need help setting up my home network

Bastack

Hi all,

I am trying to set up a home network. I have the following:

NTL Boadband (cable) Linksys wireless router connected directly to my PC and a trendnet wireless card in my laptop. I have internet access to both my pc and Laptop but neither can see each other. I was trying to set up a home network and share each of my drives. I am using Windows xp on both but neither machines can see each other.

Can anyone help? the wizard asks me to set up a network but I do not know what to do.

Thanks,

Brian

watty

This is beyond the scope of a boards post and nothing to do with broadband.


Make sure PC and Laptop BOTH require a user name and a password and it is the same name and password on both.


Enable File & Printer sharing on PC and not on laptop

Share some folders on the PC. Map a network drives on Laptop to those couple of folders say using letters S: and U:

Any files the in those two folders will be accessible to both computers.

Share the PC printer, and browse and connect to it from laptop.

If you don't know what I'm talikng about get an Expert.

Tech Pete

Or if you just want to share files download an FTP server and Client.
This way you can FTP to the PC's name/IP and get the files there!

For reference Filezilla does both and it rocks.

Bastack

Thanks Guys,

I will get to work.

B

watty

Tech Pete wrote:

Or if you just want to share files download an FTP server and Client.
This way you can FTP to the PC's name/IP and get the files there!

For reference Filezilla does both and it rocks.

Fine for Internet but a clunky 25 year old technology for a LAN. More complicated and potentially less secure to setup. He is only wanting to share on LAN, not to Internet.

Calibos

Unless I am missing something or have mis-read something then how is this beyond the scope of a boards post? Sure it should be in the Net/Coms forum but its quite easy, and I'm no expert!

To the OP. Seeing as you have internet connectivity on both the wired desktop and the wireless laptop then obviously your wireless connection is set up ok. Your router firewall should not have any bearing on internal network traffic so that can be left on but check for any mention of File and printer sharing and enable that setting if there is one. If however you have a software firewall (Windows or third party) on either machine then turn it off for now.

Go to control panel, network set up on the first machine. In the set up make sure button for "use existing shared connection....." is highlighted and click next. On the next screen in the Description field type say 'Desktop' for example. In the Computer name field type the name of the PC. If you can't remember what name you gave the PC when you installed windows, go to control panel, system, and click on the Computer Name tab. The item you are looking for is 'Full computer name' By default windows might have given the computer a wierd name. All windows installs on any of my Dells always defaulted to the Dell Service Tag serial number for some reason, so the name you have might just be a series of letters and numbers. Click 'Change' to change it to something more meaningfull like 'Study, livingroom' etc depending on where your desktop is. It should be typed in all caps with no spaces, so EG the new Full name you might give this PC might be....LIVINGROOMPC.

Enter this new Full name in the Full name field of the NET Setup screen. Click next. Workgroup name will default to MSHOME. I usually change this to MYSURNAMENETWORK (Replacing mysurname with yoursurname obviously ) On the next screen highlight 'Turn on File and printer sharing'. Click next and next and you are done. Now after you had setup on both machines the only folders visable to the other PC would be the Shared Documents folder. You would have to move files you want to share into this folder for them to be seen on the other PC. So you either move the folders you want to share into the Shared Documents folder or you can leave them where they are and turn on sharing for thos specific folders. (Personally I just share my whole MY Documents on both PC's with the other PC on the Network so I always have access to everything on either PC without having to setup sharing for multiple folders or having to always be moving stuff in and out of the 'Shared documents' folder.

Anyway if you want to share a folder rightclick on the folder you want to share and click Sharing and security. Put a tick in 'Share this folder on the network. and for the Share name just type the name of the folder you are sharing. Click apply.

All done on this PC. Then go to the laptop and run the control panel netsetup there too. Computer name laptop, Full Name- same procedure as before, Workgroup is the same as other PC ie MYSURNAMENETWORK, turn on file and printer sharing, next next etc. Set up sharing on any folders you want the desktop to see on this laptop PC. DONE

Now you should see a MY Network places on your start menu near MY documents. Click on it and you should see the default 'shared documents' folders of both PC's and the specific folders you set up sharing for from both PC's.

Assuming you have setup right any further problems will be firewall related and can be dealt with in further posts.

Calibos

Well? Did you get it working Bastack?

joe_chicken

Could you not just find the IP for each machine, share out a folder and then just type "\\xx.xx.xx.xx" into explorer? (e.g. "\\192.168.1.5")

Everytime you go into My Network Places after this, you should see the pc

You can do the same with printer sharing

p.s. share a folder by right clicking on it->properties->sharing

p.p.s. if you wanna find the IP... Go to Run->Type "cmd"->Type "ipconfig"