Wifi - Two wireless networks

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rjones872

A friend of mine asked me to look at their small business network.
They have two wireless networks active. WiFi Network #1 gives them
access to the Internet that another business allows them to access.
WiFi Network #2 is their own local network with their shared printer.
The shared printer is wired up to the router/hub while the rest of the
computers are connected wirelessly.

Here is there issue. Every time they want to print, they need to
disconnect from Network #1 and connect to Network #2. Print what they
want, and then reconnect back to Network #1.

They can't physically hook the printer to network #1. Is there a way
to configure their XP laptops to use network #1 for everything except
to send printer requests across network #2? Thanks!
 
rjones872 said:
A friend of mine asked me to look at their small business network.
They have two wireless networks active. WiFi Network #1 gives them
access to the Internet that another business allows them to access.
WiFi Network #2 is their own local network with their shared printer.
The shared printer is wired up to the router/hub while the rest of the
computers are connected wirelessly.

Here is there issue. Every time they want to print, they need to
disconnect from Network #1 and connect to Network #2. Print what they
want, and then reconnect back to Network #1.

They can't physically hook the printer to network #1. Is there a way
to configure their XP laptops to use network #1 for everything except
to send printer requests across network #2? Thanks!
Click to expand...

You can't do this with *one* wireless network adapter. You *might* be
able to do it with *two* wireless network adapters in each computer.
Usually, this question comes up in the context of having a wired NIC
connect to one network and a wireless NIC connect to another.

In any case, you'd have to set up some static routes in the routing
tables of each of the laptops. Start your research here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/159168
The following is for Vista, but should apply to XP as well (use the IPv4
information):
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Configuring-multiple-gateways-on-a-network
 
A friend of mine asked me to look at their small business network.
They have two wireless networks active. WiFi Network #1 gives them
access to the Internet that another business allows them to access.
WiFi Network #2 is their own local network with their shared printer.
The shared printer is wired up to the router/hub while the rest of the
computers are connected wirelessly.

Here is there issue. Every time they want to print, they need to
disconnect from Network #1 and connect to Network #2. Print what they
want, and then reconnect back to Network #1.

They can't physically hook the printer to network #1. Is there a way
to configure their XP laptops to use network #1 for everything except
to send printer requests across network #2? Thanks!
Click to expand...

You can't do it.

Apart from getting your own Internet connection, your best bet is to
get an additional nat device to act in client mode on network #1 and
then connect the network #2 router/hub to it with a lan cable. Then
with a static route on the #1 router you can have your own self
contained private network and Internet.


Jim.
 
Apart from getting your own Internet connection, your best bet is to
get an additional nat device to act in client mode on network #1 and
then connect the network #2 router/hub to it with a lan cable. Then
with a static route on the #1 router you can have your own self
contained private network and Internet.
Click to expand...

In fact you won't need a static route on the #1 router. Sorry!



Jim.
 
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