2. Setting up a Network - WinXP

For Windows XP computers, open the start menu, then open 'my computer' and right click the 'my network places' option on the left of the screen under 'other places', and select 'properties.'
You will see a window entitled 'network connections' which will contain an icon for each network adaptor present in your machine. By default, these will be named 'Local Area Connection 1', 'local area connection 2', etc.

Right click 'local area connection 1' and select 'properties', then highlight 'internet protocol (TCP/IP)' and select properties again.Ensure that the option 'Obtain an IP address automatically' is selected, then click ok, and ok again.Repeat for each 'local area connection #' on your computer.

Now right click the 'my computer' icon on the start menu and select 'properties', then the ''computer name' tab.

Make a note of the computer name and workgroup name for each computer. These are used to identify the computer over the network. If you wish to rename any of the computers, this is a good time to do it, using the 'change' button. Having all the computers in the same workgroup is not essential, but it does reduce confusion. All Microsoft computers are members of the workgroup 'workgroup' by default.

Now select 'run' from the start menu and type '\\{computername}' where computername is the name of one of the other computers in your network. If all is as it should be, a window will open up showing all shared resources on that computer, by default 'printers and faxes' and 'scheduled tasks'.

Test this for all computers on the network as we have previously mentioned. You have now either networked your computers together successfully, or are staring at the screen in frustration. Please proceed to either the Sharing Files section or the Troubleshooting section respectively.