hmm i need some help on networking
 

i have a wireless laptop, id like to share the files/programs from my main desktop.

what do i search for help on? networking? but i dont want to hook up any cables or anything, is this possible?

thanks.

If you set up a windows workgroup you should be able to do this. If you have private IP address behind a firewall then you can map to the directory share by the IP address.

Just pick up a wireless router and you should be good to go.

i do have this.

Are you using the router as a DHCP server for the machines or are they getting IP addresses from your service provider?

If he's got a router - he's getting IP's from the router, not the service provider - that'd be a bridge.

lil - just enable file sharing on your PC's and put them in the same workgroup/domain - you should then see the shares in the 'network neighbourhood'

DHCP can be disabled on the router so that the service provider or a dedicated DHCP server assigns the IP addresses. This way the router is only acting as a gateway.

everything was going fine until i realized laptop has win2k on there, not XP

now wtf do i do, it said network wizard is not supported on win2k

on my win2k laptop i made a new connection and tried connecting to the IP of my desktop and it said no answer. am i on the right track doing this? do i just need to accept incoming connections on my desktop?

also in router setup it did say DHCP is enabled.

If you have a share created on the computer try going to start -> run

then in the text put

\\computername

replace computername with whatever the PC is - that should bring you to the list of shares on that PC. This will work if you're on the same workgroup/domain.

If both machines are getting their IP addresses from the same Router/DHCP server then you are on the right track.
On the machine you are trying to connect TO you will need to create a shared directory or drive and set security levels accordingly.
On the machine you are going to connect WITH you need to MAP a new drive to \\OTHERMACHINEIPADDRESS\NAMEOFSHAREDDIRECTORYORDRI VE
As long as you have correct security rights you should be able to use the default admin share of \\MACHINEIP\C$

Hope this helps.

i think you did it!

now on my laptop i went to "my network places" and searched for computer name, and typed in my desktop name. it came up so i double clicked it and there was my shared folder!!

now 3 questions:

1. when i accessed my desktop from my laptop it did not ask for a login/pass at all, it just connected! I checked security and it says firewall is on and will not allow outisde sources to connect. So does this all sound right? or can anyone who guesses my pc name log in?

2. is there a way to share my IE favorites folder?

3. when i right click on a folder and set it to be shared, it seams to be coppying all of its contents into my shared folder. is there a way i can just put shortcuts to folders so i dont eat up all that disk space?

thanks so much, you guys made this task a peice of cake!

this appears to be a much larger problem than i thought.

one of the folders id like to share is near 40GB large, and i cannot afford to have 2 coppies of the folder on my disk

advise?

thanks so much again!

Not sure about your finances but they make affordable Network Attached Storage devices that should solve this problem. You can always add another cheap box to your network to act as a file server also. Adding another larger hard drive is very cheap these days also.

i tried right clicking on it and dragging to my shared folder, then clicking "create shortcut"

didnt work :(