i have recently networked my PC and my laptop. accessing the internet is fine from both machines. what i want to do is transfer files from 1 machine to the other and vice versa. the trouble is i have no idea what i have to do to access the other machine to transfer files. i have tried doing what it says in windows support but deosn't seem to work. the setup i have got is the main PC is connected to the router by cable and the laptop by wireless network card that is already in the laptop. the router is a d-link. any help would be great

I'll give it to you the way it works for Windows XP, assuming that you haven't changed much in the router settings.

1. On the desktop machine, open a "command prompt". If you don't know what this means, then click the start button, select "run" and enter "cmd". You should see a command prompt window (they used to call it a "dos" window, but dos is, alas gone for good).

2. Enter the following command:

ipconfig

You should see something with an IP address for the Ethernet interface. If you use D-Link defaults on your router, it may be something like 192.168.0.100 or some such thing.

3. Do the same things on your Laptop. You should see something like 192.168.0.101 or some such thing as the IP address for your laptop's WIFi interface. The important thing is that the first three parts are the same on the two machines, and the fourth parts are different.

For the sake of discussion, let's say that the IP address of the desktop is 192.168.0.100 and the IP address of the laptop is 192.168.0.101

Then from the desktop command prompt enter the following:

ping 192.168.0.101

From the laptop command prompt enter the following:

ping 192.168.0.100

In both cases it should show some successful interchange of "ping" messages. The default for ping on my Windows platform is four messages. (If it goes for more, then just hit ctrl-c to stop the pinging.)

If all is OK so far, then the machines are capable of talking to each other.

Now, you have to tell each one to share files and folders with other machines.

Here's the thing: If you set up your WiFi with no security (no WEP, no WPA), anyone can get into your WiFi network and if you share your files/folders with your machines, you will be sharing with other users of your WiFi network, whether you want to or not.

Even if you have some security settings that prevent casual "war drivers" from logging onto your network, and even if you have enabled encryption of your files, and even if you are a bloomin' security genius I respectfully suggest that you not share everything on your disk drive with the network. Not now; not ever.

For starters, and until you understand more about network security, here's what I would suggest:

Make a special directory somewhere on each machine, and set it up for sharing. (Right-click on the directory in Windows Explorer and click the box for "share on a network". You can set it up so that network users can read but not write to that directory. Then copy files that you want to share into that directory and see if the other computer can see them.

From the start menu you can search for other computers on the network. On Windows XP:

Click the "start" button and click "search"

From "search", click "files or folders". A window opens up

On the left side you should see "What do you want to search for?"
Select "Computers or People"

Then select "Computer on the network"

Don't put anything in the box for "Computer Name"

Hit "search", and if you are lucky, you will see the top directory of the other computer's shared stuff.

Note that anyone who is "associated" with your WiFi network can follow this same procedure to snoop around your network. That's why I mentioned security.

Anyhow: good luck. Let us know how it works out.

Regards,

Dave

Footnote: Maybe I have told you more than you want to know. Maybe I have told you less. I did the best I could, given that you didn't tell us much about your setup or your networking knowledge, security awareness, etc. If you have problems with my narrative, then post again and be more specific about what you understand and what you don't understand. If I can't satisfy your requirements, maybe someone else can.

No, you can never share too much information. Good explanation, and I even understood some of it this time!

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You can also use FTP, especially if you want to access files when you're away from home.

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Could you please tell me how to set up a FTP to use to transfer files. I do use a FTP for a web site that I run www.idealtilingsolutions.co.uk, the FTP I use is built in to Dreamweaver.

Thanks a lot.

If everything is on the same network, then you should just be able to put in the IP address of the server via your FTP client (check out http://www.smartftp.com/ if you need an FTP program).

On my home network, the IP looks something like this: 192.168.0.100. Just use ifconfig or ipconfig to see what your computer's IP address is. Before you start FTPing, make sure you can ping your server so you don't get frustrated.

After you connect to your server, it's usually just a matter of either drag & drop between the computers or marking the files you want transfered and clicking a button (it depends on the interface). It's really no different than using Dreamweaver's FTP.

If you're behind a firewall then you obviously need to setup your firewall to allow FTP connections through it.

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Thanks a lot for helping me out on this one. I tried pinging my router which it did no trouble, but where can I find the IP address if my laptop running Windows Vista and also on my PC running Windows XP. When I tried ipconfig on my laptop it only brought up the IP address of my router. As you can tell I am new to networking and I am grateful for all the help.

The easiest way is to run ipconfig on each computer. I don't know how Windows formats the output, but you should look for something like "en0" or "en1" which will be the ethernet port of your particular computer. Then look for something similar to "ip4" or "inet" which should look like a normal IP address.

The same should work for the wireless part except you're looking for "wl1", "wf1", or something like that.

Another thing you can do is go into your router settings and see what's connected to it. That will show you the IP addresses for your PC and laptop.

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

There's a really great utility called Remote Administrator aka RAdmin.

Looks like the most common thing you'll do is accessing your XP desktop from your Vista laptop. So, you can install the RAdmin server on the desktop, and access it from laptop by the RAdmin client. Not only you'll be able to transfer files here and there, but even see the remote computer's screen and work on it as if you were sitting next to it.

To connect to the desktop, you only need to know its IP address.

I need to network 6 PCs using D-link switch. Can someone help me with a detailed steps on how to configure each of the PCs so that there will be file sharing and printing from any of them. Remember that it is just an office network no Internet. Again one of the 6 PCs is a laptop with Windows Vista. How do I configure all to work together?