Networking two computers - sounds simple.......

[1974stephen]

I've got two computers that I want to network to be able to share broadband connection and a printer.

The only problem is that one of them is my works PC that our IT dept. have restricted what I can do on it. Opening control panel brings up icons to control mouse, display and keyboard- that's it! This already has an IP address for logging onto the office network and I can also VPN into the network remotely from home via broadband.

The corporate laptop is running Windows 2000 Prof and the other PC (my own with full accessability) is running XP home.

Both have network cards and I know I would need a crossover cable if not going via a hub or router.

Is this possible? Any ideas welcome. Thank you.

 

[Igorian]

If you are not using a router, you would need to use a Windows feature called Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). One machine is dedicated as the host (The one with the modem) and ICS is installed on this machine. This machine then effectively becomes a DHCP server and the other machine will lease an IP address from it.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that ICS will not let you choose an IP address and will only lease the 192.168.0.0 range. The host will be assigned a static ip address of 192.168.0.1. Unless you are very lucky, I doubt whether your laptop will have an address in this range and, because you don't have admin rights on your laptop, you won't be able to change it.

You could ask your network guys to setup different profiles on your laptop so that you can use ICS. It depends on how flexible they are.

 

[Softus]

You could easily spoof your office LAN by configuring a router with the correct network address, but the problem you might face is the DNS server address for your network adaptor, if your IT dept has configured it.

Please open a command window, type "ipconfig /all", and post the results back here, then I can guide you more accurately.

 

[1974stephen]

Softus - thanks for the reply, but to sound really stupid......how do you open up a command window?

 

[Softus]

Start->Run, then type "cmd" (but without the quotes) in the little box, then click on the OK button.

 

[1974stephen]

Ok Softus we get the following:

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

Host name 1p-cnu3330nd1
Primary DNS suffix pmsl.local
Node Type Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled No
WINS Proxy Enabled No

Ehternet adaptor Local Area Connection:

Media State Cable disconnected
Decription Intel(R) PRO/100 VM Network Connection on
Physical Address 00-08-02-97-87-CB

Hope this helps!

Stephen.

 

[Softus]

Hm. I was rather hoping to see the IP address that has been configured by your IT dept, but it's possible that this isn't being displayed because you aren't connected to a network.

Next: click the Properties button for your Network Adaptor, then select TCP/IP, then click on Properties, and see if an IP address has been manually configured. If it has, then this dictates the network that you'll need to set your router to be on.