Wireless Networking

[ostracman]

Hello,

I am setting up a wireless network with three pcs. All can connect succesfully wirelessly to DSL gateway. I am trying to work out how to set up file/printer sharing between the three machines.

1 98SE pc is attached by ethernet to the DSL gateway, a second 98SE is connected via a Belkin 54g wireless card and the third is a wireless laptop running XP.

Now, the XP has a wireless networking wizard, which sets up that machine with a workgroup name etc. Nothing similar seems to be avalaible on the 98SE machines. At the end of the wizard on the xp machine it gives an option to create a version of the wizard to run on other machines which do not have xp. The problem is that the wizard stops because it cannot find a floppy drive to save the wizard to!!! The laptop has no floppy.

My question therefore is how to get the wireless networking wizard to run on the 98SE machines???

or any other tips would be welcome. All the help options in 98 seem to tell you what is possible but without actually telling you how to do anything.

cheers,

Ian

[prx984]

i might be able to help, i have a lot of experience with windows and wireless networking. first, your going to need your windows 98 se cd so you can install the components windows needs to set up networking. first, boot the 98 se machine (either or) then when its done, right click on Network Neighborhood, goto properties and click the file and print sharing button on that window. turn on both check marks that are in that window that pops up. then click the tab at the top "Identification" Leave the computer name alone (or change to what you want to, this will just show up as the name of the computer on your network. change the workgroup to whatever you set the windows xp workgroup to. and computer description can be left alone or put whatever you want in it to describe the computer. click ok at the bottom of the window and let it reboot. do this on the both 98se machines, let them both boot up and wait a little while (roughly 5 mins or so) that way they can talk to each other. when this is done, open the printers window and share the printer you want to share, plus you can share other things, like files and other things of the like. let me know if you need more help, i have a lot of experience with wireless networking, and im sure if i cant get it other people here may be able to.

regards, brian

[ostracman]

Hello Brian,

thank you for that - Yes it worked.

But the most important thing that I have learned was to switch off all Firewalls for the workgroup to become visible. This is very important

The next problem which I did solve was to make sure that the subnet masks were the same for all computers.

Until this morning - all was working fine, we were file sharing, print sharing and internet sharing everything was GREAT.

Then a crash.

Now my subnet mask on the 98SE has been set to 255.0.0.0 when all the others are set to 255.255.255.0

When this happened last time I was told there was a problem with my TCP/IP stack in the computer, and to solve it I should to remove the TCP/IP protocol from the control panel/network. and re-install from the Win98SE disk. This worked last time. But now I cannot get my subnet mask to go to 255.255.255.0

It was working with dynamic IP before. I have removed and re-installed several times, shutting down each time. No luck.

Once again I am baffled. If you don't know what's happening here - I will post it as a new topic. How to set the subnet mask while in dynamic IP mode???

thanks again for you input - I am learning really fast now!

Ian

[prx984]

im glad it worked, but i think i may be able to help with your new problem. why not try, just to see, setting all the computers to a static IP and see if that works out. and if it does, great, if not then see what the other knowlegeable people have to say, i really hope you can get it all sorted out, LAN's are a great thing to have!

-brian

[noguru]

But the most important thing that I have learned was to switch off all Firewalls for the workgroup to become visible. This is very important

Whoops, are you sure? I am everything but a expert, but I know that networks can/should be functional with a firewall enabled. You mean you turned of all firewalls, also on the machine that is connected to internet?

Be carefull with WIFI, as we speak my colleque is telling me that he can choose from 5 wifi networks on his laptop at home. Not one of the networks is his, he does not have a broadband connection....he's simply surfing on his neighbors broadband connections. Perhaps posting in the networking forum will give you some real expert answers.

[ostracman]

Yes you are right, it was a bit of a broad-brush statement!

It is the software firewall on the pc that is off to be able to see the network computers.

The wireless router is protected with several levels of security:

I have enable an admin username and password for the router's setup programs

I have disabled the broadcast of the SSID

I have denied all clients with exceptions in a MAC address table for our own network adapters

I have enabled WPA-PSK with a long key

I have enabled high security setting on the router's hardware firewall.

I think it would take a dedicated hacker to get through that. It was the tech support from the router's manufacturer that informed me about the software firewall causing problems with the LAN.

Thanks for the tip about the network forum - I hadn't got that far.

Brian - I will try the all static IP and see what happens. At the moment I am swapping between LAN and internet by enabling or disabling dynamic IP and rebooting each time!!!! I did forget about re-installing/repairing the wireless card adapter software though; that is next on the try list.

cheers

Ian