CJ said:
I bought a router for my house.
I wired the computers.
I pinged the compters to make sure they all see each other.
[It's a very BIG question -- and you are probably only ready for
short, simple answer (you will learn much doing this but it isn't
really very hard.)]
You pinged the computers so in some sense you HAVE setup the
network and they do "see" each other.
If you want to "see" them in Explorer (Network Neighborhood) then
they must (each) share one or more drives.
Presumable, you have them all plugged into a Hub (or equivalent) and
not connected with the router in the (logical) center.
Presumably, you have the router in order to connect to the Internet....
Since you bought a Router, it probably does Network address translation
(NAT)
and you probably have an ISP like a DSL or Cable provider (if not, then
hopefully
you have dial capability in the router or don't intend to use the Internet.)
If the above is true (NAT, Internet) the router will attach to the provider
and get
an IP address (usually through DHCP or they MIGHT give you a static address
to type in).
Usually the router will be a DHCP server (hand out IP addresses) on the
INTERNAL
net only -- it will likely use 192.168.x.1 (where x is usually 0 or 1 but
unimportant really)
and lease out 192.168.x.2+ to your other machines.
Obviously this last is working to at least some extent since you can PING!!!
Ping is good.
