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Help another computer idiot out

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:17 / 10.01.04

Hello there,

So, I have Windows XP Home on my desktop, XP Office on my laptop. I've recently bought a WLAN PC card for the one and a USB WLAN card for the other, both 80211b, and am trying to set up an ad hoc wireless netwrok for file and Internet connection sharing.

However, I am coming up against a number of problems that make it not resemble the instructions I am getting.

1) The advice seems generally to be for people who access the internet via a cable modem connected through RJ45, rather than a USB modem connecting through....erm... the USB port.

2) Possibly as a a corollary of that, the advice that is teeling me to configure the "Local Area Network" section of my netwrk connections is unhelpful, as that section is my wired ethernet connection port. It may also be a problem that I use this to connect to the Internet at work, but I'm not sure about that.

3) Also possibly a problem is that I have previously set up a home office workgroup, which I no longer use, and have no idea how to delete. If I can, I'd like to get rid of this and start from scratch...

Any ideas? I did actually get the thing working at one point, but then adding WEP settings broke it, and I can't get it to work again... coudl somebody frame-by-frame it for me?

15:41 / 10.01.04

Can't spell it out exactly I'm afraid, but it seems to me that you are trying to put the internet into one machine via ethernet, and connect that machine with a local network via wireless, and have that network able to see the internet (with appropriate security in the way). If this is correct, then you have two options. Either you need to use Internet Connection Sharing to make the connection available to the network (this may work but it was fairly broken in the recent past, I've not had the opportunity to try on XP). Or you need a wireless router, you just plug the cable modem into this and the computers connect to the router wirelessly. This latter option is definitely preferred, but may be slightly expensive for you. If you have access to the computer fairs in London I'd expect you could pick up the kit for £50 or so?
Hope this helps and apologies if it was already obvious.

pointless and uncalled for

16:41 / 10.01.04

Wow, this must be stressing you outquite considerably. I haven't seen such a gramatically flawed post by Haus in a very long time.

For those of you seeking revenge for past injustices, this is the time to do so. Unless of course he's moderated it in which case don't, you'll just look a bit silly.

To the case in hand, I've run this past my friend, Mr. I Have 14 Computers Networked in My Bedroom, and he says that the information you have provided just raises more questions and what he thinks you need is some serious interactive support.

He feels that any advice provided my cause more harm than good and despite best intentions we really don't need you reinitializing the Y2K bug on a global scale.

On the upside there is one surefire way to deal with items 2 & 3 which is perform that long overdue backup of all your personal stuff and start F-disking and reinstalling but only if you have the system discs and they've been checked otherwise your computer will end up with as much operable capacity as a large chunk of Pontleveque turned into a hedgehog via judicious use of toothpick.

There you go, a nice long rant of little use and now it's time for me to go smoking.

18:59 / 10.01.04

Internet Connection Sharing, at a guess. You see, if you had an ethernet modem, you could just use a router. The problem is that the desktop connects to the ADSL via USB, but you want the other machines to connect by ethernet, wired or not, so the desktop needs to route packets appropriately - and it needs to be told to do this; it won't do it automagically, as it were.

The easiest solution is to buy something like one of these, which I have the old version of (that only did 802.11b). Basically, your ADSL goes in the back of it, as do up to four wired connections to other PCs, and it does wireless as well. Plugged it into the wall; within ten minutes I had the wired and wireless connections working. That easy. Of course, you'd need the correct config settings which could probably be obtained from your provider.

Of course, that'd cost you £100.

So basically, Internet Connection Sharing on the host PC. Beyond that, XP is a mystery to me; I've never had to do this with it. Is this any use? Or is it more blather?

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:38 / 10.01.04

Seldom - difference between grammar and typing. My study was extremely cold today. My extremities froze. My typing went kablooie. I will once again, because it never gets boring, point out that I do not generally correct other people's grammar or spelling, unless the failings of their grammar or spelling are making their posts incomprehensible, with the notable exception of Modzero, whose smug complacency in pointing up the typographical errors of others while having at best remedial written English himself annoyed me. Although I am going to make an exception this once to point out that "grammatically" has two "m"s. Because it's funny. The coldness of my study is one reason why I would like to have a wireless network up and running. I think your friend is somebody I should talk to, and I am very tempted to frag everything and reinstall my OS - one reason against being that the floppy containing the drivers for my wireless mouse has fallen apart and my other wireless mice are a bit shit.

