Resetting My Network Noob Style

[aSc1@3]

I have failed in creating a network between the family vista pc connected to the printer and my xp pc that can share internet and the printer, i can only share the internet connection. SO, i basically want to delete all previous network settings involving my pc or file or printer sharing and startover and do it right. If i delete previous settings, my setup will be:
Internet, to
Modem via rj-11, to
Router via ethernet, to
Home/Family PC via ethernet
So, any network-experts(rhyme not intended), i need your help. i need to know 4 things:

1. To do a complete network reset, should i just delet settings involving my pc, but leave the family pc connected, or should i just star over completely, including the home/family pc, so i know all the network names, domains, and other network junk.

2. Once I have the family pc setup, how do i properly set-up my pc to have a internet connection straight from the router, and have file-sharing and printer-sharing through the router, when the printer is connected to the family pc.

3. Are there any things I should look out for with connecting a vista pc to a xp pc?

4. The router configuration software is installed on the family vista pc. should i also have it installed on my xp pc, or only on my xp pc?

Other Info:

The printer is a printer/scanner/copier combo, and i would like to use all three functions from my xp pc.

I know this is a noobish question, but unfortunatly, i am noobish in networking, so please help!

 

[AMD Fanboy]

alright, i'm gonna try to tackle this.

does the vista pc have a default gateway enabled that matches the router's internal interface IP address? i ask this because i assume you are connecting both of these pcs on a network with the router at the center.

I notice you metioned RJ-11. are you trying to share a Dialup connection? Ethernet is RJ-45. if you are trying to share a Dialup connection, i would ask that you please cease and desist

vista and xp SHOULD play nice with each other. there should be no problems there. you won't need a Domain unless you're going to run active directory.

Just make sure that both of your computers are on the same subnet. they should each have the same subnet mask. your IPs should be 192.168.1.xxx with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 . this will give you your private IP addressing scheme. If one of them has 169.254.xxx.xxx, that would be your problem. that's known as APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing). It usually signals that the computer cannot find the DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protcol) Server. This is what is usually responsible for assigning IP addresses.

 

[aSc1@3]

yes, all network settings on the vista pc match the router, had to make sure of that for something else a while ago...

when i said rj-ll, i mean that theres a dsl and phone filter/splitter on the wall phone outlet, then a rj-11 comes from the dsl slot to the modem, which then outputs a ethernet wire to the router, which then outputs 2 ethernet/rj-45 wires, one to the vista pc, and one to my pc.

my ips are nothing like that on either of the pcs or the router, but they are all the same ip

 

[AMD Fanboy]

well, you should have a private scheme. there are certain private IP addresses that you can use. your Router uses PAT or NAT to get them out to the Internet. Here's a list of Private IPs. Gonna try to do this from Memory.

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
255.255.255.0

172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
255.255.0.0

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
255.0.0.0

You should have one of these. If you don't, that could be a problem. If you don't, would you please post what you do have? And yes, i understand more clearly now about the RJ-11. You had me worried there for a minute. most linksys routers use the first one with the address of the configuration console as 192.168.1.1. that way you can get into your router and see what's going on. with the router connected, just type that in the URL box of your web browser.

 

[aSc1@3]

the router ip is 10.0.0.0 and all the pc's are 10.0.0.1. it's a netgear wgr614 v.7 wireless router.

 

[AMD Fanboy]

It's wierd that the router would have an IP of 10.0.0.0 as that is the Network ID of that Subnet, but i'll go with it. since your XP computer can surf, we know that IP will work. You need to try the following:

1 Make sure that all of your computers have a default gateway that matches the Router's IP

2 Make sure that all of your computers all have a DIFFERENT IP address. Make one 10.0.0.5 and the next 10.0.0.6 and 10.0.0.7........... and so on.

3 Make sure that you're using a "Patch" or "Straight Through" cable. you can tell by looking at the ends. flip each connector over so that the locking tab is down. Put them side-by-side, look at the colors of the wires and make sure that both of them are matching in order. if one end has a different order of colors than the other end, it's a "Crossover" and shouldn't be used for this application.

4 If the top 3 don't work, change your router's IP address to 10.0.0.1 and try from there. If you change your router's IP, make sure you reflect that change in the default gateway of all of your computers.

Let me know how you fare. with what i've told you, you should at least have connectivity. You're not using any hubs or Switches are you? If one or more of your computers are connecting wirelessly, please insure that you have the router set to broadcast it's SSID (Service Set Identifier). It's either that or you have WEP or WAP enabled. It's also possible that you have MAC filtering enabled. Each access point is different. If you have any of these other settings enabled, you may have to visit the manufacturer's website or call for Tech Support as i don't know the specifics of that actual router.

