Vista - Can't reliably connect host to guest

Hi all,

I'm trying to find a simple, step-by-step process for connecting my
host (XP Media Center laptop) to the guest (XP Pro running IIS) that
will reliably work. By "reliably" I mean without requiring me to
constantly tweak, fiddle, curse, and kick small animals...

My host runs on a wifi network at home with IP 192.168.1.2.

I've got the Microsoft Loopback Adapter installed and configured on IP
192.168.1.150. The guest can be configured to use the loopback with
guest IP 192.168.1.100.

I can connect to the guest only if I disable my wifi and use the
loopback.

Here's the weird part: earlier today I was able to connect to the
guest by setting the guest to use NAT. Then I went to the bookstore
and realized it wouldn't work. Luckily they had wifi and I was able to
do some research on it, but their router died just as I was loading up
the installation instructions for the loopback adapter... So I had to
wait until I got back home to configure it.

So again, I can ping and connect (HTTP) to the guest ONLY if I use the
loopback adapter, whereas this morning I could connect using NAT.

When I switch back to NAT and change TCP/IP in the guest to DHCP, it
sets it to the IP 192.168.131.65. But I can't ping this IP (no
response). I just manually changed the guest to static IP
192.168.1.100 (as it was under the loopback) but it still won't work.

Any ideas why this would have changed? And is it possible to find a
really simple "You want to develop against IIS in a VPC from your
computer? This is the list for you!" kind of list?

Thanks for any help,
-dave

<david.m.cantrell@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:47bb01da-6328-4447-8a9d-1e92e0a777ec@xxxxxxIf your host NIC is using a 192.168.1.x IP address, the loopback adapter
should be using an IP address in a different IP subnet. You should not have
two interfaces in the same IP subnet.

Shared networking (NAT) uses the 192.168.131.x subnet. This would allow
the guest to access the Internet but it would not let you see the guest from
the host.

Give the loopback adapter an IP address in its own IP subnet. Set the NIC
in the vm to use the loopback adapter and give it an IP address in the same
IP subnet as the loopback adapter on the host. (eg 192.168.21.1 and
192.168.21.2).

So the host config looks like this.
NIC.
192.168.1.x 255.255.255.0 dg 192.168.1.254 (or whatever the wireless
router is).
MLA.
192.168.21.1 255.255.255.0 dg blank

The guest machine NIC.
192.168.21.2 255.255.255.0 dg blank