Simple networking - Vista

[Brendan Tierney]

My desktop runs Vista Ultimate. I connect my laptop (WinXp) to it in a
simple network, the desktop being the host for ICS purposes.
In Vista I set the Local Network Location to 'Private' and all goes well.
The problem is that the connection to the laptop fails from time to time. By
trial and error I discovered that on checking Vista network settings the
location has reverted to 'public'. Changing this back to 'private' corrects
the problem.
Any ideas as to what's happening and/or how I can get the Local Network
Location in Vista to stay private?

 

[Tiberius]

Is this a wireless network? Vista is known for its crappy newtorking...

Anyway try this:

give the ICS client (laptop in your case) a static ip address in the form
of:

192.168.0.x where x is something greater than 1
since 192.168.0.1 is the IP address that ICS gives automatically to the ICS
server.
also

subnet mas: 255.255.255.0
default gateway: 192.168.0.1
and dns server: 192.168.0.1

 

[Frank]

Is this a wireless network? Vista is known for its crappy newtorking...

It is? Says who...you?
Frank

 

[Brendan Tierney]

In advance please pardon my lack of expertise in technical parlance.
My host computer connects to the internet through a Vodafone USB modem
(wireless).
The host connects to the laptop using a simple Ethernet crossover cable.
I have been using this method for quite a while and while the host was on XP
there were no problems. The problem described in my original message arose
only when I installed Vista on the host computer.

 

[Brendan Tierney]

Thanks Tiberius, a big improvement. It hasn't dropped connection now for
several hours. So far so good as we say.
Regards,