Question about wireless LAN's....

[quadman]

Ok, many of you are now aware that the quadman has entered at least the 20th century going broad band with this internet stuff. But I have a couple (way more really, but I'll try to muddle through the first one for now) questions about my new wireless LAN (which seems to be working flawlessly I might add. :goodvibes:)

Anyway, the computer I gave to the girls has a ton of files on it that I use on a regular basis. Can I access the "My Documents" folder on that computer through my wireless LAN? If I can, how do I go about configuring the network (if that's what I need to do) to access that machine? If this matters at all, their machine uses XP and mine VISTA.

Thanks in advance for the help guys....

[JazzySmooth]

Ok, many of you are now aware that the quadman has entered at least the 20th century going broad band with this internet stuff. But I have a couple (way more really, but I'll try to muddle through the first one for now) questions about my new wireless LAN (which seems to be working flawlessly I might add. :goodvibes:)

Anyway, the computer I gave to the girls has a ton of files on it that I use on a regular basis. Can I access the "My Documents" folder on that computer through my wireless LAN? If I can, how do I go about configuring the network (if that's what I need to do) to access that machine? If this matters at all, their machine uses XP and mine VISTA.

Thanks in advance for the help guys....

Short answer yes, but may take a little bit of muddling to get it the way you want it.

First, determine the IP address of the girl's computer. To do this, on that machine click Start, run, type cmd and press enter. In the black window that appears, type ipconfig and press enter. The response should be a bunch of info, including a line that says "IP Address.......x.x.x.x" (Probably 192.168.1.x).

While on that machine, right click on My Computer, click properties, click the Computer Name tab and make note of and / or change (via the Change button) the Full Computer Name and domain. If it isn't already, make the name something that makes sense to you (GirlsPC for example - hint, no spaces is a good thing) and make the domain consistent across all your pcs - allows for easier browsing. Can use your last name, whatever you want - again no spaces is preferred (to me)).

If you've changed either of those settings, it will want to reboot -before doing so, double click on my computer, open your C drive, click Tools in the top bar, choose Folder options, click the view tab, scroll all the way down to the bottom and uncheck the "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" box. Click ok.

You mentioned sharing the My Documents folder - while in the C drive, double click on Documents and Settings and you should see a folder named after each user account on the pc. Double click on the user account who's docs you want to share and then on that users documents folder. Make sure you can see the contents and that is what you want. If so, go back up one level and right click on that folder. Choose Sharing and Security and change it from "Do not share this folder" to "Share this folder". You can change the default share name or leave it. Choose ok, and reboot the machine if you were previously asked to.

After it comes back up, on your pc, click start, run, type cmd and press enter. in the prompt box type ping x.x.x.x where the x's are the IP address of the girl's PC. Hopefully you'll get 4 responses. If so, try ping with the computer name of the girl's pc. hopefully that will work as well.

If so, click start, run, and type \\the name (or the IP addess) of the girl's pc (for example, \\192.168.1.10 or \\girlspc). You should then get a new window that shows any shares off of that pc, including the my documents folder you shared. See if you can access that.

There are several issues that may interfere with any of these steps, so before adding anymore, let us know how far in the process you were successful and we can take it from there.

Good luck!

[scc135]

Which machine is xp and which is vista? I've had a BEAR of a time trying to access vista from xp but the other way 'round I've had no issues. The following is assuming the computer with the files is xp and the one you are accessing from is vista. 1st, it would probably be better if it wasn't in my documents, but another folder. Seems safer to me...

Right click on the folder you want to share and in the menu, there should be sharing and security. Click that you want to share, and that you do not want others to be able to modify (or maybe you do... but leave it off for now). You may have to click through some warnings.

Second, goto run-> type cmd. In the command prompt (black window where you can only type white letters), type ipconfig. You should see a bunch of info with one line being: ip address

Go to your vista computer, and go to windows explorer. In the address bar, type \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx those xxx being the ip address. For example, my xp netbook has ip address 192.168.2.5, I would type in my vista desktop, \\192.168.2.5 and I would access the netbook.

You should then see the folder that you've "shared" on windows explorer. Remember, large files over wireless takes a LONG time.

This is my own doing, but I've found it works fine. There are more secure ways of doing this I'm sure, so if anyone else has a better way, please let me know as well.

[BinaryLinguist]

John,

By "files", do you really mean etched stone tablets?

:woo:

[skullguise]

John,

By "files", do you really mean etched stone tablets?

:woo:

C'mon Mike, get serious!

He DID say "files" and "My Folders" He clearly means the manilla folders (with the words "johnz stuf" on it) he left on top of the computer base unit....

Geez.... :snaggletooth:

[dvenardos]

We need to find him a file sharing setup guide for xp and vista.

[Ray3]

John,

Google is your friend here. Search "File Sharing in Windows", "File Sharing in XP" and "File Sharing in Vista".

There will be some nice step-by-step results - some with pictures. What you will find out is how to navigate to the "turn on file sharing" check box.