Networking with Windows (ugh)

[Ric_Olie]

I have two computers in my dorm room right now, both hooked up to the campus network. One is my desktop, hooked by CAT5 to my router, which is plugged in to the network. The other is my laptop, which I have wirelessly connected. I have a NETGEAT 802.11b wireless router (My laptop has built-in 802.11b, so there was no point in going for a high-end router).

Anyway, what I want to do is set it up on both computers that I can access either one with full read/write priveleges, if I log in and provide a password. I don't want the rest of the people on the network getting into either computer, but I want to share files between the two. I tried various things within Windows, but I couldn't get it to work out quite right. Can I do it within Windows, or will I need a third party app?

By the way, the desktop is on Windows 2000 Pro, the laptop on Windows XP Pro. (Yes GBK, I also have Linux on both, but WINE won't run Doom 3 as far as I know).

Two more things:
1. I'm getting ridiculously slow download speeds on my laptop, which is on a wireless connection. The uni has 10.0 Mbps LAN, and the router is broadcasting at 11.0 Mbps. I normally get aroudn 50-60 Kbps download speeds when connected directly to the network (The Uni throttles our incoming downloads to conserve bandwidth), but I only got up to 8 Kbps over the router. What's going on?

2. I can't seem to get the laptop and the router working if I try to use a WEP. I have it disabled as of now, but I would like to get the WEP setup by the end of the week before all the people in my hall move in and figure out that I have an insecure wireless network broadcasting, and start leeching bandwidth. Has anybody had any luck with WEPs and NETGEAR routers? Any pointers?

Thanks,
Ric


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[Aaron]

If you want to get full read/write access, just stick with \\computername\C$ (or D$, E$, etc) and login with a user with admin privllages. You may have to replace computername with an ip address, but I doubt it since they're both on the same router.

As for the WEP, make sure you've got the right key selected (as in key 1, 2, etc) and that you've typed it in correctly. XP will take both hex and ascii keys, so if you're having trouble with one, try the other, and make sure the router is set to either 64 or 128-bit encryption.

Speed shouldn't be that much of an issue over wireless, but make sure there's no bandwidth throttling or anything on the wireless connections on the router settings.

[Ric_Olie]

Ok, I got my laptop to connect to my desktop with no problems. However, my desktop won't connect to my laptop. I'm logging into \\MyComputerName\C$, and out pops a dialog for user name and password. I try to log in as the user I primarily use on the laptop. However, I get an error that the user name or password are incorrect. I know they're right though. So I don't know what is wrong.

My wireless network is working fine now. I updated the router firmware, and that seems to have solved the problem.

[Edit: I have bad grammar. And the WEP works just fine now. Must've been something that the firmware upgrade fixed. Still can't get into the XP machine from the 2000 machine.]
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Our very existence is at stake (http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net)

Yay! I can finally join the snail-racing crew.

-@%

[This message has been edited by Ric_Olie (edited August 16, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by Ric_Olie (edited August 17, 2004).]

[Aaron]

Your normal user may not be privillaged enough to access the default share (C$). Try logging in with somebody that is part of the admin group. Oh, and on the XP machine. Open a directory, choose Tools, Options, View, and Disable Simple File Sharing, life should be good then.

[Ric_Olie]

Kickin'. Thanks Aaron. Disabling simple file sharing did the trick.

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Our very existence is at stake (http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net)

Yay! I can finally join the snail-racing crew.

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[Ric_Olie]

I'm just going to add onto this thread instead of creating a new one. I have my network set up, but now I want to secure it.

I read online that I could set a local policy so that only the computers I specify can access a particular computer. So, I want to do that for both my laptop and desktop. So I go into Local Security Policy, and open up the User Rights Assignment. I specify under "Access this computer from the network" my desktop on the laptop, and the laptop on the desktop. All went ok on the desktop, but then when I removed the laptop to check and see if it really worked, I could still access my laptop from the desktop. On the laptop I couldn't even save what I had done because I got a "Failed to save Local Policy Database" pop-up. Argh. What am I doing wrong?

Can I make it so only the computers I specify can access each other? Or at least make it so that anybody trying to access my computers has to put in a user name and password? I need tips for both Windows 2000 and XP. They're similar, but XP is the one giving me the most trouble.

------------------
Our very existence is at stake (http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net)

Yay! I can finally join the snail-racing crew.

-@%

[Aaron]

Unless you explicitly enable it, the netbios windows file sharing protocol will not pass through your router, even then, it'd still require you to enter a user/pass. Windows will cache the combo so you only have to enter once until you reboot, so there still is authentication, even if you don't realize it.

I'll look into it, but the "access this computer from the network" may only work on a domain.

[Ric_Olie]

Hmm, I need to be on a workgroup to game with my buddies over the LAN. Now, I know I have to enter my username and password when connecting to the 2000 Pro machine, but I don't when connecting to the XP Pro machine. Is there something I'm missing here?

------------------
Our very existence is at stake (http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net)

Yay! I can finally join the snail-racing crew.

-@%