Vista - Need schooling on wireless home network

Hello,
I have Vista home prem. on Desktop Personal Computer no. 1, which has a
wireless connection to the Zonet router in another room. DTPC no. 2, is
connected to the router via ethernet cable and uses Windows XP SP3. The
router is wired to the cable modem. I want to share files and a wired, usb
printer between the two PCs.
I made a floppy on the XP PC using the network wizard but it did not work
when I tried to use it on the Vista PC. I searched google for setting up a
wireless home "network" and found only what I already have and that is a
wireless connection to a router, not what I consider a "network" setup. When
I think of "network" I picture two or more PCs securely sharing data and
printers. When I use the "Network" Setup Wizard in XP I wonder, does it
mean "network" as in file and printer shareing between two or more PCs, or,
does it mean simply establishing an internet connection? So, you see the
problem I'm having and can hopefully provide some assistance.

*BUSY* wrote:
You are making the common mistake that your wireless connection is separate
from your wired Local Area Network. It is not. The fact that some devices
connect to the Local Area Network wirelessly and others connect wired is
irrelevant; they are all on the same Local Area Network and can therefore
share resources if set up properly.

Here are general network troubleshooting steps. Not everything may be
applicable to your situation, so just take the bits that are. It may look
daunting, but if you follow the steps at the links and suggestions below
systematically and calmly, you will have no difficulty in setting up your
sharing.

Excellent, thorough, yet easy to understand article about File/Printer
Sharing in Vista. Includes details about sharing printers as well as files
and folders:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../bb727037.aspx

For XP, start by running the Network Setup Wizard on all machines (see
caveat in Item A below). You cannot run XP's Network Setup Wizard on Vista
nor do you need to.

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful
firewall in a VPN); or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls such as the
built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having
identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying
to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.

A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN)
traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer
Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on
XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this
will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a
third-party firewall or have an antivirus/security program with its own
firewall component, then you're fine. With third-party firewalls, I
usually configure the LAN allowance with an IP range. Ex. would be
192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you would substitute your correct
subnet. Refer to any third party security program's Help or user forums for
how to properly configure its firewall. Do not run more than one firewall.
DO NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE THEM CORRECTLY.

B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This
is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.

C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not
need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords
assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just
need to exist and match on all machines. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE
PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES. If you wish a machine to boot directly
to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for convenience, you
can do this. The instructions at this link work for both XP and Vista:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab).

E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home
directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those
directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder.
See the first link above for details about Vista sharing.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