How to Connect 2 Home PC

Tonight, I was very busy. I wanted to acess the Songs and the printer in my PC Desktop using my Wireless Laptop. The situation is :

1. Desktop PC was running on XP and
2. Laptop was running on Vista and
3. I had a 3Com 11g Router used for ADSL AND
4. I had NO idea on what Networking was.

But all I knew was that, if I can access Internet using the same Router / ADSL Modem, I should be able to logon to the Desktop and vice versa. After hours of research, my work is presented to all those who wanted to do so and when you find that all Internet searches returned blank.

To begin with:

STEP 1:

Open your Routers browser. Its typically http://192.16x.x.x. Login and under the LAN button , click the DHCP Client list. In here you can see the machines that your router is handling. Here you will get the IP address of both your PC and the laptop. Note those numbers. They ideally look like : 192.16x.x.x etc

STEP 2:

Goto START>RUN and type CMD in the box. The command prompt comes up. In the Command Prompt window type PING 192.16x.x.x ( ie the other machines IP address) If the pinging works on both the machines (with the other machines number), be assured that the machines are communicating with each other.

STEP 3:

Goto the desktop of your PC.Open "My Network Places". On the left hand pane of the window, Open > Setup a small office or home Network. Then:

Welcome to Setup Network Wizard > Next > Next> Other

I chose "Others" because the Laptop was loggin on to the router directly and I wanted to create a network. This is the MOST USUAL situation at most of the homes.

In the next window I chose option 2 : This computer connects directly to the internet. I do not have a network yet. In the next window, the names of my PC were given. No changes were done here. And in the last section I gave the Workgroup a "NAME". This name is very very important.

After setting the name of the workgroup, I was able to share the Printer as well as the Documents from the C drive. In the event you need to share any other files, you may go to the respective folder, right click, Properties> Sharing > Share this folder on the network ( to be selected)

Now go to your Laptops desktop and right click on the Computer logo. In the window that comes up, goto the third section- Computer Name, domain and workgroup settings. Check the workgroup name. If it does not match the one you made in the PC Desktop, click the change settings and change the workgroup name to match with the Desktop. Soon you will receive the message, "welcome to the XXX group". Restart the Laptop.

Step 4:

To acess the PC from the Laptop, Click Start > Network.

In a few seconds you will see the name of the PC Desktop. Double click the icon and you will see all the files and printer that you wanted to share.

END.

The steps above worked well with me and so I decided to share. Any suggestions and criticisms are always welcome. Hope you find the above information good.

MSXML NOT REGISTERED..what a pain!!

Microsoft errors can at times wreck your happiness. Added to it if its HP that is involved in the error, then your problems are doubled.

Recently my All in One HP stuff F380 ran out of steam. The error message was

"DESTCOMP-MSXML not registered"

I tried a million tricks but after 48 hrs found a solution which I want to share with all. In the event you run into this difficulty,

1. Go to the command prompt : HOW? START > RUN > COMMAND
2. Here you might find the C:\DOCUME~1\NAME>
3. At the end of "Name"> Type " CD.. ". You will now see: C:\DOCUME~1>, at the end of this line type " CD.. ". Now you will get the C:\
4. At this point copy : regsvr32 MSXML3.dll and
5. Paste or type it to the C:\ and press ENTER.

You will get a message that the Registration has been successful. The screen shot below will give you a better idea ( click for the larger view) .

Hope this blog helps to serve many. BBye and happy registration.