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aquarian

4 Posts

1472

April 21st, 2007 20:00

understanding networking

To start,I am no computer expert but I am usually able to figure things out eventually. I have a Dell XPS 400 (XP media) and my husband has a Compac laptop from work. At work he is connected to all services, internet, printers etc. At home we have a Zoom ADSL X5 and are each connected by ethernet cords and share/network internet service. My computer was the first prime connection (whaterver that is called). We have one printer connected by the usual cord to my Dell. I have read and misunderstood a lot of instructions and can't figure out if we need special cards etc to allow him to use the printer, also I don't want to mess up his work connections which he can access through the internet. I saw something about connecting a printer to a router and two free spots but I don't seem to have an ethernet port. Any help appreciated.

beneteau

463 Posts

April 22nd, 2007 18:00

Maybe this will help----go here. Also in order for a printer to operate through a router, the router must have a built-in print server. The print server portion of the router will then connect to the printer via USB or parallel port.

jmwills

2 Intern

 • 

12K Posts

April 23rd, 2007 13:00

Since this is a home netwrok, share the printer giving the "Everyone" permission rights to print.  The laptop will most likely be configured for a Domain setting but if it getting a netwrok connection (DHCP) from the router, you shuld still be able to connect to theprinter even though the host machine (your desktop, now the print server) is in  Workgroup Setting.
 
After sharing the printer on the computer it is connected to, perhaps this will help:
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/networ..._net_print.htm

--

Also, The basics for networking are:

1. Make sure you have the same IP scheme (e.g. 192.168.0.x).

2. Make sure you have the same Subnet Mask, Gateway, and DNS IP addresses.

3. Make sure you can ping the other computer's IP address. If this fails, just for testing, make sure you turn off XP's as well as any other firewall.

4. Make sure you can ping the other computers by name.

5. Make sure you have the same workgroup name (watch for trailing spaces)

6. For troubleshooting purposes, turn off XP's and completely uninstall any other firewall software. You can always add more complexity after you get it working.

7. With XP, make sure you have the same username and password as the person logging onto the other computers. The default setting for XP Pro is to require a password for network access.

8. More details about how to network XP can be found at:
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/networking/xp_network.htm

9. More details about how to troubleshoot TCP/IP networks can be found at:
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/networking/trouble.htm

There continues to be a lot of misinformation about needing NetBEUI or to changing the NetBIOS setting. You can ignore both. Installing NetBEUI to solve a networking problem will just mask a some underlying and potentially important misconfiguration with TCP/IP. The default NetBIOS setting usually works. If browsing is a problem, you might set it to Enabled. But do not Disable it.

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