Configuring a network using a cross-over cable on Windows XP and Vista is really simple, as these operating systems allow you to create your own network with just one mouse click.
On the computer that has your broadband Internet connection, go to Start, Control Panel, Network Connections. There you will see your two network cards being listed but one of them – the one that you connected your cross-over cable to – will be listed with a yellow exclamation mark, being described with “Limited or no connectivity” (see Figure 4). This is absolutely normal, as we haven’t set up our network yet.
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Figure 4: The network cards on your host computer.
Right click the network card that is connected to your broadband modem (and not the card with the yellow exclamation mark) and, from the list that will show up, choose Properties. Then, on the window that will be opened, click on Advanced tab. There check the “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection” box and make sure to uncheck the “Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection”, see Figure 5. Click on Ok after doing this configuration. If you are sharing a dial-up connection, this procedure should be done at your dial-up connection.
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Figure 5: Sharing your Internet connection.
Your host computer is now correctly configured. As you can see on Figure 6, the second network card is now being shown as “Connected” and the network card that is connected to your broadband modem is now being listed with “Shared” on its properties.
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Figure 6: Your network correctly configured and operational.
If you do not have broadband Internet access – i.e. you have just one network card installed on each computer – the procedure is different, as you won’t be able to share your Internet connection as you don’t have one. In this case the easiest way (in our opinion) to setup your network is by configuring it manually. This is done at the TCP/IP configuration settings of each computer, and we will show you how this is done on the next page.
