Win XP network problem

Hii, thanks in advance to u guys out there who is viewing this thread.

Im having a problem with my network connection
Im connecting 3 computers to share internet connection
The components in the network are comp A, B, C, a hub and an ethernet modem.
The modem is connected to the hub as well the three computers.

To create the LAN connection i used the tool "set up a home or small office network" which is available in Win XP. The workgroup im using is MSHOME

My target is to achieve this condition :
Im using computer A as the host, the one which connects to the internet. And computer B and C has to go through computer A to access internet.

However when i use the "set up a home or small office network" tool. All the computers has a very different IP.
Comp A IP :192.168.0.1 DNS :255.255.255.0
Comp B IP :169.254.62.62 DNS 255.255.0.0
due to this when i use Comp A to ping Comp B at 169.254.62.62, there was no reply. so i configure the IP address for com B manually to 192.168.0.2 and DNS : 255.255.255.0 . After i made this changes i can get a reply when i ping com B from my host com. however i still not able to connect share files and internet connection with computer B anc C.
Computer A has no problem connecting to the internet.
The problem is i cant get in the network places workgroup which is MSHOME. every time i tried to get in the error message appear saying MSHOME is not accessible The network path can is not found.
I tried many ways such as using the tool a number of times and changed the workgroup manually through control panel>system>computer name. Changed the name of the workgroup. I set the gateway in the computer B and C to 192.168.0.1 which is the Ip address of Computer A.
Pls help.
Thank you
Ted123.

Did you run the "set up a home or small office network" tool on all the computers. If you didn't, you need too.

If you're having problems with the network setup tools, I'd set it all up manually - it's not that difficult.

On the first computer, which you want to share the Internet from, open the System applet in the Control Panel and click the Computer Name tab. Check that the workgroup is set to MSHOME (if it isn't, click the Change button and change it).

Then, on the host computer, open up Network Connections from the Control Panel and right-click the Internet connection and click Properties. Ensure that Internet Connection Sharing is enabled on the Advanced tab (you may also want to enable Internet Connection Firewall for this connection).

Finally, still in Network Connections on the host computer right-click your Local Area Connection and select Properties. Double click Internet Protocol TCP/IP and set the IP address to 192.168.0.1, the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 and leave the default gateway blank. For the DNS servers, enter the IP addresses of your ISPs DNS servers (check on their website for the actual addresses). In the Properties of your Local Area Connection, click the Advanced tab and ensure that Internet Connection Firewall is not enabled. Also make sure that you are not running any other firewall software (ZoneAlarm etc) on the computer.

You now need to set up your other two computers. On both of the other computers, do the following: open up the System applet from the Control Panel and on the Computer Name tab make sure that the workgroup is MSHOME. Open up Network Connections from the Control Panel and right-click your Local Area Connection and select Properties. Double click Internet Protocol TCP/IP and enter the IP address 192.168.0.x (change x to 2 and then 3 for the two computers), the subnet mask: 255.255.255.0, and the default gateway: 192.168.0.1. Again, for the DNS servers, enter the addresses of your ISPs DNS servers. In the Properties of the Local Area Connection, select the Advanced tab and make sure that Internet Connection Firewall is disabled and also disable any other firewall software on the computer.

You should now be able to communicate between all computers. On each computer, click Start, Run and type cmd. In the Command Prompt, type "ping 192.168.0.x" (without the quotes, and changing x to 1, then 2, then 3). Make sure that from each computer you can ping all three computers.

After this, test that the Internet works. It should work no problem!

Another thing to check is that the modem is not using the IP address 192.168.0.1. This is the IP address of your host computer, so you need to set the IP address of the modem to something else.

If you still have problems with the message "MSHOME is not accessible" then try opening up My Computer and typing "\\computername" in the Address bar (without the quotes). Change computername to the name of the computer which you are trying to access. This should display a list of shares on the computer.

