Problem in connecting laptop & desktop using ethernet cable!?

I'm connecting my dell laptop to a desktop computer using an ethernet cable. On both ends I see the cable is connected and I see on the computer "it shows connected". but they can't see each other and so can not share any file/folder. I have also checked that on both the computers, there is no firewall blocking them and I restarted both of them after connecting still I can't.

and the laptop computer does not shows "view workgroup computers" as the desktop does. and the laptop does not even shows "setup a home or office network" while the desktop does.

so I'm very much frustrated.

I need your help. It will be highly appreciated.

thanks in anticipation.

You have to make sure of a few things :

1 - the network cable is a cross over cable
2 - you assign both machines a static ip address and a subnet mask, possibly a default gateway ( not sure about that as I have not done a P2P connection in a long time as I have a router now which is a lot easier for sharing an internet connection and sharing files etc )
3 - y ou have a shared folder on one or both machines
4 - you go to the security and sharing and ensure that the everyone group has read and write access on that shared folder
5 - To make it a bit easier , if you have the same account on both machines ie if you make an account called transfer with a password of letmein on one machine then if you make that same account on the other machine with the same password, this should make life easier.

If you are still stuck post back :)

What exactly are you trying to achieve by connecting both machines together ? sharing an internet connection, just sharing files or both or what ?

To be honest.. I have never heard of an ethernet cable attached to two computers working before.

It would help if you got a router then you can designate folders or documents to be public on the network.

If I am misunderstanding what your saying, shoot me an email.

jackal_sbcc@yahoo.com

There are some cables out there that are called 'cross over' cables which will allow you to directly connect two machines, but I recommend using two cables, and a hub or router to communicate between multiple machines.

You will have to use a crossover ethernet cable to do direct connections. a standard ethernet cable will not work. or use a switch or router and transfer across standard cables.

As allready said you need a cross over cable available at Best Buy, Radio Shack ect.
For step by step software setup with pictures please use the link below

http://www.jsu.edu/depart/dss/cprint/net...

hey .. u cant do that with an Ethernet cable. U either need a Cross over cable . . or a Router. If u use a Cross over cable to connect 2 pc's. and then just run the Network Setup Wizard and make sure that File & printer sharing is enabled and then you have a Network running admittedly small and you'll need to manually share items that you want shared by selecting the item right clicking on it and selecting Sharing then tick the box that asks you to share this item and then OK the share.

You may run into problems if one of the computers has a Gigabite LAN Connection built in as Crossover Cables don't work terribly well with this type of LAN Connection and then it would be better to go to a unmanaged Switch/Hub and 2 X CAT5 or 6 cables. Depending on where you buy this from you may find that the Hub and CAT5 cables are only slightly more expensive than the Crossover Cable and in some cases cheaper but this depends on where you are planing on buying the products from.

Just a word of warning here if you do buy a Crossover Cable make sure that it's Black now days many of the makers of CAT Cables are using the same cable to make straight & crossover Cables and the only way that you can tell the difference is 2 pieces of sticky paper stuck close to the ends when the cable is new this naturally comes off with time and can cause major problems latter as the Crossover cable is only good for connecting 2 computers together and can not be used when other Network cables are in place. So if there is a obvious difference in the cable colour it's easy to pickup on and cheaper to fault find when some tech walks in to fix up something.

first of all .. u gotta use a cross cable
- press start .. then "run"
- type "cmd" .. the dos screen will appear
- type "ipconfig"
- type the ip adress of the desktop in a paper and do the process again with the laptop and type the ip adress and the same paper.
- open "network connections" from the "control panel"
- right click on "local area connection" and "properties"
- choose "internet protocol (TCP/IP) from the list and press the "properties" button
- choose "use the following ip address" and write the desktop's ip if u r doing this on the laptop and the laptop's ip on the desktop.
- if didn't work try this process on one of the computers only