Need help from the computer gurus again - home networking

[dewi1219]

I got my wireless router set up and working great. So now I would like to set up a network so I can share files between computers, print wirelessly from my laptop, etc. If you haven't figured it out by now, I have never set up a network before

I ran the "Set up a wireless network for a home or small office" wizard on my desktop and everything seemed to work. It prompted me to use a jump drive to save the settings to transfer to the laptop. When I tried to run the setup file from the jump drive on the laptop, it wouldn't work. It gave me an error saying the wizard could not be used because the laptop was part of a domain (it is my laptop from work). I have XP Home Edition on my desktop and XP Professional on my laptop. Can someone help an idiot? Thanks.

[superape]

Hi I'm not a guru but I'll see if I can help you out. The first thing to do is to make sure all of your computers can access the internet via your router. If so, basic networking should be working.

Let's start off with printer sharing:

I assume that you have a printer working on one of your computers, let's call it computer A, and you want to be able to print from computer B.

1. First you need to set up computer A to share its printer. Go to

Control panel->Printers and faxes

You should see an icon for your working printer. RIGHT CLICK on that icon and select "Sharing". That will pop up a menu that should be self-explanatory. Click on the "Share this printer" option and then click "OK".

2. Next we need to set up computer B

On Computer B, Go to Control panel->Printers and faxes
Click or Double click on "add printer", select the "network printer" option.
Select "browse for printer", and you should see the name of Computer A on the list. If you expand Computer A, you should see your printer listed there. Select it and continue through the menus and try to print a test page.


I hope this gets you there, if not there could be additional issues that could get more complex. Best of luck!

[dewi1219]

I didn't realize it was that simple. I thought I had to set up a network first before sharing printers / folders / etc.

I assume setting up shared folders is similar(?)
Thanks.

[superape]

Shared folders is similar, however my explanation was based on a "best case scenario". So fingers crossed, let us know if it works out!

[crokett]

If both of your computers can browse the web then you already have a network set up. Setting up shared folders is the same. Right click the folder you want to share, select sharing, then give it a share name. The go to your laptop open My Computer, then click Tools -> map network drive

[dewi1219]

If both of your computers can browse the web then you already have a network set up.

It's official - I AM an idiot. I knew this but had some kind of mental lapse. I'll try it again tonight. Thanks guys.

[Stan]

If your laptop is set to use a domain, then other shared devices on your network will have to be within the same domain. You may want to switch to a workgroup for home use, kinda depends on where the laptop is at the moment (at the office, or at home).

For each computer to access the internet, it is a fairly simple matter of having the proper IP address of the gateway/router. Intranet sharing needs a few more setup items.

With the laptop being used at work, you will want to be sure that whatever changes you make to the laptop so it will work on your home network can be easily re-created for the office environment domain.

There will also be the issue of access rights to shared devices (printers, shared folders, etc). A number of ways to handle that, a quick Google should shed some light on what may be best for your network.

[dewi1219]

I tried a google search before posting, but there were so many results I couldn't find anything that addressed my specific problem. I will try again with better search terms, but I knew that there were some IT types that frequented the board here so that's why I posted. Thanks.

[dewi1219]

After a better-phrased search I found this:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...ainjoined.mspx

Hopefully this will work. Thanks.

[Stan]

That looks like it should get you up and running just fine.

[pelligrini]

If your laptop is set to use a domain, then other shared devices on your network will have to be within the same domain. You may want to switch to a workgroup for home use, kinda depends on where the laptop is at the moment (at the office, or at home).

Be careful about taking it off of a domain and switching it to a windows workgroup. I make my BIL's laptops inaccessible doing that. He got a new one and we wanted to do some transfers between the two, and get some stuff off of one of my fileservers. OK, easy, I'll just make you part of my WG so you can see my stuff. I couldn't get his big corporate domain working again. Then we couldn't get it to be able to be connectable for one of their IT guys to fix it remotely. He had to wait until he went back to W Virginia to get it working again.

[dewi1219]

Be careful about taking it off of a domain and switching it to a windows workgroup. I make my BIL's laptops inaccessible doing that. He got a new one and we wanted to do some transfers between the two, and get some stuff off of one of my fileservers. OK, easy, I'll just make you part of my WG so you can see my stuff. I couldn't get his big corporate domain working again. Then we couldn't get it to be able to be connectable for one of their IT guys to fix it remotely. He had to wait until he went back to W Virginia to get it working again.

That was what I was worried about. But if I understand correctly, the method shown in the link I posted above doesn't require domain / workgroup changes. I'll find out tonight I guess.

[dewi1219]

Well, as usual nothing is ever as easy as it should be when I'm involved with a computer. I tried the method from the link, and it did not work. When I tried Start->Run->\\computername I got an error saying the network path could not be found. I realized that I am running XP with SP1 on my desktop, and apparently you must have SP2 / SP3. Tried to update, but for some reason the automatic detection / updating on the microsoft site doesn't work on my PC. No problem, I'll just download the SP3 file manually and run it. But I tried twice, and both times the file would download to about 40% and then just stop. Virus protection is turned off. Don't know how to fix it. Can someone help a dummy again? Thanks.

[dewi1219]

Update: Finally got the SP2 file to download. Ran the file, everything seemed to go OK until the end. Got to "performing cleanup" and just hung there forever. Finally an error popped up saying it had "encountered an error and needs to close". Ran it again and the same thing. This is getting really frustrating...

Could this be a storage space issue? MS says you need 900MB of free HD space, and I had more than that (about 1.4GB). I just don't know what else might be the problem.

Now I'm afraid to reboot the computer because I don't know what will happen when it comes back up.

[crokett]

I am not sure how much you can do if the install did not complete but here is how to remove the service pack:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875350