Internet Connection Sharing & Ping

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Guest

I have XP Home (Laptop) and Win2k (desktop). I have a network cable giving a
direct link between the two of them. I can view shared docs on each of them,
but I cannot ping between the two or share my internet connection.
I have tried to share the internet connection from the Win2k box and from
the XP Home box, but it just doesn't work. I have looked at several on-line
tutorials for how to get this up and running, but have still come up blank.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
James
 
James

Have you checked that your subnet mask and gateway are the same on both
machines? Also what other protocols are you running?
 
Subnet mask on both was 255.255.255.0
From what I could make out from tutorials/help files, I only needed to set
the gateway on the client because I have a USB DSL modem connected to one of
the computers.
At present my setup is as follows.
Win2K box has USB DSL modem (IP address for the modem is dynamically assigned)
IP address for the NIC is 192.168.0.1
Subnet mask is 255.255.255.0

XP Home box:
IP address for NIC is 192.168.0.2
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Default gateway 192.168.0.1
Preferred DNS server 192.168.0.1

There are a whole bunch of other protocols running. On the XP Home box,
there is NetBIOS and on the 2K box there is NetBIOS and NetBEUI.

Thanks for the quick response.
James
 
Hi James

The connection you're getting between the two computers at the moment (file
sharing etc) could be done via netbeui. I'd suggest removing all protocols
except for TCP/IP. Are you connecting via a hub/switch or standard cross over
cable? If you're connecting via a cross over cable, I'd suggest using a small
hub or switch (both very cheap from reputable pc dealers).

One last thing, please make sure that the windows firewall is turned off on
both machines!
 
If I disable the other protocols I don't get any kind of connection between
the computers. I'm using a cable to give a direct link between the NIC cards
(is that a cross over cable?)
Win2K box doesn't have Windows Firewall. XP Home has Windows Firewall
turned off.
Both have ZoneAlarm and I can now ping between the two, but I still can't
connect from the client (XP box) through the shared internet connection (2k
box) to the internet.
Any ideas?
Thanks
J.
 
Hi James

The problem I would assume is coming from the zone alarm. Personally, I've
never liked Zone Alarm, or seen it working in a way which a normal firewall
would. However, since you can now ping between the two computers, please try
the following:

On the machine with the internet connection, find the two DNS server entries
that are given by your ISP (you can do this by using the ipconfig /all switch
from a command prompt) and then add the dns entries on the XP machine
statically. Once you have done this, try a ping on a website such as
www.bbc.co.uk or similar. If you cannot ping it (request time out, etc) try
and run a trace route (tracert www.bbc.co.uk) and this will tell you where it
is failing
 
I don't know what you mean by add the dns entries on the XP machine
statically. I went to the NIC properties dialog and went to the TCP/IP
properties and added the DNS address at the bottom where it says "Use the
following DNS server addresses".
Trying to ping www.bbc.co.uk returns "Ping request could not find host
www.bbc.co.uk. Please check the name and try again."
Trace route returns "Unable to resolve target system name www.bbc.co.uk"
I don't really know what these two things mean.

Thanks for all your help so far. I hope that we are getting somewhere.
James
 
Yes, you've added the DNS entries statically.

The only step I can think of next is to ping the DNS servers and the tracert
to the dns servers from the XP machine.

With the earlier errors you received, it's showing that the XP machine isn't
using the gateway correctly. If you can ping the Win2K machine, then the
connection is there. It would then appear that the Win2K either isn't sharing
the internet connection properly. My advice on that would be to delete the
internet connection sharing you've setup, and rerun the wizard

It may be easier to set up the internet connection from the XP machine. My
usual experience is using ADSL/Broadband routers for this and not internet
connection sharing. My only other advice is to perhaps contact your ISP and
they should be able to point you in the right direction.
 
Thanks for all the help Gareth. I had a look at the ZoneAlarm website to-day
to see if they had anything to say about internet connection sharing. They
say that if you use the free version (the one that I've got), you have to
change the ZoneAlarm internet zone setting from High to Medium to allow ICS.
Obviously this isn't a good thing long term, but it's okay for the odd
connection to the internet.
BTW I am getting a router soon so I hope that setup goes nice and easy!
Thanks once again for helping.
James
 
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