Wayfarers of Veeshan

Help please.... I beg...

Recently upgraded my old computer from Win98 to Win2000pro, and now I'm having trouble setting up a home network between it and my XP (Media Center Edition) machine.

Previously, it went like this: On XP, run the wizard to "set up a local or home network", which set up the XP machine fine, and then created a file called "netsetup.exe" on a floppy disk which I carried to my Win98 machine, ran it there, and boom, instant home network.

As it turns out, "netsetup.exe" runs on EVERY version of Windows except Win2000. I can not set up the home network the way I did before. As an additional snag, my old PRINTER, which is plugged into the old PC has NO driver for Win2000 (only for Win98). So that printer is useless and I'd like to use the printer I have plugged into my WinXP machine.

All this leads up to me realizing how dumb I am about networks. I can not for the life of me figure out:
1) How to get the 2 PCs to see each other (i.e. My Network Places should show me the other PC)
2) How to share a printer once they are networked.

I'm pretty sure that once I've set up the network, that my file sharing is just a matter of setting the "share" properties of each folder appropriately (that's how it was before). I'm also fairly certain that I should be able to "add printer" once I set up the network, though I honestly never have tried this before. (Maybe too confident on this point)

My basic setup looks like this:

<pre>
Cable Modem
|
|
Broadband Router
| |
| |
Win2000 WinXP
| |
| |
(driverless/ Good printer
effectively
dead
printer)
</pre>

The issue really seems to be centered around the fact that XP
tells me to use the "netsetup.exe" file, yet when I run it
on Win2000, Win2000 says "this only works on ME, XP, 98, 98SE"
(everything BUT 2000) and tells me that I needn't run it on
Win2000, but just set up the network through the tools provided
on Win2000 (But with NO further instructions as to what to actually
DO).

And at that point, I'm stuck and don't have a clue how to solve it because I have two "official" voices from Microsoft, with conflicting directions.

And, like I said, on this issue, I am D-U-M.

Help? Pretty please?

Drex

_________________
Drexxell , 71st GNecrOMancEr -- Wielder of ()
Druul , 60th Troll Shaman () + Wielder of and
Driss, 51st Dwarf Priestess of Brell Serilis
Dralia, 36th Erudite Enchantress

1 - you have a router, you should NOT be using Internet Connection Sharing.
2 - netsetup is not necessary to do anything on your systems.

You have the modem to the router. Great. Let the ROUTER maintain the connection to the ISP. Then let it serve DHCP for the computers.

Modem -> Router
................Router -> Comp1
................Router -> Comp2
...............................Printer on Comp2

If you want to share a printer on a computer, simply do that in the Printers and Faxs ... Right click the Printer, select Sharing. Click Share this Printer. Follow the blah blah prompts.

If you want to tell me specifically which router you have? I'll tell ya what you need to do to get it setup like you're wanting.

I am NOT (defintely not) doing internet connection sharing. Each PC sees the internet through the router. I'm not trying to do anything but share files and printers.

I don't know what this means:

"Then let it serve DHCP for the computers."

All I know is that if I look at either of the PCs through "Network Neighborhood" or "Printers and Faxes", neither of them sees the
other one, nor the printers of the other one. For example, I
did the right-click on a folder on the 2000 machine and set
it to "sharing, blah blah blah", but that doesn't make it at
all viewable on the XP machine.

I'll need to wait til I'm home to get the exact name of the router.

_________________
Drexxell , 71st GNecrOMancEr -- Wielder of ()
Druul , 60th Troll Shaman () + Wielder of and
Driss, 51st Dwarf Priestess of Brell Serilis
Dralia, 36th Erudite Enchantress

He is right let your router handle the DHCP duties, that is if your router is capable of doing DHCP.

The easiest DHCP router i have personally seen & done is from SMC and it has a print server built into it. They usually go by the model name of SMC Barricade Router and arent very exspensive around $69.00 last time i checked.

You will have set all the PC's to be able to share files & folders if thats what you'll need then to do. Also you'll have to change the properties on your printers to share them.

Ah, you'll want to make sure that both systems are using the same Workgroup name. I'm going to make an assumption that both systems can currently make it onto the 'net?

Other than that, make sure that you have a shared folder (Temp is fine) on each system.

The router is a D-Link DI-604...it had NO trouble networking 98 to XP prior to my upgrading the 98 to 2000.

Yes, both computers see the internet just fine.

And talking about DHCP still doesn't solve the fact that I don't have a clue what DHCP means or is or does.

Can't try anything else now, as it's 3 minutes til the LOST season finale....

Drex

_________________
Drexxell , 71st GNecrOMancEr -- Wielder of ()
Druul , 60th Troll Shaman () + Wielder of and
Driss, 51st Dwarf Priestess of Brell Serilis
Dralia, 36th Erudite Enchantress

_________________
-- Mindbender Llaffer Outloud
L70 ENC
<select name=Skills>
<option>78 past 1750
<option>272 from 2100
<option>Jewelry:300+Trophy
<option>Tailoring:259+Geerlok
<option>Pottery:256+Geerlok
<option>Smithing:256+15%
<option>Fletching:254+Geerlok
<option>Baking:252+Geerlok
<option>Brewing:251+Geerlok
<option>Research:202+Geerlok
<option>Alcohol Tolerance:200
<option>Fishing:182
</select>

Got it fixed...was simple really: Needed to make the "workgroup" name the same on both computers. Control Panel -> System, I had to find the place where the workgroup was named, and voila, instant homenetwork engaged.

Hope this helps others. Thanks for the advice all.

_________________
Drexxell , 71st GNecrOMancEr -- Wielder of ()
Druul , 60th Troll Shaman () + Wielder of and
Driss, 51st Dwarf Priestess of Brell Serilis
Dralia, 36th Erudite Enchantress