So my question is this,
I have a desktop pc connected to the net through a wired modem.
I also have a free (as in not used) wireless network adapter build in to the desktop pc which I want to share with a laptop.
The goal is to have a live internet connection on the laptop.
What are the steps I need to follow to achive my goal.
Thnx in advance

EDIT: additional info, I have winxp installed on the desktop and windows vista installed on the laptop

This post has been edited by ElFoReal: Nov 28 2007, 08:31 PM

Is there realy nobody who can help me out here?
c`mon.....

I think the only way you can do it is to share the first connection (the desktop and the wired connection) by going to
Control Panel > Network Connections > Your Wired Network Adapter > Properties > Advanced Tab > Share Internet Connection.

You then have to setup an ad hoc network between the two wireless adapters. I think that then the laptop will get internet through the desktop (this means that the desktop must be on whenever you want to use the internet on the laptop)

I am not too sure on how to setup ad-hoc networks, but have a look at http://www.microsoft.com for information on how to set up an ad hoc wireless network

Good Luck
-jimmy

here are some threads dealing with this:

apparently though ad hoc netwroking only supports WEP encryption, so you might want to make sure it's not in range of any spots other can get on.

This post has been edited by Grafitti: Dec 2 2007, 01:33 PM

The trouble with sharing internet connection is that the host (your desktop pc) must be on when you want to surf the internet using your client (laptop).

I think the easiest solution is to go get a wireless router (price have fallen so that you can pick one up for about $50) and let the router do all the work. You'll be up and running both computers to the internet in no time.

Price definitely have drop. And yes, its recommend to get a router for the internet sharing. But even better, get a router with self downloading features. So when you computer is off. You can still download you files.

Speaking of self-downloading features, I saw a external hard drive that has a built in torrent downloader (accessible via web interface) that can download any torrent and save it to the hard drive. I also saw a router that has a analogue speed gauge that tells you how much you are currently downloading/uploading

yeah i moved away from windows internet connection sharing quick when it wanted me to set the IP of my server system to 192.128.0.1 -- which happened to be the unchangeable IP address of the modem to which I was already connecting wirelessly...

plus, i still wanted to host my little apache server on said system for access by other networked computers... but every time i would enter the IP... good old router info came up...

Actually that's not a stumbling block.... when setting up ICS windows does automatically set the gateway/IP to 192.168.0.1, but then you can change it. I know because I have two internet connections, one of which is shared and the other isn't. The unshared one has to be set to 192.168.0.1, but when setting up ICS it sets the other one to that IP. So I just go into the shared network properties, and change that IP to something else.. in my case, 192.168.0.4 and then I go and set the other internet IP back to 192.168.0.1
Then on the other computers that will be connecting to the shared connection, I set their gateways and DNS to 192.168.0.4 and they connect straight through that one... no problems so far.

OK, the problem is twofolds, let's clarify each one separately.
If we look carefully, we see that ElfoReal want simultaneously two things :
- interconnect his two computers using wifi.
- surf on the internet on the the second computer which has no direct link to the external network.
So, let's first look a the interconnect thing, it's the easiest one.
The internet-capable computer has a not-used wifi adapter, let's use it. Configure this adapter as Ad-hoc (meaning not slave from an accesspoint), and give it a fixed-ip address.
Give the IP address the following value : 12.3.4.5.
This means that your PC has now two networks : the "external" network, which can reach Internet, and your "very private" network, where it has the address 12.3.4.5.
Now, configure your second PC's Wifi adapter as Ad-Hoc, it should be able to see the other adapter. Give this adapter the following address : 12.3.4.6.
This means that the second PC has a single Ethernet adapter, it is on the "12.3.4" network and it has the address 6 on this network. And it can ping the other PC which has the addess 5 on the same network.
In order to verify that, open a Windows command-line window, and type :
ping -n 3 12.3.4.5
Now, the first step is finished, the two computers are interconnected, they can share files using the Microsoft sharing system (for instance in a command-line window on the second system you type "net use * \\12.3.4.5\myfolder" and the shared folder named "myfolder" from the 12.3.4.5 will be usable on the 12.3.4.6 computer.

Now comes the second very interesting point.
On the first computer, which is able to access the internet, the one which has the very private address 12.3.4.5, you can install a proxy. The easyiest to use is privoxy, it's free and powerful, you can download it from here : http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118
You insall it very easily, you will see it working imediately. Simply it will serve only the local computer. But you can ask it to serve the very private network.
Use the privoxy configuration tool, click Edit configuration file, look at the line saying "listen" something, and add the following line :

listen-address 12.3.4.5:8080
Do not forget to save the configuration and restart privoxy.
Now, on your very private network, you have a proxy server.

Then, this proxy server can be used for your second PC, the one which does not have access to internet and have the 12.3.4.6 IP address.
On this PC, open Microsoft Internet explorer and go to "tools", "Internet Options", Connexions, network Parameters, choose "use a proxy" and give as proxy address 12.3.4.5 and proxy port 8080.
You see that your first PC has a proxy serving listening for queries queries on the 8080 port of the 12.3.4.5 address, and that the second PC will send it's queries to the server at the IP address 12.3.4.5, port 8080.
Now, you are able to surf on the Internet on the second PC ! type www.google.com on the second PC.
Then, rush to the first one, go to the privoxy console, and you will se "request for www.google.com", accepted.
Of course, this will work for the "normal" sites, the ones your grandma would see you surfing on.
If you happen to go to www.f****ckand******.com, you will see at the Privoxy console "request ****.com : crunch", and at the client PC you will see "proxy error, could not reach this site".
Hope this helped, I like this way of doing this because you have two different operations on two different problems : you first interconnect the two PC's, which is a very basic thing which should have no problem. Then you install privoxy, which console will explain the problems related to safe-surfing rules.
Of course, you should also have a look at the firewall settings, generally what I do is disabling the firewalls while testing my things, and then re-enable the firewalls and see which system or which processes cannot cross the firewall (like"ping") and allow the concerned systems or processes to work correctly using the firewall.
Hope this helped.
Yordan

This post has been edited by yordan: Dec 7 2007, 03:29 PM