A friend has his main pc with his modem connected and a belkin 802.11b wifi card in his pc and an unknown wifi card in his laptop all he says is that it says 1394 in device manager. He wants to connect them any ideas guys??
A) Get a decent WiFi card for his laptop. They only cost a few quid. B) Buy a hardware router so the LAN is isolated from the WAN. It's worth the money; none of this ICS nonsense C) Read this: How to set up simple Windows file sharing on Windows XP, Windows 2000 and NT4: 1.) Create a new user group on each machine which will be sharing files to other computers. Call this group something like "Network Clients". 2.) Create new users on each machine which will be sharing files to other computers, one for each user which will have access to your network share. Remove them from any standard Windows groups which they will automatically belong to, i.e. "Users", or "Administrators", unless they will need to actually physically log into the computer. Once they have been removed from any built-in groups, add them to your newly created group, e.g. "Network Clients". 3.) Create a folder on each machine which will be sharing files to other computers. Naming it something like "Shared", "Network" or "Export" will suffice. Alternate-click on the new folder, and click "Sharing". Allow the folder to act as a network share. Remove all built-in Windows groups from the access group. Instead, add only your new "Network Clients" group (or whatever you named it). Assign the privileges you want your network group to have, in other words whether they can write to files or only read them. 4.) On each computer which will be connecting to the systems which are sharing files, add a new user account which corresponds with the user(s) you added in step 2 (that is, if they don't already exist on that machine). To make things as simple as possible, make sure that the passwords match on both ends! 5.) (ALTERNATE STEP) If you desire to make things even simpler, you can either map your network shares as a drive letter (alternate-click on My Network Places, Map Network Drive) or create a shortcut on the desktop which will point to the shared resources. Otherwise, you can access the system(s) which are sharing files by entering \\NETBIOSNAME or \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx in Windows Explorer's address bar (where NETBIOSNAME = the PC which is sharing files' NetBIOS name and xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx = its IP address). ______________________________________ This is the simplest way to set up proper Windows file-sharing on any version of NT -- that is, NT4, Windows 2000, or Windows XP. This assumes you do not have a domain controller and that you only want one access group (I.E. everyone has more or less the same network privileges). If you find that you do want more than one access group, e.g. a group with read-only privileges and one with R/W privileges, you would simply reproduce the same effects garnered by following steps 1-3, applying changes where suiting to your needs. I realize that the Networking Wizard tools in Windows XP are a less thought-provoking way of doing almost the same thing, but manually setting up file sharing allows for more flexibility, security, and reliability in the long run. Besides, once you know how to do it, it's not hard at all!
He said is it possible to do it without and expensive router?? EDIT: Sorry to be picky, i dunno why he wants to know but ah well
I'm in a bit of a cynical mood, so tell him to go ahead and hack his own network in advance. JK... seriously though, routers aren't that expensive. Then again, it's a moot point. It's like saying, "can't I drive my car without those expensive tires?!?" ...well, the answer is 'yes', but not properly, and not without damages. He might as well avoid the added trouble and expense by just setting it up properly the first time. -AT
UMMHMM i told him tht but do i know how to network without a router?? incase his parents wont let him buy one
Well, basically what's going to happen if he doesn't get a router is that one of his Windows PCs will act as a makeshift router(!). So, the security of both PCs rests with that one, and that machine must be on in order for the other to get online. The bottom line is that it's not a good solution, and it actually takes more work for a setup that way than to just use a proper router. In addition, Windows XP's built-in firewall is not good for ICS (Internet Connection Sharing), as it often lets bad packets in and interferes with good traffic. If you're stuck with such a troublesome setup, the best way is to disable the XP firewall and instead use Kerio Personal Firewall. It's free for home use, and it's a pretty powerful rule-based firewall. The big downside is that if he doesn't know the fundamentals of how networking works or how to write firewall rules, he'll have to learn before he can make any use of KPF. As I said, it's much better to just get a proper router and be done with it. -AT
