Home Networking on Windows XP

Im trying to set up a network between 2 pc's in my house (crossover cable, so no hub or router) so I can share a dialup connection, share printers and files and finally to LAN games. The host pc is running Windows XP, and the other one is running ME. The computer running XP says that the LAN cable isnt connected. The cards work and so do the drivers, and the manual that came with the cards is based around setting up a network on 95/98/ME. Anyone know where I can find tutorials, or can anyone provide some assistance?

[Rob Colatutto]

you will need 2 ethernet cards in the main computer, the xp one, and the cable modem (or any other boradband) goes into the card on top, then put the crossover cable into the second adapter, and into the second computers main ethernet adapter. then you have to go into your connection settings, and edit local area connection 2, then go to the properties in it, go to the advanced tab, enable "allow other network users to connect through this computers internet connection" and disable "allow other network users to control or disable this option" and your all set. thats how i do it, works very nicely

[Chubtoad]

If your sharing a dialup you don't need the second ethernet card, but you should be able to take the same steps that nataku described for your modem. You also might want to double check that you're using cross-over cable.

[Matt Reiland]

As the others said, you should get a link light on both the cards and then see the activity light begin to blink, otherwise go buy a cheap 4 port hub and regular cables. If you aren't getting a link light on both your cable is suspect.

[Jeff Waegelin]

Make sure Internet Connection Firewall is disabled on the XP computer. The network won't work with that enabled.

[Rob Colatutto]

Originally posted by Matt Reiland
otherwise go buy a cheap 4 port hub and regular cables.

thats what i do, nice $20 hub, get 4 other computers online with it, works quite nice. thats also pretty cool for lan parties and setting up a game system online with a broadband (dreamcast xbox gamecube ps2)

[Ian W.]

i believe that to communicate XP and ME machines, you need a special piece of software running on the ME machine. it may be on the XP cd, something like XP Networking Thingamabob.

[Matt Reiland]

Hardware wise though, the link light should come on if there is an actual ethernet connection, the two computers might not see each other but at least the XP machine should sense a network connection active, This is the case in 98, NT, and 2000 but I don't have XP

[Rob Colatutto]

you can see other computers, at least i know i can, with my one computer running the sharing (win xp) and my old computer that i let the family use (win 2000). all printer sharing and file sharings work just fine

[Chubtoad]

WinME is a piece of crap indeed but you don't need any special software. The $20 hub is nice if you never transfer anything between the computers except for the internet, otherwise it sucks because getting not even a full 10Mbps SUCKS when you're trying to transfer 20 gigs of movies

For anyone who doesn't know, which I discovered one recently, XP is just win2k with some added features, not many of which are important, but anything you can do on 2K you can do with XP.
(If you look at the version info on 2k it is Nt 5.0, on xp it is NT 5.02 or something like that, so it is the NT core.)

WinME is just 98 really messed up. REALLY messed up, your best bet is to install either 98,2k or XP on the other machine depending on its speed, because ME was just a thing to hold off customers until XP (because of the success of 2K)

[Nate Smith]

One thing that I've found, especially when sharing between an NT kernel and a 9x kernel, is a particular setting in XP

1. Go to start->control panel
2. Open Administrative Tools
3. Open Local Security Policy
4. Open Local Policies, then Security options
5. Find the setting "Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console logon only". It most likely is enabled. Change it to disabled and restart the computer.

Also, in the same section, you may need to play around with the "Network access: Shares that can be accessed anonymously" setting.

[Rob Colatutto]

actually, windows xp pro is windows 5.1, and windows 2000 pro is windows 5.0, the 5.02 and such are windows 2000 server and 5.05 is windows 2000 advanced server i believe

[EIROBOTICS86]

Just get windows 2000 because that is better than XP oh and Xp Sux

[Jeff Waegelin]

Personally, I like XP, and I've been using it since the preview release. I've had a few problems with networking, but most of those came from special settings I was trying to use. The biggest things, though, are making sure ICF is disabled, and making sure your workgroup and such are the same on both PCs. That solves a lot of the common problems.

As to the hub question, a hub is probably not a good idea (too slow), but a switch allows full-speed transfers for all PCs at the same time. Plus, a switch doesn't cost that much more (probably $10 more).

[Chubtoad]

In the originaly point of this post, a hub is all that is needed because all you're doing is trasnferring very little data, especially a dial-up modem. a 10BaseT hub is plenty for a cable modem also, but as I said, if you transfer ANYTHING between the computers often then yeah hubs, especially cheap 10BaseT ones suck. But if you only have 2 computers a 100BaseT Hub is really the same as a switch, and I've found switches are usually 40% more expensive then their hub counter-parts, which makes sense because the performance and actual hardware is a lot more then a hub.

For those of you who might not know, a Hub is comparable to an extension cord, where a Switch would be totally seperate power stations. a Switch directs traffic to individual computes while a hub broadcasts all information to all computers and the computer that wants it will use it and the others just trash it. if you had a 10 port 100baseT hub, and all ten computers were transferring huge files, each computer would only be getting a max of 10mbps(one direction, if you were sending both ways this would be limited to 5mbps up and 5mbps down), where as on a 100BaseSwitch in the same situation each computer would get 100mbps both ways (upload 100mbps AND downloadmbps)

personally the other computer I have is a POS and I use it for storage, but I don't transfer OFTEN and I store movies so I can watch them over the network through my $15 10baseT HUb