Need help on networking lap and desk

J

jant

New member
I'm trying to network my Windows ME laptop to my Windows 98 desk top so I can exchange music files. The network neighborhood/places is only recognizing itself on each machine and not eachother. I have a 10/100 ethernet card in my laptop running to my hub and then a cable running from my hub into a usb adapter that runs into my desktops usb port. I'm pretty sure all my drivers and settings are configured properly in each computer. Do I need a networking card in my desktop as well to do this? One other thing it may be is I forgot my old windows password on my desktop and when I reboot my system I cancel out of the window that asks for my Windows user name and password(everything is fine with my network user name and password) windows starts up from there. I've had no luck finding my old password on my hard drive. I know you can change the password but you need the old one to create a new one. Any help, links, or direction is greatly appreciated.Thanks James
 
Typically you need a LAN card on each PC. While I understand there are some USB network cards, just get a real PCI network card. Much faster and they are cheap, between $15-35.

Although I do my networking through TCP/IP, if you are just connecting these two systems you should probably load the NetBEUI protocol on both systems and use that. It requires virtually no configuration and is almost impossible to set wrong.
 
You have to install "File and Printer" sharing on one or both of the machines and then actually share something. (I just wrote but then erased a bunch of crap about protocols and whatnot....but let's not confuse the issue.) By default when you add a network card windows will install the necessary (and sometimes unnecessary) components to get your two machines talking. Just make sure that file and printer sharing is on and that you're sharing something...then report back to us.

(also make sure that the connection lights on your hub are lighting up...always verify your connections)

Slackmaster 2000
 
My priner and file sharing is enabled and the connection lights on my hub or are lighting up and working fine.

Thanks for the info. I finally got my desktop to recognize my laptop in the network neighborhoods. It recogzized it after I activate the NET BEUI in the configuration settings in control panel. Its strange, when connected to my hub the computers don't recognize eachother but when I connected them directly from my laptop's network card to the ethernet USB adapter into my desktop's USB port with NET BEUI activated it finally showed. I'm not sure if this is the best way but its doing what I want it to do for the time being. Is this ass backwards or ok?

This is my first attempt at networking so I don't know much. Your feedback is appreciated. Thanks James
 
Sounds to me like you're using a crossover cable. A crossover cable allows two ethernet devices to talk without a hub between them. When using a hub, you need straight-through ethernet cables between the hub and the devices.

Slackmaster 2000
 
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