Home networking for dummies
 

Why can't anybody tell me how to network our two home computers? Grancey has a tower computer in the study that is wired to the wireless router. I have a work laptop that I bring home that conects to the internet through the same wireless router. We also have Tivo that connects through that router.

Grancey wants to access a folder on my laptop that is basically all the recovered files from her old laptop that died. It's 5 gigs of stuff so we can't put it on a flash drive. Why can't she access my laptop through the wireless router? Why can't I find a set of instructions somewhere that says, "right click on this, type this, click OK and you're done?" Every website I've looked at for help gives me the entire history of networking but doesn't give me anything worth a damn in actual help. I have no idea what the terminology for all these things mean. I just want to share one thing from one computer to another. I tried something where I was configuring something and I had to give my laptop a group name or something and I got locked out of my laptop as a result and had to sheepishly take it into my IS guy the next morning so he could get me logged back in to my work computer.

How hard can this be?

For someone that does not even know what a "router" is, exceedingly. :expressionless:

What kind of router do you use? Are you running Mac OSX or Windows? Or both?

A Linksys router and WIndows XP on both computers.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...g/default.mspx

I've done it before on Windows machines, but I can't remember the details. Hopefully this website can help.

Thank you for your effort at helping. I shall attempt this at some point in the next day. If I come back with complaints and issues that screwed up, it is no reflection on you at all, Mr. Happily Engaged willravel, but merely another cry for help at whatever step it was that I fucked up.

(I dare someone to fix the verb tense agreement on that sentence)

.

Engaged? My wife is going to be pissed...

Man, I am so distracted today, I really have no clue why I typed "engaged." WTF?

ok what you want to do is called file sharing...

if your work laptop has some security stuff setup this might not work.

to do it:
-get on the laptop that has Granceys files
-right click on the folder that has all of her files in it.
go to "Sharing" in the pulldown menu ( I actually think it says "sharing and something" but I cant remember the something... I'm telling you this from memory.
- a new window will pop up... you may get a security message or whatever just hit ok or continue, click on the sharing tab
- you should be able to hit a checkbox that says "share this folder on the network" then hit ok
-now you need your laptops name, right click on my computer and go to properties
- one of the tabs will have it... I cant remember the names of the tabs... I think its the second or third. but write down the name
- now go to Granceys desktop machine double click on my computer
- type in "\\yourlaptopname" into the address bar at the top.
-you should see the folder you shared double click it, and start copying files like a madman.

-=troubleshooting=-
-it asks for a password when I put in "\\yourlaptopname"
try the username and password you use to login to the laptop
-it just doesnt work
Turn off windows firewall on both machines


if my directions dont make sense at one point lemme know, I was doing it from memory(I'm at home and running linux only) I can try to clarify tomorow when I'm at work on a windows machine if necesary.

it is easiest if both computers are logging in with the same workgroup.
if the work laptop is using a domain name instead of a workgroup you are going to have a bunch of issues trying to transfer files between the two machines.

if you have access to the router's config, you could use it to find out the IP of both machines and use those to map the drive. using the C$ or other $ drives. $ is the admin fully opened drive of the same letter. look it up online.

to make it a little simple than MexicanOnABike, you could find the IPs easily enough by

• going to "My Network Places" (should be visible from the start menu)
• clicking the "View Network Connections" option in "Network Tasks"
• clicking on the "Local Area Connection" in the main window
• looking at the IP displayed under "details" on the left

So if your IP is 192.168.1.20, you can go "Start" and "Run" and type in
\\192.168.1.20\c$
and you'll be on the root directory of your C drive.

edit: if you actually do the copying FROM your machine (i.e. drive the copy from your machine) then it really comes down to the security setup on the desktop. So find out Grancey's IP address and then do the start/run thing above from your laptop.

You know - the other alternative might be to borrow an external (USB) drive from someone (something big enough to fit the files onto it).

That's where my problem came from before. When I gave my laptop a group name or something like that it locked me out and my IS guy had to manually wire my laptop back into our work network in order to reset my login and password.

And that's what's kind of freaking us out about this. My laptop locked me out BUT I had a systems guy I could run to who would kiss it and make it all better. If we change anything on Grancey's home computer and it locks us out or anything like that, we're fucked. So that's why I can't play "exploratory doctor" on this one - I need to know exactly what to do in order to do it right and not just say "hell, let's try that and see what happens."

Just to add to the noise level...

What antivirus package are you using? Norton, McAfee, etc? The most common sharing problems I hear about are caused by firewall settings.

Don't worry about the workgroup, certainly not about a domain. Just reference the other machine by name.

If you don't know their respective names, right-click My Computer, get Properties. Switch to Computer Name tab. Look for "Full computer name".

From the other system do start->run... and type in:

\\firstcompsname

hit return.

and the reverse for the other system. You should at least get a window with "Shared Items". If all you get are error messages like "can't find" or "you don't have privs to view that":
-Have you actually enabled sharing?
-Do you have any firewall enabled? Disable them on both for a bit and try again. (And tell us what antivirus or protection packages you have on both systems.)

Do you have your guest account turned on? I forgot that once and it took me 2 days to figure it out.

I'm ignoring everyone else's posts and starting from scratch to make this as simple as possible. If someone else already answered this awesome.

Here is what I would do.

On the PC you want to grab the files from. Go to Start then Run, type in cmd. Once the Command Prompt is up type in ipconfig /all. Find the IP Address, and write this down.

On that same PC. Hit the Windows Key and E Key at the same time (or open My Computer). Find the folder you want to share out, right click on that folder. Go to Properties. Go to the Sharing tab and select Share this folder. Select Permissions; if this is a temporary solution go ahead and share the folder to everyone with full access (warning: this is not secure, just the easiest way to do this; I HIGHLY recommend going back and checking Do not share this folder once you are done).

Once this folder is shared, go to the other PC, go to Start then Run and type in \\"ip address of other PC" for example (\\192.168.10.3). This should pop up a new window and you should see the folder you just shared out. From here you can copy and paste that folder onto the new PC. If this does not work, the laptop has a firewall preventing any access like this.

I just left a message with our systems guy to see if he has an external hard drive I can borrow to make the swap. I deeply appreciate all the responses from everybody to my question, and they all serve to reiterate how confusing and utterly uncertain this is turning out to be.

Before you know it, you start thinking married people are still engaged.

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Part 2 (didn't even know there was supposed to be one)

I just thought this was confusing. I had no idea.

I called our computer guy at work and he said he had an external hard drive I could borrow for the swap. Yay. Then at lunchtime, Grancey called me and said she had restarted her computer and had a funny error message. It said as follws:

Alert! Heatsink chip set not detected. System halted.

So, I wrote it down and took the message back to our computer guy at work and he said that was not a good message. So when I got home we opened up the case and found the heatsink rattling around loose inside the case not attached to anything. There were two little metal angular wire-arms sticking out of the heatsink but there was only one hook on the motherboard and there was adhesive on the bottom of the heatsink. We could tell that since one of the hooks was missing, they just glued the damn thing on and since the towercase stands on end instead of laying down flat the heatsink eventually fell off. Happy happy joy joy.

So this morning I'm taking Grancey's computer into work to see if my computer guy can perhaps solder another hook onto the motherboard or find some other way to reattach the heatsink (her computer is long past warranty). Otherwise we shall be computer shopping during this glorious tax-free weekend coming up in Alabama and we'll have TWO sets of harddrive info to transfer.

Yay?

Sometimes frustration can mount to the point that you're determined to show the computer who's boss.

But if not, wouldn't it be simpler to burn the files to a DVD?