Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Establish connection with a second computer

Hey folks its me back at it again!

Today's topic focuses on making a network link between two computers using various methods.

Important to note that this article is primarily for windows xp users. Oh and a side note the more modern your OS (operating system) is the easier it is to make a network connection. For example with windows 98 before you could make a connection using a network cable you had to make sure the correct protocols were installed on both machines before they could talk to each other and it was just a mess. Nowadays with vista and windows 7, you basically just plug your chord into your computers and are good to go.

The first method for making a connection we will discuss is via Ethernet cord plugged into the Ethernet port on your computers if your computer is running windows xp then you most likely have this port and it looks like a bigger version of a female end of a telephone connector. So slap that bad boy into your computers (probably located at the back of your computers) and prepare for the next step. Now as i mentioned before about network protocols and stuff, windows xp should automatically take care of that stuff by itself which makes life alot easier. All you have to do is make sure that your drives are shared on both computers and then map a network drive.

WHOA WHOA what ya say?! Haha don't worry about that fancy terminology, I will walk you through it!
After plugging your cable into your computers, click on the "my computer" icon either on your desktop or you can find it by clicking on the start button. Once inside "my computer" find the icon labeled "local disk C:" (if its not called C then just find local disk). Now you want to right click on that icon and then click on "sharing and security" what comes will talk about understanding the risk of sharing the root drive blah blah. just click on that that text. Now you will see a couple of different things the first is "local sharing and security" and the second is "network sharing and security" you want the second one. Now inside that second topic is a check box which says "share this folder on the network" check it. When you do some more options will become available to you such as "share name" and then a letter next to that. Check the box that also says "Allow network users to change my files" (otherwise you can see files on the other computer but cant change them) then click on the ok button. The computer will then start the sharing process and when all is said and done you will see a little hand under neath your local disk icon. Make sure you do this to both computers if you want to share files from both computers.

When you're done with that in the same window that you see your local disk with the hand under it, you should see at the top a button called "tools" click on that then click on "map network drive"  Don't mess with the Drive letter option that comes up just leave that default (most likely "z") now in the folder box type in \\computername\local disk letter. Alright first things first you need to find out the name of the computer you want to connect to in order to do that go to the computer you want to connect to and right click on the "my computer" icon then select properties then click on the tab at the top called "computer name" the name of the computer is the "full computer name" write that down or memorize it or whatever and put it into the folder box on your other computer. So for example it might look like this \\jjish-13 keep in mind all computer names are unique. next step is put in your drive letter. the drive letter is the letter that's next to "local disk" on your other computer (its usually c) so then your finished work looks something like this \\name\c and that's it for that. Next step is to hit the finish button and when you do the computer will try to connect to the other computer and if it is successful a window will come up with a bunch of different folders in it from the other computer and you're done. Now you may need to enter a username and password to before it will allow you to connect successfully. All you do is click on the "connect using a different username" which will then give you the option of typing in the user name and password of the other computer your trying to connect to. If you are unsure what the user name is you can go to the other computer and click on the start button and then the second button up from the bottom will say "log off" and then the username.

That pretty much takes care of connecting your computer through an Ethernet cable using the map network drive method.

Now I should say that alot of modern routers these days make network connections between computers very easy as well... if all your computer are connected to the same router using either a cable or wirelessly then AS LONG AS THE LOCAL DISK DRIVES ARE SHARED they should all be automatically connected to each other and allow you to change or transfer files. So really if you are using a router you just follow the steps mentioned above to turn on sharing and then once that's established and you see the little hand under your drive icon you go to your desktop and double click the "My network places" icon (or you can find it by clicking on the start button) and then after a moment or two the icon displaying the local disk of your other computer should come up and all you have to do is click on it!

14 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I want to connect both of my computers together through wifi somehow because I have all my music on my laptop that I want sent over to my BEAST desktop. Any ideas? The laptop is vista and the desktop is windows 7.

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  3. @ Last days, yes simply attach an ethernet cord to the ports of each computer and then the OS of those computers should take care of the rest
    as long as each drive is shared properly you should see the connected drive icon in either my network places or in the my computer window

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  4. Okay is there any way to do it through my wifi?

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  5. Hey awesome blog you have here "] Im actually planning on becoming a computer techy haha +1 + followed

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  6. @Last Days, hm yes its possible i beleive to bypass having to use a wireless router if both computers are equiped with wifi you can go through the process of seting up a new network connection (i know how to do it with vista) its a pretty simple step by step process in non tecynical terms if i am correct. Also you will need to always share the drive you want to connect to.

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  7. i had a friend show me how to do this, but i guess wasn't paying attention before. thanks for reminding me.

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  8. Thanks. I wonder what it's like to be one thousand years old. It must be nice eh?

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  9. That picture of the cat reminds me so much of yoruichi-sam from bleach she is totally hot even for an anime character!

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  10. Great info. I'll reference this the next time I need to hook someone up.

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