

   This will be followed by the 668 error again.

   1. Dial Phone Book Entry with the manual commands check box selected.

   2. Enter ATDT (phone number) in the terminal.

      The modems will connect.

   3. Choose Done to close terminal as normal.

      You will probably receive 620 error.

   If you dial a nonmanual entry from the phone book, it should work. You
   may need to exit the RAS Phone utility to correct this behavior.

   If you change the bps speed in the Modem Button Screen in RAS Phone,
   you may receive garbage in the manual command terminal screen.

   For example, if you change from 38400 to 9600 bps, the manual command
   terminal works but sometimes the system will not see connect string.

   More often, if it fails with 668 or 620 error for some reason, the
   next dial command will get garbage from the modem on first screen
   line.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 3.1 and Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.