 

[aSc1@3]

thanks you so much, i will get back with my results, but another thing, i was slightly wrong, the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway is 10.0.0.1, and the vista pc's ip is 10.0.0.5 and the xp pc's ip 10.0.0.4

p.s. no other switches or hubs, no wireless pc's, just a wii and a ds.

 

[AMD Fanboy]

you say the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway is 10.0.0.1? that won't work. windows won't even let you use that subnet for that network i think. 10.0.0.xxx is a class A network and requires a subnet mask of 255.0.0.0. Another thing to look at is your firewall settings. if you get all of your IPs and Subnets jiving with each other, it should work. if it doesn't, the problem is either physical connections, or it might be firewall settings. the first thing that you would do is disable the firewall to see if you can connect. if you can connect with the firewall disabled, re-enable it, and disable filters one by one until you find the one that's blocking access. once you've done that, re-enable all the other filters that didn't block access. it's a severe pain in the butt, but it's rock steady.

 

[aSc1@3]

hold on, i think there's some confusion here. i meant that those are the network settings now, i haven't redone the network yet, I'll do that later today, i just wanted to know if there was something wrong, but both computers have perfect internet access with those settings.

 

[aSc1@3]

even more confusion, i just checked the routrers setup page, and it says the ip is 192.168.1.97, the ip subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, and the gateway ip is 192.168.1.254 All the other info i've given you is what i get from both the pc's when i go run-->cmd-->ipconfig. is there some other info i should be knowing/giving you before i do this?

 

[AMD Fanboy]

Now i'm starting to get confused...................

every Computer that is attached to the router and needs to access the internet, should use the Router's internal interface IP address as a default gateway. At this point, i can't be sure that it's 192.168.1.97, but that might be it. 192.168.1.254 is part of a standard class C Network (Private Network). It is also the last usable address in that subnet as 192.168.1.255 would be the broadcast address and 192.168.1.0 would be the Network ID. those are UNUSABLE. How you got the 10.0.0.0 networks, I DON'T KNOW...........

Let's take the simplest approach. something that i should have told you to do in the beginning. Since i'm sure your router will have DHCP, let's put it to good use.

On each computer, Do this:

Click Start and in the Run box type CMD
At the command prompt, type IPCONFIG /RELEASE
Wait for 5 Minutes
At the command prompt, type IPCONFIG /RENEW

this should force each of your machines to discard their previous IP Setup and then broadcast their MAC address to the DHCP Server to receive a new IP Address Dynamically.

Try that and tell me what happens.

 

[aSc1@3]

on the xp pc says,"The operation failed as no adapter is in the state permissible for this operation." when i type ipconfig /release, and when i type that on the vista pc, it says,"This operation requires elevation."

 

[AMD Fanboy]

Do you have your computers set to obtain ip addresses automatically?

 

[massahwahl]

Why not just put all computers in the same workgroup and share the printer? this is the easiest solution.

 

[aSc1@3]

amd: I'm pretty sure they are, but not completely confident. can you tell me how to set the pc's to do that?

ukulele: I would if i knew how, but whenever tried to do that the first time i tried to setup my network, it said i had to make a network disk on a floppy drive, and only the xp pc has a floppy drive.=

 

[AMD Fanboy]

What you need to do is right click on your network icon in the task bar (or go into network settings from the control panel, then right click the network icon) and go to Properties.

This should bring up a menu with two tabs. on the networking tab, scroll down to internet protocol version 4, select it, right click it, and select properties.

there you should see a check box that says obtain ip address automatically.

just make sure that's checked.

as for workgroups, i'm not too good at that. more of a Physical Networking kinda guy. I'm working on my CCNA, so i was hoping to shed windows a bit.

Perhaps ukulele_ninja could help you with your workgroups.

 

[aSc1@3]

sorry for the off-days, i spent half the time compiling a list of affordable video cards and psu's from newegg, and the other half reading-up on linux distros, and let's just say i have about 15 linux live cds now...
anyways, my cp only has network connections and network setup wizard, no network settings. but if i go network settings, properties on my connection, then properties on internet protocal(TCP,IP), the automatically detect ip adress is unchecked, had to do that when i was setting up a gray-area-on-this-forum application called u@o&r$n% or @t&r$e%t...
should i re-check the automatically detect thing?

 

[AMD Fanboy]

yes you should. (sorry for being so long winded)

 

[aSc1@3]

ha ha, very funny.

re checked it, also checked the automatically get dns server thing to. should i try the ipconfig /release thing again?

p.s. like the new avatar

 

[AMD Fanboy]

Yes, do try the Ipconfig /release Ipconfig /Renew thing. you should be able to communicate after that.

Thanks, i'm glad you like my new avatar.