Home network

Can ANYONE help me to network my laptop and PC at home?

I have cable broadband that connects to the cable modem - netgear 5 port wireless router - cable then goes to PC and laptop gets broadband via wireless.

How do I file share between the two machines? [?][?][?]

Regards

John

[Decker]

OS?

Simple answer would be to follow the wizard 'set up a home or small office network' which can be found by right clicking my network places and selecting properties.....

Had a similar problem.

Have you made sure that the folders that you wish to see on each machine are set as shared folders. I eventually found this out and all my worries went away

Windows XP Home - have tried the network wizard with no sucess.

John

[Decker]

Not convinced Home supports networking but happy to be proved wrong...

[preiffer]

Originally posted by Decker
Not convinced Home supports networking but happy to be proved wrong...

Hmm - I always thought it did (certainly supports wireless connections), but not sure what file sharing capabilities it has.

(Here's the chart for comparison)

It does, I am using XP home,SP2 but mine is via an ADSL router, with main computer routed via cable and then a wap off another port.
Mine works fine, you have to make the folders shared folders, make sure that the network is called the same on both computers and you have to run the setrup programme on both computers. Also, the main computer has to be turned on first.
then go to Windows explorer when both running and connected, go to My network places, then Entire network, then Microsoft windows network and under that you should see the name of the network you have setup.
You are not using something l9ike Zone Alarm are you? if so you will need to allow the network access.

[Scrooge]

Just as a note,I had all kinds of problems setting up a network through my netgear router.

[mitchja]

Originally posted by jetwet1
Just as a note,I had all kinds of problems setting up a network through my netgear router.

Really.....I have a Netgear DG834G ADSL router and that was very easy to set-up and use. Now I know things do start to get complicated when using a seperate DSL modem and router though...that's what I like about my DG834G - everything is built in.

I too use WinXP Home and can file share, internet share and IP print with no problems at all.

OT but something to note regarding Netgear 108Mbps WiFi cards - they are not compatable with PC's or lap tops using Athlon CPU's. They will only work when the lap-top is plugged into the mains otherwise the system hangs completly - work that one out!!!!

Regards

Just a suggestion to try here. Sometimes when you set up a wireless router etc it will take the public assigned IP address from your ISP and assign it to the first connected PC (Your desktop). This will be a public address something like 86.137.181.61 (A public Class A network address). You may have to re-configure your kit to allocate an internal address to all machines (which will either be on a 10.x.x.x, 172.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x range) and then re-direct the output to the internet.
I know this was the case on my first setup and infact I needed a bios flash to allow me to do so. I now have a 5 port Netgear wireless kit and did not need to do this.

If you are definately set up correct you should try to opening a dos prompt and typing 'ipconfig'. This will give you your current assigned IP address on each machine. Once you have these then 'ping' one address from the other. ie. If your desktop shows an address of 192.168.0.2 then from your laptop type 'ping 192.168.0.2' and see you have connectivity.
Now XP with SP2 can sometime automatically enable to built in firewall which will stop the pings (and possibly the file sharing). Disable this on both machine temporarily to do more testing.

If you need more help, let me know the outcome of the above and I will see if I can assist further.

Paul

I have the 5 port Netgear router too. The laptop picks up the wireless internet no problem and I have now got both my PC and laptop showing in the wokgroup computers on the PC but the PC does not show up on the laptop!

When I ran the wireless network wizard and used a usb flash drive for the settings the wizard told me to put the flash drive ino the ACCESS POINT then the laptop. I don't know where it goes in the access point!

John

Sounds strange. You could try shortcutting the network neighbourhood and just clicking start then run the type

WHere would be the name of your desktop. If it can find it, it will try to open it.

If this is successful go back to Net Neighbourhood and have another look.

When I have used the wizard before I have never had to put the usb key into the ACCESS POINT, just both PC devices, but then I never really use the wizard as I like to mess with the settings etc.

Paul

I have had a similar problem to John.

It came down to the XP firewall. If the firewall is turned on, there is no home network - no other computers are seen on the network.

If the firewall is turned off (on all the computers) then the network works fine and file and printer sharing is great. However, XP then continually nags you about system security as you have no firewall.

So the question is do you turn it off and rely on the router firewall or turn it on and move files with USB sticks?

Originally posted by PatDavies
I have had a similar problem to John.

It came down to the XP firewall. If the firewall is turned on, there is no home network - no other computers are seen on the network.

If the firewall is turned off (on all the computers) then the network works fine and file and printer sharing is great. However, XP then continually nags you about system security as you have no firewall.

So the question is do you turn it off and rely on the router firewall or turn it on and move files with USB sticks?

Strange, I had no problems with the two XP firewalls, and have no problem now with Zone Alarm (which I now use instead of XP firewall)