Windows XP Home Networking: Wire Your Home
Published: May 29, 2001
By Jerry Honeycutt, Windows XP Expert Zone Community Columnist
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I built my first home network several years ago. A simple thing—it was two computers sharing a printer. To get the whole kit-and-caboodle working required degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. I was ahead of my time.
My network is growing now. It's a home and office network of 10 computers joined using an evolving combination of wired and wireless playthings. I collect networking toys—the word technologies sounds more professional, but a toy by any other name is still a toy—like kids collect Pokemon cards.
This is the story of my experiences with Windows XP: how I use it on my network, the features that thrill me most, and why I think you should know about them.
New, Out of the Box
I built two new computers just for Windows XP. There's nothing special about them. Each has a 30-gigabyte hard disk, 256-megabytes of memory, and a 733-Mhz Pentium III processor on an Intel 815 motherboard. OK, they're hotrods, but I'm a technology enthusiast, remember? This particular motherboard includes a network interface card (NIC), but I disabled it in favor of my favorite Fast Ethernet NIC. I patched each NIC in to a Fast Ethernet switch.
Now, here's the part that made me think, "hmm." I installed Windows XP Home Edition on each computer. I performed a clean install from the Windows XP CD. During the process, the setup program asked me for two bits of information: I gave each computer a name and then clicked Typical Settings for a default network configuration. That's it. The result was a fully functioning workgroup network—straight out of the box with no labor on my part. What I got is a workgroup called MSHOME. There was no need to perform complicated steps like assigning IP addresses. Windows XP includes technology called Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) which allows PCs to form an ad-hoc network by choosing private IP addresses.
I moved on to Internet Connection Sharing. I realize that Windows 2000 and Windows Me perform this trick, but Windows XP adds firewall protection and Universal Plug and Play discovery and control.
Note: Fast Ethernet NICs? Fast Ethernet Switch? It sounds expensive. It's not. For both NICs, the cables, and the switch, I dropped about $250. Home networking does not have to break your budget. Also, if you're a starving student and have only two computers, use a crossover cable. A crossover cable connects one NIC to another—no hub required. Most computer stores carry these nifty cables for about the price of a straight Ethernet cable.
Share and Share Alike
Home networking is useful on so many levels, but at the very top is sharing an Internet connection. Rather than installing a modem in each computer and then keeping up with each computer's Internet configuration, configure one computer to connect to the Internet and then share that connection. This is especially cool when you have a broadband Internet connection and it's on all the time—then, you're surfing like the big boys.
The Network Setup Wizard makes this type of configuration a no-brainer.
To start the wizard
1. | Choose Control Panel from the Start menu. |
2. | Click Network and Internet Connections, and then click Set up or change your home or small office network. |
First, I configured one of the computers to connect to the Internet. This is my gateway. It has two NICs, one is connected to the cable modem and the other to the switch. The public NIC uses the static IP (Internet protocol) and DNS (domain naming system) addresses assigned by my ISP (Internet service provider), while the private NIC uses automatically assigned addresses.
 | Remember the thrill of bringing home your first computer? The thrill isn't gone; it's just waiting for you to network your home with Windows XP. |  | |
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On the gateway computer, I stepped through the Network Setup Wizard, choosing to share my Internet connection. The wizard configured the computer as what amounts to a DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol) server, DNS server, and NAT (network address translator)—albeit very light home versions of each. And all I had to do was click a radio button that said I wanted to share my Internet connection and tell it which NIC is connected to the Internet. What Microsoft has done here is brought big network features to home users while assuming nothing about their expertise.
After I configured the gateway computer, I stepped through the Network Setup Wizard on the second computer. Instead of sharing an Internet connection, I clicked a radio button that said I wanted to use an existing connection. That's all the configuration necessary for the second computer. The gateway computer then configured the second computer's network connection. It assigned an IP address in the range 192.168.0.*. It also set the gateway and DNS addresses on the second computer to 192.168.0.1, the gateway computer's address. From that point forward, the second computer accesses the Internet through the gateway computer. It will dial-up if necessary, and if I wanted to add more to the network, I'd simply repeat the process on each computer.
Windows Me can do similar magic. Windows 98 and Windows 2000 also have Internet Connection Sharing. None compares to the ease of use in Windows XP, however. And if I were counting mouse clicks, Windows XP would best them all.
What's Next
Remember the thrill of bringing home your first computer? The thrill isn't gone; it's just waiting for you to network your home with Windows XP. You'll have no use for floppies. You'll print from any computer. You'll share a single Internet connection. And you won't have to beg your kids for computer time, because everything will be available on every computer in the house.
This Stuff Rocks.
I'm only scratching the surface here. In the near future, I'll be discussing how to share a computer's files and printers with other computers; how to connect to your office network from home; and how to cut the cords and go wireless. Imagine setting up an inexpensive multimedia server that you can access from any room in the house. I'll also be addressing a very serious issue: how to protect your home network from would-be intruders once it's on the Internet. Stay tuned as I dive deeper in to home networking with Windows XP.
Expert Zone Columnist Jerry Honeycutt is a writer, speaker, and technologist who has written over 25 books, including Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide (Microsoft Press, 2002). He frequently writes about customizing and deploying Windows XP.
