After asking a question about sharing a folder between computers, I have more questions. I don't understand

Question

I asked a question about sharing a folder on two computers, and someone was kind enough to tell me the 2 ip addresses must be in the same network.

I've had a class in networking and I know about subnetting. From what I understand, "same network" means "same subnet".

What I don't understand is right now I have 2 computers.
The first one is a laptop which is assigned an ip address automatically. The second one is a desktop which also has an ip address assigned automatically.

1.How do I make the 2 ip addresses belong to the same subnet?
If I assign new ip addresses to my 2 machines by putting in ip address at TCP/IP properties, wouldn't that mess up my internet connection?

2.In order to figure out the range of each of the subnet, you need to know whether it's /24, /28, /30, etc (I don't remember exactly what this /value is called). How do you find out which /value applies to your network?

I hope my questions are not confusing.
Thank you very much

Thank you guys!

To Arrowrobe...,
appreciate your input.
The thing is I'm not at home now (b/c of the holidays). I've not tried doing anything on my machines. I plan on configuring my two machines to share a folder as soon as I get home. I'm just gathering information right now. Thank you! That's very nice of you for helping me out.

To Arrowrobe...,

Alright, I just remembered I sent myself some output of the command "ipconfig". The following is the information of my labtop at home:
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.103
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

But the sad thing is I never send myself any information that belongs to the desktop computer.

I read your answer, and you were saying that if they both are 192.168.1.x or 192.168.0.x, then it's fine.

What will happen if my desktop happens to be 192.168.0.x?
(the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 which means the last octet is the only "don't care")
Then, my two machines are not on the same network. What do I do then? I'm curious.

Answer 1

Goto each machine and get their IP addresses.

Windows:

Command line : ipconfig /all

This will display your ip address.

You;re likely on a home router and I will take a stab and assume they are already on the same class c network 192.168.x.x
(your questionn about CIDR (/24) applies to the subnet mask and will likely not be applicable on a home router)

As long as they are both in the same subnet 192.168.1.x or 192.168.0.x with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 you should have no problems with communications, and you can test it by pinging the other machine.
So:
Once you have the ip addresses, go to one machine, andping the other machine by going to the command prompt and typing ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (ip address of remote computer). if you get a "request timed out" there is indeed a networking problem. More than likely you'll get something like this (I pinged my router and got this response)
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\ ping 192.168.0.1

Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 1ms



I would say that your sharing problem is not related to netork communication, but an OS issue with permissions. can you explain what happens when you try to access the remote shared folder?

Answer 2

Slow down! Whoever told you that both computers have to be on the same network is incorrect. What is correct is that both computers have to be able to see each other. You can email me, if you don't understand what I'm saying here. Just click on my airplane picture to send email.

go to a command prompt on each computer and type the command ipconfig This will give you the ip address of that machine, so you should have an ip a and an ip b

go to a command prompt on the machine with ip a and type ping and then enter the ip number for the other machine

It should come back with something like
Reply from 192.168.1.2: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

If it does, it's saying that machine can see the other and you should be able to also map to a shared folder on the other pc

If it says Request timed out. then you're in trouble, because one machine can't see the other

You may have to turn off the firewall's on both machines.

You may need to look in Windows Help on how to map to a shared folder but you should be able to do it by opening Windows explorer and typing \\192.168.1.2\sharedfoldername
where the ip is on the other machine and the shared folder name is whatever you called the share ... if you used a space in your share name go back and change it as it's 10X harder to map to a name with a space

You'll also have to make sure the guest account on both machines is not disabled and that both use the same password

Answer 3

Try plugging them into eachother via one of the wider-than-regular-phone-cord cables. That's your best bet. Otherwise, use a router/wireless router.