Setting up home network (need guidance)

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Sat Sep 27, 2003 11:27 pm

I'm trying to help my father in law set up a home network (the blind leading the blind). He just bought a D-Link Di 624 wireless router and an adapter card for his laptop.
The machine that we have the router running off of is running Win98 SE, and his laptop is running WinXP home. We have got both connected to the internet through the router just fine, but cannot figure out how to set up home networking to share files and a printer.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks.

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:00 pm

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:00 pm

dsl-jds · Post by **dsl-jds** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 3:46 pm

Okay, I'll try. On the XP machine you should have something for setting up a home network. Part of the process has you make a floppy that is used on non XP machines. Good luck.

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 7:26 pm

Originally posted by brianosmi
I'm trying to help my father in law set up a home network (the blind leading the blind). He just bought a D-Link Di 624 wireless router and an adapter card for his laptop.
The machine that we have the router running off of is running Win98 SE, and his laptop is running WinXP home. We have got both connected to the internet through the router just fine, but cannot figure out how to set up home networking to share files and a printer.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks.

get into the properties screen for your LAN connection on both PC's. Its different for both win98 & XP, but basically right click My Network Places and choose properties and then right click your LAN connection and choose properties again. You can also use the control panel.

**note: In windows98, you may have to go through the control panel > Network menu to get to some of what is discussed here. If file and printer sharing is not already listed, try adding it by clicking 'Add', then choose 'service', then click 'add' then you should be able to select File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks.. then click OK. In the same window click on the file and Print Sharing button and a dialog box should pop up asking if you "want to be able to give others access to your files" Make sure that is checked and also the printers if your going to share printers as well.

both PC's need to have the following checked under the LAN connection properites:

Client for Microsoft Networks
File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks
Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

note: your XP system may have QOS checked also.. you can uncheck or leave it be.. it has nothing to do with file sharing..

Second, make sure that both PC's belong to the same workgroup. right click my computer and choose properties, then select the Network Identification tab and then the properties butoon, I believe. Again, this may vary a bit from 98 to XP. Once in the Network Identification properties, you can change the computer name and workgroup name there.

Third, on your XP laptop in the LAN connection properties, select the 'advanced' tab and uncheck the built in XP firewall..

Fourth, make sure you have a user account setup on both PC's that is exactly the same username and password. You can access the users info from the control panel on both PC's. This will give each PC the proper rights to gain access to the other.

So basically the steps are something like this:

1. setup each PC for internet access. (you've got that already)
2. make sure both computers belong to the same workgroup.
3. enable "File and Printer Sharing" on both PC's.
4. disable the built in XP firewall on the XP PC.
5. setup identical usernames and passwords
6. setup a folder or drive to be shared.. viola! your done.

Now with both PC's connecting to the internet, File and Print Sharing enabled, and the XP firewall disabled, your ready to setup a share. Its been so long since I've setup a shared folder in 98 but I believe you just right click the folder or drive and select 'sharing' just as you would in XP.

hope that helps a bit.. post back if you run into problems or have more questions.
Also a good site to check out would be http://www.practicallynetworked.com

good luck.

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 9:06 pm

Thanks for the instructions! I may get over there and try to get it going this weekend...

JackMDS · Post by **JackMDS** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:13 pm

Just in case.

Log to this page it has a lot of links to instructions in Network Setting and Sharing.

Link: Basic Networking

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:26 am

*Bump*

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:26 am

*Bump* again

Altema · Post by **Altema** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 5:22 pm

What is it exactly that you need help with? You just seem to be bumping the post waiting for something o_o

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 5:34 pm

I've tried the above method, and still no luck. I can access the internet with both machines, but cannot see each other. No file or print sharing.
Even had a guy suggest setting up the xp machine as the primary computer on the network, letting xp configure the 98 machine for networking, make a floppy disk, then switching the machines back around. I tried this, but no luck.
Any other advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 4:36 pm

In addition to the above problem of still not being able to see any of the computers on the network, I also have a new problem:

I have also enabled WEP, and set the encryption to 128 bit. Now the laptop continually drops the wireless connection, and I have to keep reconnecting.
Could this have something to do with enabling WEP?

Any help would be appreciated, as I am new to networking and wireless routers.

Thanks.

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 6:08 pm

Try browsing directly to the other pc by typing: \\computername up in the explorer address bar.

Can the PC's ping each other? @command prompt type: ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (<-- IP address of other PC)
or
ping computername (<-- this will ensure that NetBIOS names are properly being translated to IP addresses. )

Pinging will verify that a connection exists between the PC's, even if other means of communication are not yet established.

If you don't know the IP address of your PC's, you can type: ipconfig /all
IPconfig will display the TCP/IP info for your network adapters, including the IP address you can use to ping.

1. setup each PC for internet access. (you've got that already)
2. make sure both computers belong to the same workgroup.
3. enable "File and Printer Sharing" on both PC's.
4. disable the built in XP firewall on the XP PC.
5. setup identical usernames and passwords
6. setup a folder or drive to be shared.. viola! your done.

Start from scratch and double & triple check each of the above steps carefully. I know it sounds redundant, but its often the simple things that cause issues.

read up on that link that JackMDS posted.. its very helpful for beginners trying to take on such tasks..

Theres no such thing as a 'primary' computer on your network unless it is providing some sort of server functionality. Your router IS the primary computer, it is the one directing traffic, not one of your PC's. All non-server PC's connected to the router are considered equal. If you setup Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) you went down the wrong path, your router IS your ICS device, no primary/secondary PC relationship needs to be established.

Make sure you don't have any software firewalls installed on either PC for now. If you want a software firewall setup in addition to your router's NAT firewall then you can install that AFTER you have things working.

As far as your wireless issue, I can't really help you there. I have minimal experience with wireless LAN's and have only worked on them once or twice. Perhaps starting a separate thread will attract the attention of some of the wireless gurus we have around here.

good luck.

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 6:36 pm

Thanks for the tips, koldchillah, I'll try them tonight or tomorrow. I'll also take your advice on starting another thread if I don't get any more traffic on this one for the wireless issue.

JackMDS · Post by **JackMDS** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 12:43 am

Log to this page Scroll to the middle, you will find links to Setting and sharing of Windows.

Link: Basic Networking

.

brianosmi · Post by **brianosmi** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 4:02 pm

Thanks koldchillah and JackMDS. I used your advice and was able to get the file and print sharing set up between the win98 machine and the xp machine. Also the wireless issue I was having seems to have corrected itself, I am no longer dropping my connection.
It's been a great learning experience for me and I appreciate your time and advice.

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 1:04 am

your welcome. I'm glad we could help..

also glad to hear your wireless issue went away.