Right click on the network card that is connecting your PC to the Internet (“Local Area Connection,” in our case), choose Properties, and, in the window that will appear, click on Advanced tab. There, check the box “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.” Depending on your Windows XP version, there will be a drop-down menu called “Home networking connection,” where you should select the USB cable connection (“Local Area Connection 2,” in our case).

Figure 10: Enabling Internet sharing.

After you have done this configuration, you must restart your computer. After restarting it, everything should be working well. Try browsing the net from the other computer to see if everything is running properly.

To share files and printers, you should read our tutorial How to Share Folders and Printers on Your Network to see how this can be done. If you are not using a broadband router on the computer that has the Internet connection, you should be very careful, because sharing its folders can allow anyone on the Internet to have access to your files. Read more about this in our tutorial Protecting Your Computer Against Invasions. In this tutorial you will find some tips for preventing a hacker to gain access to your files.

If the remote computer cannot access the Internet, check if the USB cable is configured to get an IP address automatically from the network. Go to Start menu, Settings, Network Connections, right click the cable connection (“Local Area Connection 2,” in our case), select Properties and then, in the window that will appear, double click on “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).” The two options available on the screen must be set on “automatically,” as shown in Figure 11. Both computers should be configured this way.

Figure 11: TCP/IP configuration must be set to automatic on both computers.