Quick networking question

in a Wireless USB Network adaptor. They are reasonably cheap these days. Or see if this will work.

To enable ICS, on your host computer:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/bfd3bd31-82f0-4b9c-9cde-fb92bc2b14771033.mspx

1. Open Network Connections by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Network and Internet, clicking Network and Sharing Center, and then clicking Manage network connections.

2. Right-click the connection that you want to share, and then click Properties. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3. Click the Sharing tab, and then select the Allow other network users to connect through this computer?s Internet connection check box.

Note The Sharing tab will not be available if you have only one network connection.

4. If desired, you can also select the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box.

5. Optionally, to allow other network users to use services running on your network, click Settings and select the services you want to allow.

When you enable ICS, your local area network (LAN) connection gets a new static IP address and configuration, so you'll need to reestablish any TCP/IP connections between your host computer and the other network computers.

To test your network and Internet connection, see if you can share files between computers and make sure each computer can reach a website.

Configure TCP/IP

To use ICS, make sure the local area network (LAN) connection on each network computer is configured to get an IP address automatically. To do this:

1. Open Network Connections by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Network and Internet, clicking Network and Sharing Center, and then clicking Manage network connections.

2. Right-click the LAN connection, and then click Properties. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3. Click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6), and then click Properties.

4. Click Obtain an IP address automatically or Obtain an IPv6 address automatically.

Keep us informed as to your progress if you require further assistance.

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Without knowing which operating system you are using, this may turn out to be a trip down the Yellow Brick Road.

More importantly is whether your laptop and your desktop pc are using the SAME operating system - this point could be critical.

Anyway, when you were making use of the Network Wizard, if you clicked in all the right places the Wizard should have created a 'Bridge' which will appear as a new connection on your Network Connections page. within Control Panel.

The Bridge is necessary because in the usual scheme of things, a laptop will only ever (normally) use either the Ethernet connection OR the Wireless connection, but not both at the same time. [i]Think of it as a road that comes to a T-junction. The data can only be sent to the left or to the right, but not both. The 'Bridge' changes the T-junction into a dual-lane highway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_bridge

So, check in your Network Connections page and see if you now have THREE icons (Ethernet, Wireless, Wireless Bridge). Without the Bridge the other two connections cannot be used simultaneously. [b]All 3 connections should be enabled.[/b]

Of course if you also have two different OS's in play, then the difficulty scale has just risen in terms of compatibility.

I can only speak for XP Pro & XP Home.

Vista is someone else's knowledge, not mine. ;)

I didn't see any OS information so I base this on Windows, and Windows 2000 or higher.
Do you need to keep DHCP on your laptop's wired connection?
If so you may have a little bit of administration to do each time you "hook up" at home.
I would leave your laptop pretty much alone with the wireless connection and forget about ICS. Ensure that your laptop's wireless connection is working. HERE'S THE WINDOWS SPECIFIC. Microsoft by default uses APIPA to autoconfigure the wired connection if there's no DHCP server. It will assign an address like 169.254.x.x. If both the desktop and the laptop are windows then they will be able to communicate with each other because of this fact. Now, you just need to get the wired connection to talk to the wireless connection and vice versa.
The wireless should be your default gateway. So, we need to learn a little about the IP address and the "route" command. Open a command prompt and type "ipconfig /all" at the prompt (no quotes). Hit Enter. You should see category text starting with "Ethernet adapter..." find the one that says Wireless and then find the IP Address numbers below it. We'll assume that you see 169.254.254.16 (on the laptop).
On the laptop, use the command prompt to type in "route add 169.254.0.0 mask 255.255.0.0 169.254.254.16" (again without quotes). Hit Enter.
If all of the autoconfig stuff is working properly, you should now be able to surf the web from the desktop. Beware that the Windows Firewall or other Firewall software you are using does not prohibit this. Consult Help for the Firewall to overcome this.

If you don't need DHCP on your laptop, configure a static IP on both the Laptop and Desktop WIRED interfaces in the private range. Something like 192.168.50.1 (Laptop) and 192.168.50.2 (Desktop) The mask would be 255.255.255.0 and the gateway you can leave blank. Then you can use the route add command to connect the wired to the wireless interface on the laptop (in this case it would be "route add 192.168.50.0 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.50.1").

The administration I referred to is the fact that Microsoft will assign a random address in the 169.254 range each time the system is booted. So you would have to perform the top steps each time on the laptop. The desktop should be fine as long as it gets an auto IP address.

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) I think is going to be a pain to setup for this scenario. My opinion would be going with a wireless network adapter, USB or PCI - install the software and connect to your existing wireless network. No cables, but more importantly, no ICS.

Another solution, that is a bit more expensive would be going with Ethernet Over Power (or PowerLine Networking) which uses your AC outlets to transmit data. It is more expensive, but is really plug & play.

Either way, routing traffic through a laptop just for the intention of sharing a connection is just asking for more work.