Paullllll said:
I have WinXP Pro setup through wireless router and I need to copy some
video
files from one computer to this computer. What is the easiest way?
"Easiest" is subjective. I think setting up file/printer sharing is easiest
and best and it takes me less than 5 minutes to do this for only two
computers. I don't know about you, though. I'll give you the basic
information about networking, but if it seems too hard (and that's not a
criticism of you), then just copy the files to a USB thumb drive or burn
them to CD and sneakernet them across.
For XP, start by running the Network Setup Wizard on all machines (see
caveat in Item A below).
Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful
firewall in a VPN); or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls such as the
built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having
identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying
to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.
A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN)
traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer
Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on
XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this
will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a
third-party firewall or have an antivirus/security program with its own
firewall component, then you're fine. With third-party firewalls, I
usually configure the LAN allowance with an IP range. Ex. would be
192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you would substitute your correct
subnet. Refer to any third party security program's Help or user forums for
how to properly configure its firewall. Do not run more than one firewall.
DO NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE THEM CORRECTLY.
B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This
is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.
C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not
need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords
assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just
need to exist and match on all machines. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE
PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES. If you wish a machine to boot directly
to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for convenience, you
can do this. The instructions at this link work for both XP and Vista:
Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm
D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab).
E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home
directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those
directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder.
Malke
