setting up a home network

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michele
  • Start date Start date
M

Michele

I have a desktop and a laptop, both running Windows XP,
and connected by a Linksys Wireless G Broadband Router.
I am fairly computer literate, yet in 3 days I have not
been able to set up a home network so that I can see the
desktop files from my laptop. I have run setup wizard
hundreds of times, and can't get it to work! All the
directions say is "run the setup wizard", which doesn't
help!!! My only other option is to manually configure
the network, but I don't know how to do that. Can anyone
help me?
 
First of all, make sure that the built in firewall on XP
is turned off- also disable any 3rd party firewall
software, then run the setup wizard again. If this
succeeds, leave the xp firewall off (it doesn't work on
networks) and configure any 3rd party firewall to allow
the LAN addresses through.

If you still need to do it manually:
1. turn off firewalls
2. make sure both machines are in the same workgroup
3. either assign static addresses in the same subnet as
the routers LAN interface, or use DHCP from the router if
it supports it.
4. you should now be able to "see" the other computer and
ping it
5.ensure that the appropriate files are shared and that
you have permission to view/use them
6. once you can see them, reconfigure any 3rd party
firewall as above to allow the addresses of each PC and
the router to pass through in both directions. (if you
have a firewall on each machine, you will need to
configure it on each machine)

Hope this helps - firewalls seem to be the biggest
problem in getting a network to work!
 
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