Force XP to use my modem, not my LAN

[Jason Stevens]

I have two Windows XP computers which are networked together. They only
share folders and a printer, not an internet connection. Both computers have
a 56k modem for dial-up access to the internet. Here is the problem though;
whenever I try to connect to the internet XP tries to connect through my LAN
first instead of dialing through the modem. The lights on my router flash
for several moments, and after a while it will finally give up and dial
through the modem instead. I have set my dial up account as the default
connection, and I have set the option in Internet Explorer to always dial my
default connection. If I disable the network card it dials up right away
with no delays, but I would rather not have to do this every time I want to
go online. Is there a way to force XP to only use my modem for connecting to
the internet instead of checking for a connection on my local network every
time?

Thanks

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

I have two Windows XP computers which are networked together. They only
share folders and a printer, not an internet connection. Both computers have
a 56k modem for dial-up access to the internet. Here is the problem though;
whenever I try to connect to the internet XP tries to connect through my LAN
first instead of dialing through the modem. The lights on my router flash
for several moments, and after a while it will finally give up and dial
through the modem instead. I have set my dial up account as the default
connection, and I have set the option in Internet Explorer to always dial my
default connection. If I disable the network card it dials up right away
with no delays, but I would rather not have to do this every time I want to
go online. Is there a way to force XP to only use my modem for connecting to
the internet instead of checking for a connection on my local network every
time?

Thanks

One solution is to manually dial the connection before you start
Internet Explorer.

Since you don't use your router for Internet access, I assume that you
only use it as a network switch to connect your two computers. If
that's the case, you can probably solve the problem by assigning
static IP addresses to your computers, instead of letting the router
assign them using DHCP These values should work:

IP Addresses: 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2
Subnet Mask: 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway: none
DNS Server: none
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

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