View Original Topic: help with wireless lap top

Posted By: olive

Please can someone help have ust bought a new desk top with vista I have a lap top xp which is wireless I have bought gadget to turn my desk top into wireless but cannot connect the two to pick up internet from my wireless lap top I pick up signal from neighbour and we share internet costs Any help to a novice would be apreciated Olive

Posted By: Steve - SJD

Olive, Does it have to connect to your laptop or can your desktop not pick up your neighbours signal? Can you "pair" your desktop to the wireless router? Cheers Steve

Posted By: Ristac

I could be wrong but if you click the Control Panel > Network Settings there is a Wireless Network Wizard.. They have small diagrams to help showing you the various ways to connect and if I remember right one of the options is to connect via a 'gateway' computer...

Posted By: daisyanne

this is a common problem and one solution could be to download from the microsoft site http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4F01A31D-EE46-481E-BA11-37F485FA34EA&displaylang=en You may need to run the Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) Responder (KB922120) on your Win XP machine. hope this helps. daisyanne

Posted By: olive

Hello Steve. My laptop picks up wireles signal from my neighbour and i want to see if I can then connect to my desktop . lap top is xp and desk top vista. bought gadgt called D.Link which is pluggd in to my desktop. been trying for hours they can see each other but that is all. Thanks for your help I am going mad with this.!!! Regards Nicola

Posted By: daisyanne

Check what Vista's firewall is blocking and unblock if necessary. Open up the Security Center in Vista, go to Windows Firewall on the left, hit "Change Settings" and go to Exceptions. Scroll down until you reach the various Windows applications being blocked. Check "Windows Collaboration Computer Name Registration Service" and hit Apply. In theory your computer should be able to pick up the XP one now, or at least u may be another step further forward.

Posted By: Kwacka

I managed to find a link that might be of some use. Author 'redondo' on the 'Windows annoyances' site (BTW, I can recommend the site & the 'annoyances' books) "I've been wrestling with the same issues. Here are the things I did to get my Vista laptop to network with my XP desktops via a wired/wireless home network. It's been two frustrating weeks and a lot of searching the net. 1) Firewall settings - one of the biggest hassles. 1.1) My WinXP machines have ZoneAlarm and I needed to ensure that all machines on the network were in the trusted zone. See Zone tab of Firewall settings in ZoneAlarm free version. 1.2) My Vista laptop came loaded with Norton Protection Center including Norton Internet Security. Go to Norton Internet Security tab, open settings, scroll to bottom, open internet security and firewall options, open advanced settings, open configure, change default inbound NetBIOS, inbound NetBIOS name, Block Windows File Sharing to ALLOW. Configuring this beast of an app required a lot of trial, error and googling. There are some hints in the MS article on file and printer sharing at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/network/evaluate/vista_fp.mspx 2) Sharing enabled on all machines. This is fairly straightforward and is well documented on the MS site at at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/network/evaluate/vista_fp.mspx and http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b304040 for WinXp. 3) Workgroup name. You apparently must use the same workgroup name on all machines. WinXP and Vista machines have different default workgroup names. I changed my Vista machine workgroup name to match that of the WinXP machines. See http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/vista/Vista_network_options.shtml for a nice graphical article on vista networking that includes the common workgroup name requirement. 4) Downloaded and installed Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) onto the WinXP machines. Just a nicety, enabled the network map in Vista to show all machines on the network. You can find this at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4f01a31d-ee46-481e-ba11-37f485fa34ea&DisplayLang=en 5) Required Registry Setting on WinXP machines. Last and nearly hidden step. I found this step by searching MS for "error message when you try to access a Windows XP-based network computer: "You might not have permission to use this network resource". I edited the registry on my WinXP machines per MS article 913628 at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913628. This finally did the trick for my network. What a trail, eh? Amazing that the everyday "user" has to go through all these hoops to get a home network to operate as designed. I'm not an IT guy, just persistent. Anyway, hope this works for all of you checking this forum ..." And people have the nerve to ask if Linux will ever be 'ready for the desktop'

Posted By: olive

Thank you for all your advice I am struggling like mad in fact lap top may be going over the balcony soon !!! Wil try your suggestions and let you know if I have survived the trauma of what seems so simple but proving almost impossible Olive :twisted

Posted By: pantheman

olive wrote: Thank you for all your advice I am struggling like mad in fact lap top may be going over the balcony soon !!! Wil try your suggestions and let you know if I have survived the trauma of what seems so simple but proving almost impossible Olive :twisted Why not just hire one of these computer buffs to come and sort it for you. At around £10/hr, its probably worth the fustration and hassle. It may only tak 5mins to do anyway if you know what you are doing. just a thought.