Connecting two PCs

I have a DELL laptop(WinXP) with an intergrated 3Com Fast Ethernet controller and a COMPAQ PC(Win98SE) with a add-on Lantech NIC (Realtek). I got a crossover cable to connect the
two PCs.

I have connected the two PCs but I could not see the other PC on each PC. I think there issomething wrong with the configuration but I am not sure because this is the first timeI am connecting two PC with LAN cards and crossovercable.

Is there anything that I need to configure and install before connecting this two PCs ?I have installed the drivers for both the NIC. I am not sure which settings to use.

I want to share files and play games between these two PCs. I don't plan to get a switchbecause I have only two PCs. Is there any guides on the net for networking ?

Both 'My Network Place' on XP and 'Network Neighbourhood' on 98SE is empty. I have set the Workgroup on each computer as 'Home'.

Is there any solutions ?

Have you tried making a floppy disk on the XP machine to set up a compatible network. It auto configures other machines and is especially handy with lower version of O/S than XP.

Also, if you had ever tweaked services that start, that may be causing it. Its something I recently encountered when trying to set up a Newtwork printer.

make sure Server and TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper are enabled.

Good Luck.

I have used the floppy disk but still could not connect both the PCs.

I have another problem now. On the Win98 machine, I could not receive or send data after connecting via dial-up. I have no problems with the XP machine. Same ISP and using dial-up. I think something is blocking the 98 PC from sending/receiving data.

You have to set an IP for each PC.

I can guide you a bit through this, but its been ages since i used win98 or any OS other than XP, so lets hope you know how to guide yourself through your OS

Go to to each PC's network card properties (rightclick - properties) from network connections in control panel. In the general tab you will find the protocols that you can use. Hope its there in 98. Click on TCP/IP protocol properties. Give to the 1st PC an IP number of 192.168.01 with submask 255.255.255.0, while on the other PC an IP of 192.168.0.2 with same submask. Disable all firewalls or allow through its configuration these IPs.

Go to Run from the 1st PC and type "ping 192.168.0.2". You will get a dos screen reporting 3 or 4 times in ms if all is correct. Do the same from the 2nd PC but with the IP of the first. This means that the PCs can communicate. Then go to the partition you want to share and click on its properties. Click any box that will allow sharing over a network. Then go to my network places. The rest you will figure out me thinks.

Testing Part 1

First check your crossover cable.If you plug it in on both machines , the NIC (Network Interface Card) connection LED should be lit , no matter if the operating system is started or not (machines must be on of course).
If possible , check the crossover cable somewhere else.

Assuming you want to communicate via TCP/IP :

Configuration

Get both an ip number on the NIC.

For instance :

laptop nic : 192.168.100.101 subnetmask 255.255.255.0
pc nic : 192.168.100.102 subnetmask 255.255.255.0

Get rid of all the other protocols and leave only TCP/IP
Make sure both are in the same workgroup
Reboot the systems when necessary.

Testing part 2

Open a command prompt on both and try to ping the other
machine.

on laptop : ping 192.168.100.102
on pc : ping 192.168.100.101

If both respond , you have a working connection.


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damn Hemi beat me to it

Yep, that will teach you to write it all neater now wont it?

Ha !

Easier reading makes easier learning, unless you're a doctor or something.

Oh.. wait ..

I have tried setting IP for both the PCs. I tried the ping command but I get ' Request Timed Out' on both PCs. What does this mean.

Form the connection status in XP. I found out that there is data sent and received but still not network between the two PCs.

Ok lets go through some checkpoints:

1. Did you use crossover cable? Are the NIC LEDS lit?
2. Did you disable/configure any firewalls?
3. Did you set different IPs on each machine? Did you ping them correctly?
4. Did you put both machines under the same workgroup?

1) Yes
2) Yes
3) I think so. What the steps. Which protocol/client ?
4) Yes. I put is as HOME.

You could have the famous NTLM(v2) issue on your Windows XP system. Please read the article and test the settings.

You can also check all other security related issues on your Windows XP machine using SecPol. (Click on Start , Click on Run and type secpol.msc and press Enter).

SecPol gives you even more cool options , such as a warning message before a login attempt , clean out your system cache , no remote cd-rom or floppy sharing , etc , etc

The TCP/IP protocol under the network card's properties. Set the IPs as previously mentionned and ping them accordingly.

Not sure. But as far as I can remember I always had to install the NetBEUI protocol on a Windows 98 machine for proper networking?

F.P.