Wireless networking laptop (ME) to main PC (XP) - heyalp!

VincentAC

Right....

We got ourselves (well, Siouxsie got..) a laptop last week. It's ancient (600MHz I think, 128MB ram, 4GB HD...) but it does the job she wants it to.

It's got ME on it already so we didn't bother replacing it with anything else.

We got a D-Link DI-524 wireless router and a DWL-G630 Wireless G adapter (PCMCIA).

We've got the connection setup so that she can access the net with it no bother (using WPA-PSK2(AES)), but we don't know how to setup the actual HD sharing stuff. Which is going to be pretty essential soon.

So, can anybody tell me how to do that?

Oh, it's XP Pro on the PC if that makes any difference, but probably not.

Ta very muckle :-)

guesser

do you mean how to create shared folders on the network?
or something more complicated?

The Starglider

On XP, you simply right click on the folder/HD you wish to share, and select "Sharing and Security". Then click on the various parts to share that folder/HD on the network. I would guess that Windows ME does the same (since I hardly ever used that version).

The only thing you need to make sure is that both computers are on the same workgroup.

In XP, that's done by right-clicking on the "My Computer" icon, selecting "Properties", selecting the "Computer Name" tab, and then making sure that the workgroup name is the same on both. (eg: MSHOME, WORKGROUP, NETWORK etc...). Again, the route to do that on ME shouldn't be too different.

Once that's done, that should be it!

AndyC

Workgroups are a completely meaningless concept in anything prior to Vista, they simply indicate arbitrary groupings of computers. Vista uses/used them to identify groupings of computers you might want to share with (although I've a feeling this may now have been pulled)

The key issue when trying to share folders with XP and ME is to ensure the user account you are using on ME is also a valid user on XP (or, alternatively you can enable the XP Guest account). You can either use Simple File Sharing to distribute files in the predefined shared folders, or switch it to NT's normal Sharing and Security setup if you want a more flexible solution.

If you want an even more idiot-proof method, you could always install the latest Messenger and use it's Shared Folders feature to keep two directories synchronized between machines.

VincentAC

Thanks for those. I'm on the lappy at the mo cause the PC is encoding a DVD so I'll try them out once that's done. And once I can drag myself away from Futurama :p

Basically, Siouxsie wants to be able to get to the files on the PC from the laptop when she's at home. That's it really.

The easier to swap files the better. It'd probably be easiest for her to go into my computer or my network places and navigate just like normal.

I tried setting up a workgroup thing, but the laptop's explorer hangs when I go into my network places. The same happens on the PC.

swordheart

Hi Vincent can u post how u got on with the advice ?, because i want to do something very similar :)

guesser

VincentAC wrote:

I tried setting up a workgroup thing, but the laptop's explorer hangs when I go into my network places. The same happens on the PC.

Hmm
this happens on all the computers on our network sometimes. It doesn't hang, but I know what you mean, it sits there for aaaaaaages with a blank screen. It does load up the folders eventually. For some reason it doesn't do this if you go strait to a shortcut to a shared folder.