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Going wireless


Ken L

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I recently brought my sister a laptop for use a Uni.

Her home PC is hardwired for Virgin broadband and as I'm house sitting at the moment, I was wondering if it's feasable for a technical numpty like be to install a wireless network in the house for her so she an use the laptop (which has built in wireless capability aparently) anywhere in the house.

Any recomendations (including hardware and/or supliers) on how to go about doing this whilst maintaining a degree of security would be greatly appreciated. If it cab be done cheaply, so much the better.

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All the wireless router/switches I've seen have ports for wired as well as the capacity to handle wireless so it is fairly straight forward. I'm running a Linksys unit but there are a few others that do equally well.

 

Setup is easy enough and there should be good instructions with the router you buy. Beginning with XP, when you set up the first wireless PC, it should allow you to load a file on a pen drive that you can take to any other wireless units and have it automatically set them up with the same network specs and only a different PC name for each.

 

This guide will give you the info you will need for securing your network.

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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Virgin requires a different connect than some of the others so make sure what you get is compatible with a cable broadband connection. I used a netgear one I think as I did get a linksys system that failed to work - never worked out why. I'll find out the full details and re-post but it was a piece of cake to setup and connect in to wirelessly. Security is straightforward as by default i's secured and you just pick your own password.

 

Rob.

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If you look on the Argos site you'll see their cable and modem routers are listed separately. The only difference is that the modem routers (for phone line ADSL) have a built in modem, whereas the cable versions use Virgin's supplied modem. This means the cable versions are about a tenner cheaper.

I have a Belkin G+. It works OK but it's certainly not faultless. Altering settings via the local "web page" is a bit hit and miss, sometimes takes about three attempts before it does anything, and about once a week I have to turn it off and on again because it loses the IP address for my laptop. Apart from these minor quibbles it has been fine, excellent signal anywhere in the house on laptops and PSP's.

Setting up wireless certainly isn't rocket science, as long as you use a sensible password that you will still remember a year later when you get a new laptop.

Getting the XP laptop to use the Vista desktop's printer, that was another matter!

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I've got a laptop, and a desktop, both connecting to the internet wirelessly through a Netgear router.

 

(both machines running Vista)

 

Now how do I get the computers to network to each other?

 

Please :)

Edited by Leon Roskilly

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Leon - have a look at Add a device or computer to a network and see if it gives you enough information.

 

The page has links to other topics that may help if you are stuck on something.

 

If no luck and if no one else has chimed in, I'll have a look at my PCs in the morning and see if I can work up something for you. Only have XP here at work and Vista does things a little differently.

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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Leon - have a look at Add a device or computer to a network and see if it gives you enough information.

 

The page has links to other topics that may help if you are stuck on something.

 

If no luck and if no one else has chimed in, I'll have a look at my PCs in the morning and see if I can work up something for you. Only have XP here at work and Vista does things a little differently.

 

 

Hi Newt,

 

The problem is that both PCs are already wirelessly connected to the Netgear.

 

But neither 'sees' the other.

 

Having gone through hell getting the Netgear router set up, and the computers connected to it, I'm a little reluctant to do anything which might upset the whole apple-cart!

 

It would be handy to transfer files wirelessly, and to print from the laptop on the desktop's printer, rather than using email, usb stick or external hardrive to manually transfer data, but not worth getting into a muddle over.

 

I'm hoping that it just requires a click on an option somewhere, and then I'm done (how naive can you get!)

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Leon- Are you trying to share drives from each? Right click the drive you want and select properties. There is an option for sharing. I think you may also have to create a workgroup and use the hostnames from each of your computers. It's been a while.. Once a drive has been shared you should see a hand underneath the icon.

Edited by Jeff S

Jeff

 

Piscator non solum piscatur.

 

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Good luck Leon.

I did it about a year ago and can't remember what I did, which is never a good sign. I do remember it is an unecessarily complicated process, compared to what it used to be. The good news is that I think having Vista on both computers will help. Most of my problems were on my XP laptop, although caused by Vista's "improved" security.

A few words of advice:

Assume it is not going to go well.

Put both computers on the same desk (saves a lot of running from room to room).

Make a cup of coffee before you start.

 

If all else fails, even if the computers can't apparently see each other, try typing the full name of the shared folder you want on the other computer (including the computer name - so something like \\laptop1\c:\........) into a directory window.

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Good luck Leon.

I did it about a year ago and can't remember what I did, which is never a good sign. I do remember it is an unecessarily complicated process, compared to what it used to be. The good news is that I think having Vista on both computers will help. Most of my problems were on my XP laptop, although caused by Vista's "improved" security.

A few words of advice:

Assume it is not going to go well.

Put both computers on the same desk (saves a lot of running from room to room).

Make a cup of coffee before you start.

 

If all else fails, even if the computers can't apparently see each other, try typing the full name of the shared folder you want on the other computer (including the computer name - so something like \\laptop1\c:\........) into a directory window.

 

 

Well, I'm not sure that I want all the bother.

 

Thought I'd start by trying making the printer (connected to the desktop) shared and accessible from the laptop.

 

Found the box to tick on the desktop machine to allow the printer to be shared.

 

Renamed my Laptop so that it has a different name to the desktop (to avoid confusion).

 

then .......

 

Brenda wanted me to accompany her to the shops. :)

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