Physical

Basically all computers need a network card (the pc with the cable modem connected has two, one for the cable modem and one for the network) . If you have the new SB4100 you can use the USB connection, but you need to buy the USB cable for and register the USB MAC address with technical support. Then you plug the CAT5 cable in the NIC and feed it back to where you plan to have the hub. You will now have all the cables connected to a card and plugged into hub.

Operating System

You need to assign an IP address to the network card. Go to the control panel and select network and select your network card TCP/IP and press properties, then select specify an IP address. Then put in the first computer the IP address 192.168.0.1 with the subnet mask 255.255.255.0. In the other computer use the same subnet mask, but use 192.168.0.2 and so on.

Then install file and printer sharing in the network control panel and make sure each computer has client for Microsoft Networks and TCP/IP installed, then on the computer the cable modem is connected go to the TCP/IP properties for the network card the cable modem is connected to. Select the bindings tab and un-tick the file and printer sharing.

You now right click a drive/printer and select sharing, (you may also password protect these) in network neighbourhood you should see the shared hard drives in there.

Internet Sharing

You can either use ICS which is built into windows and pretty easy to set up, or download a proxy server from a site such as WebAttack, I decided to use a proxy server. I searched around for some and found Squid for windows, which is pretty hard to setup so if its your first time, I'd use ICS or one from the WebAttack. For a more in-depth look at Internet Sharing check out our How to share FAQ.

Protection

Make sure you have a firewall as well, you can download Zone alarm free at Zone Labs. In my opinion its one of the best. Make sure you switch it to "medium" setting. If you set it to "high", your cable modem will have problems with talking to your ISP's servers.

Last Amended : 2003-04-27 by elfin
Original Author : Dan Bayliss