As we mentioned, under network mode the computers will be linked in a small network, and the connection will work just like a network. This mode allows you to share the Internet connection, if available on one of the computers.

After installing the cable as describe before, you should check if the cable is correctly installed as a network adapter on Device Manager (right click My Computer, Properties, Hardware, Device Manager). It should be listed under “Network adapters”, see Figure 8 (our cable is listed as “Hi-Speed USB-USB Network Adapter”, but your cable can use a slight different name, depending on the manufacturer).

Figure 8: USB-USB cable correctly installed using network mode.

The next step is to configure both computers to use the USB cable as a network adapter.

First you have to configure the computer that has access to the Internet. On this computer, open Network Connections (Start, Settings, Network Connections). You will see there the network adapters located on your computer. In our case, “Local Area Connection” was the network adapter that connected our PC to the Internet (to our broadband router) and “Local Area Connection 2” was the USB-USB cable, see Figure 9.

click to enlarge
Figure 9: Network connections.