Luminocity - not quite. My Internet connection at home is delivered through a USB ADSL modem to my desktop computer. My laptop does not have any modem connections currently, but connects to the Internet at work through a LAN accessed by RJ45 socket. The challenge is to allow the laptop to access the Internet connection currently piped into my desktop computer through wireless networking. And no, I don't want to get a router, since paying out to network two computers is faintly absurd.

The peculiar thing seems to be the nature of the USB modem ADSL connection, inasmuch as when I got it working I did so by enabling the wireless network, then activating ICS (thanks, guys, but I got that far) not on the wireless network but on the modem connection in the "Network Conections" page. However, attempts to recreate this are proving thus far unsuccessful, which is annoying.

00:00 / 11.01.04

Sounds to me like you already know enough to sort this out. On your spec ICS is the only way to have it work. When I was messing around with this when I was younger I found that quite often, setups I was sure should work didn't, and I didn't know why. The solution for me was to try for a bit more patience and confidence, and to be absolutely methodical. There are only a few settings which can possibly affect the problem. And make sure you reboot everything before testing new settings (although for XP that may not matter). Let us know the problem if you find it out. Luck!

08:43 / 11.01.04

Haus - your solution sounds about right. The Internet Connection you want to share is the USB modem; the wireless is merely your way of getting to it. Have you enabled NAT? You need to: your internet IP will be the one the computer with the modem is attached to; you need Network Address Translation to make sure that all the incoming and outgoing packets on the wireless look, to the outside world, like they're all coming from one IP, but are correctly routed to the right computers in your network.

You might want to check how IP addresses are assigned to the laptop, too.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:09 / 11.01.04

Now you're talking! Which is to say, now you are talking about things I don't understand, and thus have probably done wrong or failed to do. NAT?

On IP addresses - I think that my desktop is supposed to get an IP address of 192.168.0.1 automatically through DCHP, and that this should be set as the Internet gateway on my laptop, with the laptop itself given an IP address like 192.168.0.1 - does that all sound about right? Should it happen automatically?

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:53 / 11.01.04

Well, cripes. Am typing this from my bedroom, and am really rather excited. It's the whole thing with technologies that are quite clearly magic, and also means I can ditch my massive lengths of ethernet cabling (for reasons that won't become clear, I have my own weight in ethernet cable). It's a bit slow, but I might invest in a longer USB cable to put the USB wireless card somewhere a bit more central.

Now, the next step is putting in the security. This may ruin everything, I realise...

ONLY NICE THINGS

18:37 / 11.01.04

Hmmm... curiouser and curiouser. I don't appear to be able to activate WEP - more precisely, I can activate it on the wireless connection on my desktop and the Internet connection still works, but I can't seem to disable the "Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings" box on my desktop, and my laptop now doesn't have a "Wireless networks" tab on its setttings (possibly because I ended up creating the connection using the Home/Small office networking wizard) anymore, so can only set the WEP code using the card software, at which point my Internet connection dies.

WAAAAAAAAAGH! I don't know if I'm secure or not. The connection to the Internet (the USB ADSL modem) is firewalled- I don't know whether that is all you need in an ad hoc network running through a non-ethernet Internet connection, tho. My guess is "no"...

The Folk King Idiot

18:06 / 15.01.04

"...one reason against being that the floppy containing the drivers for my wireless mouse has fallen apart and my other wireless mice are a bit shit."

Most maufacturers provide drivers for their products on their websites - sinply punch in the model number in the search function and that shouls solve that problem. As far as the WLAN - perhaps check the site for that company for tech support/drivers. Second,maybe download the new patches for XP. Might help. Good luck.

The Folk King Idiot

18:06 / 15.01.04

"...one reason against being that the floppy containing the drivers for my wireless mouse has fallen apart and my other wireless mice are a bit shit."

Most maufacturers provide drivers for their products on their websites - simply punch in the model number in the search function and that should solve that problem. As far as the WLAN - perhaps check the site for that company for tech support/drivers. Second,maybe download the new patches for XP. Might help. Good luck.