XP Home and Wireless Broadband Sharing

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nivek
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Nivek

I just purchased a Sony Vaio 2.8GHz notebook computer for my wife. It came
with Windows XP Home. Unlike my Windows 2000 system and the Win98 system the
Sony is replacing, I can't for the life of me figure out how to get this
thing connected to share my Road Runner service. It came with a built in
802.11b/g wireless card (LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g miniPCI) which "sees"
the network/router (with a strong signal) but when I try to access the net
with MSIE I receive the error: Cannot Find Server. With my Win2k and Win98
systems it was pretty much plug it in, turn it on and it worked.

My wireless router is a Siemens SpeedStream 2623. While not the best in the
world, it has served us quite well for over a year now.

When I look at the wireless card in My Network Places > View Network
Connections and click on Repair this connection, I receive the error: TCP/IP
is not enabled for this connection. Cannot Proceed.

I feel the lack of TCP/IP may be my problem but after many hours of
frustration I can't decipher how to enable TCP/IP for the wireless network
card. I've clicked and right clicked every button and tab I can find without
success. If it were Windows 2000 or 98 I'd know just what to do but with XP
Home I'm lost. It just doesn't seem very intuitive to me.

The Vaio didn't come with an installation CD/DVD or any documentation.

Can anyone offer any insight before I bodyslam this $%^@ thing? (as a side
note I did get it to connect one time last night and thought I had the
problem solved, but today when I tried again I experienced the same problem.
All network/wireless settings are default.)

If any further information is required to help figure this thing out, let me
know and I'll try to provide it. I am NOT trying to network with my Win2k
box, just share my broadband internet access.

Thanks!!!
 
I'm a newbie, too, but have just connected an XP Home laptop to a
wireless router. One essential trick is this:

Show View Network Connections, and right-click on the wireless
connection. Select Proprties. There's a list of enabled services in the
lower half of the window this reveals. Make sure TCP/IP is enabled.

If it's already enbabled, click the advanced / features / whatever
button - it's the button ont he right but I don't have my machine up and
running now, so i domn't know it's proper name. You want the server to
allocate your TCP/IP number, if possible.

If it's already allocating the number, you need to try with a manual /
fixed number. Try 192.168.0.100 and uthe subnet mask should 255.255.255.0

I hope this works - but I honestly bout I can help any further if it
doesn't!

Good luck,

Richard
 
After playing around with some more I got frustrated with it today and
returned the machine to Fry's. They played around with it for an hour or so,
couldn't get it to work either and finally decided to give me a refund. I
ended up with a different computer - Toshiba 2.8GHz this time - with XP Pro.
When I got it home I simply turned it on and it worked without making any
setting changes at all.

The Toshiba doesn't have all the bells and whistles that the Vaio had but
it's quite a bit lighter and mainly going to be a business/traveling
computer for my wife. She's happy and now that my blood pressure is back to
normal, I'm happy! LOL
 
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