Help setting up wireless filesharing

steveland?

Hi folks.
I've got Eircom BB and got a Linksys WAG54G Wireless router.
Just bought a laptop on FS CH and I have a linksys WRTG54G wireless PCMCIA card.

I want to share files from my PC to my laptop (so I can map a network drive where X:\ or whatever points to My Music on the PC, Y:\ to My Videos etc)

What I tried is setting up a workgroup on the PC and the Laptop with the same name and then setting whatever folders I want to share on my PC

They'll appear grand on the PC in My Network Places and then I can map the network drives but they won't appear in the Network Places folder on my laptop.

The router is set to 802.11G mode (I'm 99.999% certain that's the protocol for file sharing right?) and the workgroup on both the PC and laptop are both set to turn on file and printer sharing...

Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

MunsterCycling

Firewall? Configure it to allow the printer and file sharing through. Are you able to surf ok > meaning its not a connection prob? Also what OS pro/home/other?

steveland?

Yeh surfing is no bother (posting this on the laptop)

Also both computers are running XP Pro

I've disabled the firewalls on both computers to narrow it down and there's still nothing being shared.

Just there I tried right clicking on My Computer in each of the computers, clicking properties and setting them both to join the workgroup WORKGROUP.

Still nothing being shared between them.

paconnors

steveland? wrote:

Hi folks.
I've got Eircom BB and got a Linksys WAG54G Wireless router.
Just bought a laptop on FS CH and I have a linksys WRTG54G wireless PCMCIA card.

I want to share files from my PC to my laptop (so I can map a network drive where X:\ or whatever points to My Music on the PC, Y:\ to My Videos etc)

What I tried is setting up a workgroup on the PC and the Laptop with the same name and then setting whatever folders I want to share on my PC

They'll appear grand on the PC in My Network Places and then I can map the network drives but they won't appear in the Network Places folder on my laptop.

The router is set to 802.11G mode (I'm 99.999% certain that's the protocol for file sharing right?) and the workgroup on both the PC and laptop are both set to turn on file and printer sharing...

Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Did you try doing one left click on drive and then right click, make sure sharing is enabled

irlrobins

Ola

right, first of all check that you can ping the other PC. So on each machine open a command prompt and ping the other PC's ip address. (i.e. "ping 192.168.1.x") See if you get a response back ok? If so, proceed on, otherwise post back here.

If you can ping ok the the 2 machines can see each other. It sounds like you have set the folders you want to share correctly. (normally done by right clicking on folder and choosing Sharing and Security).

Let's for example say you want to share a folder called My Music that is on PC 1 (192.168.1.100). To be able to access this on PC 2, open windows explorer, and go to Tools->Map Network Drive. Choose the drive letter you want (normally starts from z: ) then in folder box type "\\ip address of pc 1\My Music". (\\192.168.1.100\My Music). Then click ok. If everything is a ok then the network drive z should appear that is mapped to the My Music folder on PC1.

Hope this makes sense.

Brendan552004

Just a small question, can home networked computers share program files?

Brendan

irlrobins

What do you mean by "program files"? Just so I can be sure we're on the same wavelength here.

steveland?

Got it to work by searching for other computers on the network and then mapping the drives from the results in the search box.

Cheers for the help anyway though folks.

Brendan, not sure what you mean by Program Files, I'd assume you mean like install a program on one PC and be able to run it from a laptop or another PC on the network. I very much doubt it.

One way you might be able to do it though is to use VNC to access the PC from the laptop or other PC and run the programs in that window.

Either that or share the folder where the setup.exe for the program is and you can install it on the laptop/other PC without having to redownload the file

steveland?

OK another question (didn't want to start a new thread so just edited the title):

I've tried setting up WEP. Put in a passphrase into the passphrase box, clicked use Default Key 1, clicked Generate and then used the first generated password it gives me to connect to the network when I try to connect and put in my passphrase (the encoded 10 digit phrase)

It connects after a while, tells me it's connected and signal strength is excellent but there is little or no connectivity on the connection.

Anyone have a simple step-by-step guide to setting it up using my hardware (XP Pro is my OS btw)?

I don't see what I'm doing wrong with the WEP...

irlrobins

steveland? wrote:

but there is little or no connectivity on the connection.

What I would do is this:

1) ping the router ip address
2) ping 82.195.136.250 (board's ip address)
3) ping www.boards.ie

Post back results here. Will help to pinpoint where connection is failing.

Does connection function ok when there is no WEP enabled?

steveland?

Tried that and all packets were lost. I could ping the router afaik but not an external site (pinged google)

Functions perfectly without WEP enabled or if I use MAC filtering (which i tried as well with the same results)

irlrobins

Are you using the linksys utility or windows to control the wireless card?

steveland?

Windows. Suppose I could try installing the Linksys drivers tomorrow. I'll post up the results when I do. Thanks for your help irlrobins

Karoma

Remove the Preferred Network entry.
Then go back in and setup the connection - ssid, WEP key,etc. or if it's broadcasting-just connect and put in the right pass...

MunsterCycling

Is WEP your only option? Will your equipment support WPA-PSK? Would be a better option IMHO than WEP, as for the non connection to net would definitly suggest the Linksys drivers first then look at the Network key you entered, if you can put the key into a text file put it on a usb stick and use copy and paste on the various machines that you need to set the key on. Thats what I do but then trying to remember a 63 charactor randomly generated key isn't really an option.