Home wireless network?

Question

Hi there,

I have a security enabled wireless network setup at home. I have a desktop (Vista) and a laptop (XP SP2) connected to it, both with a wireless card.

The laptop is usually connected to my printer with a USB cable.

My questions are:

1. How can I set both computers up so that one can see the other (and vica versa)? They are on the same wireless network, so I assume this can be done. Could this also mean that I could play my music files located on my laptop - on my other computer over the wireless network?

2. Could I also be printing from my desktop over the wireless network through my laptop (connected to the printer)? That would be REALLY nice!

Thanks for any pointer!

I appreciate your help!
Gyula

Answer 1

You use the "ipconfig /all" command in a command prompt to see the IP addresses. Each machine can reference the other by its IP address.

For example, if your laptop is 192.168.0.2 and your desktop is 192.168.0.3, then you can access your laptop as "\\192.168.0.2" from your desktop.

You can enable file and printer sharing to allow your machines to access each others' filesystems and/or printers.

Answer 2

1) You must turn change the windows Firewall setting on both PC's to allow "File and Printer sharing" in the exception area. With that done you can see each other computer, then it is only a task of sharing desired folders. You can run any file/music, although network speeds or wireless interference can cause some issues.

2) Now that step one is done, you can share a printer on your laptop and connect to it from the desktop. You may have to download seperate vista/xp drivers depending on your printer. It may be more convenient to connect the printer to the desktop in the end now that you have your little network operational.

Answer 3

For seucrity in wireless you can use mac address filterring.....