HTH,

Edwin

Thank you very much for the explaination.
My network are now connected. i can access the shared data in other computers after i set those setting manually.
However there is still problem.
i didnt input the DNS server with the ISP DNS server address because im not very sure where i can find the address my ISP has given me.
However the host computer has no problem at all, it can share data as well accessing the internet, however the client com cant access the internet. i set the default gateway of the client com to the ip address of the host com which is 192.168.0.1
In the host com, i have 3 connections, the fisrt is the internet dial up connection, the second is the LAN connection 2 which is the NIC connecting to my dial up modem(169.254.84.45), and the last one is the LAN connection 3 which is my home network(192.168.0.1), the question is in which connection i should enable internet sharing?
The current setting is the Dial Up connection which has the internet sharing enabled with the LAN connection 3 as the chosen network to be shared.
Maybe the problem lies at the client com cant detect the internet connection. For the client com configuration, i already clear the check boxes in the LAN setting in my internet explorer. it seems that the client com doesnt have any internet connection even though it is already connected to a network with an internet connection.
Pls help thank you very much

For configuring the Internet Connection Sharing, you need to share the Internet connection itself which you use to connect to the Internet.



I'm a little confused as to why you have both an Internet dial-up connection and a LAN connection to the Internet - you need to share whichever one you actually connect to the Internet with. If you can't get it to work with the one, then try the other.

Secondly, you were correct to make sure that when you enable the ICS, you select Local Area Connection 3 (your internal network connection) as the one over which to enable sharing.

If you still can't get the Internet to work on clients - then it probably is a DNS issue. If they can't access a site like www.google.com , can they access something like http://66.102.9.104 ? If they can, then they are unable to translate domain names into IP addresses, so you will have to enter in the DNS servers of your ISP.

The thing that made u confuse is that actually the LAN connection 2 is one of the NIC that connect to my modem. the modem connect to the host computer through a NIC.

i followed ur instuction, i went to the internet browser in the client com, and instead of entering the website address, i entered the IP address, however it doesnt work, im really confused where is the configuration that made it unable to access internet eventhough i can share data for now.
i entered my ISP Server IP address to the dns server in the client com. is there anything to do with firewall?
or maybe there is some other minor factor that could prevent the client com from accessing internet?

I presume that you have got good connectivity between all of your computers and their IP addresses are all set something like 192.168.0.x, the subnet is 255.255.255.0.

The first thing to check is that the clients have a default gateway assigned. Open up the local area connection properties and check that the default gateway points to the internal IP address of the server with the Internet connection (this should be 192.168.0.1).

If this doesn't work, I guess you haven't set up Internet Connection Sharing properly. If you use a NIC to connect to your modem, then Internet sharing should be enabled on this connection, and it should be set to share with the local area connection 3 (your internal connection).

Once you have shared this local area connection 2 (the one that connects to your modem), make sure Internet Connection Firewall is disabled on the local area connection 3 (the internal connection) - you'll find it in the Advanced tab of the connection's properties. However, you probably do want the Internet Connection Sharing enabled on the local area connection 2 which connects to the Internet.

I did all the explaination you have given me
however still there is problem.
im very confused with this case, is there any other posible factor to the error?

Hey Thank you very much but I have a Windows ME client computer and a Windows XP host. And I am having the same problem. I found your thread and will try the solution you said in my network. Hope it will solve the problem. Thank you anyway for the post.

So far is everything working except from the Internet sharing? If this is the case, there are only a few things you can check:

Firewalls - disable them all for now.

Sharing the Internet connection - enable ICS (if you're not sure which connection to enable ICS on, try one then the other and see if either one works).

Set the default gateway on the computers to the IP address of the computer with the Internet connection.

If you can't access something like www.google.com can you access http://216.239.59.99?

ddas77 - the same process should apply, but may be a little different in places because of the Win ME client. The principles should still be the same though.

Thank you very very much for the posting. I finally managed to get the PCs on my Network to share files and the Internet connection. Regards.

Glad it's working ddas77

ted123 - have you got any results yet?

Hi I just found this forum and its great! I am having the same problem but I am unable to resolve it. I manually set both my computers as you said, but I am only able to see the computer that I am on. I am unable to view the network. When I first set it up I was unable to recieve web pages and had to install and reinstall the file and printer sharing in my internet connection to get it to retrieve web pages.

My set up includes two winxp pro computers on a hubless lan. I tried diabling my internet firewall at startup but it did not make a difference. I can ping my other computer with the firewall on but not the computer I am using.

Hope you can help

ok, firstly I would like to check your IP settings. Check the sticky at the top of this forum for details of how to find your settings and attach them to your next post.