home networking 2 computers

M

mikekelly

New Member
hi

i have a laptop in one room and a pc in the other, both are sharing a wireless internet connection. What i want to do is access/share files from computer to the next. I cant figure out how to do this, I have looked in my network places and my other pc dosent show up when on my laptop, can anyone explain in as much detail as possible how i can set things up. At the moment im sharing files via AIM but i believe its alot quicker if the computers are networked.

thanks
Mike
 
Go to NETWORK CONNECTIONS and click on "set up a home or small office network". Click next a few times until you get to the screen that asks for your current network connection type. Have a reasd through the options and choose the right one for you.

Click next and select your connection that you are using for the internet connection.

After a few more "next" clicks, you have to type in computer names and descriptions, completely up to you what you call them but try to keep them uniform but unique.

The next step is what enables the whole "shared" thing to happen. When it asks for your WORKGROUP NAME, enter a unique name (suggestions are: HOMENET or *YOUR SECOND NAME*).

Click next and confirm the settings, make a note of the workgroup name because you will need to enter exactly the same workgroup name into the laptop when you repeat the process on there.

You should see some network icons go across the screen and it will say that you have successfully created a network.... blah blah blah....

Do this step on the other machine with the exact same workgroup name.


When this is done, open up MY COMPUTER and right click on Shared Documents. Click on PROPERTIES and then the SHARING tab at the top. Click on "I understand the risks of sharing....blah blah blah...". A whole new set of options will now be available. Click on "share this folder on the network and enter "SharedDocs" as the share name.

Once again, repeat this on the laptop. Restart BOTH machines a few times (yes, more than once). Open up network places and wait a little bit, upto 10 mins for the machines to find each other. If after a long time there is still nothing in network places then click START - SEARCH - click "COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE" and search with leaving the box empty. If nothing appears after searching then redo the first load of processes that i described. If the laptop and desktop appear in the search results then the machines are just being very slow, wait some more.



I hope this helps you a lot as it did take quite a long time to write it all out. Now my hands are aching because i was typing to fast for my own good. If you get any problems please post back.

dagon2309
 
it worked just fine dragon, so thanks a million! just one more question though :) it only shares the 'shared documents' folder is there a way (besides placing the files i want to share into this folder) to share the whole c drive? if so could you let me know how.

thanks again
Mike
 
No problems, im glad to help. If you get any more troubles or problems feel free to post back at any time!!!!

dragon2309
 
dragon, i would like to do the same thing,
the problem is, i have xp on my desktop (win xp home edition) and i have windows 2000 nt in my laptop.
could u please advise me on how to connect the two.
 
follow the same as he already said, but you need an xp cd to run the wizard on the 2000 computer. if you have the cd then put it in. with the autorun, itll say "run network wizard" as one of the options.
 
unfortunately i dont have the cd, the os was pre installed on the comp, i never got the installation cd,
is there any other way?
 
I may be wrong but i beleive when you run the network setup wizard on XP, at the end of it it will ask you if you want to make a network setup disk for another computer. With that said, im not sure you even need to do that. As long as both computers are in the same workgroup, you should be able to see eachother and share files.
 
Win 2000 and WinXP both operate in the same way, only Win2000 doesnt have the user friendly wizard to do it. Basically they must be in the same workgroup (exactly the same / identical).They should then pick each other up and connect by themselves.

Try it that way but if your worried then at the end of the WinXP network setup wizard there is an option to replicate the settings of the WinXp network onto something like a USB drive or CD-R.

Simply pop the created CD into the Win2000 system and windows should do the rest for you.

Hope this helps, dragon2309
 
sniff sniff!! my win 2000 comp has the cd writer, my xp one doesnt!
i know im like literally making it too difficult for ya guys, real sorry.
 
additional info, hope its useful

im connected to the net via a linksys braodband wireless router, and both my desktop and my laptop are able to ping to it,
so is this in any way helpful to creating a file sharing network?
 
I currently dont have a Win 2000 partition set up so i dont know exactly where to go for this bit, run the wizard on the XP machine and join the workgroup called HOME or something else like that. Then, on the 2000 machine, simply change the properties of the computer to joint he workgroup named HOME or whatever you called it.

In my experience it should be somewhere like START - CONTROL PANEL - SYSTEM - COMPUTER NAME - then click on the button taht says "change" - when it opens there should be a box to enter the workgroup name into.

Make sure it is exactly the same as the one you entered in the Win XP wizard.

Hope this helps, dragon2309
 
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