Hak3d

I would if I could have, however my router doesn't support connection sharing from ethernet over wireless, you have to use a phone line, which I don't have in my room. That is unless i'm very much mistaken and I misunderstood the router's features. FYI The Router is a 3Com 3CRWDR101A-75. Plus this method seems to have stopped working now... I just get an error "TCP/IP reported error 733" etc. some guide I read said I should specify an IP range, so I did... and now the internet doesn't seem to get routed over the connection. Any other suggestions would be appreciated... at the moment I have to access my PC over Remote Desktop, then use remote desktop to access the internet on my main PC, then copy any files I need off my PC over the network :?

Thanks Darren, as you've probably all guessed i'm "new" to networking. Web-Design (HTML, XHTML & PHP mainly) and Software Development are more of my areas of Expertise. Thanks everyone that hasn't flamed for alternate methods, at the end of the day if there are simpler methods I want to use them! And this may be useful for people like me, that origionally had no idea what to do, so please try to constructively criticise instead of just saying "crap idea".

How does that work make the router let you use wireless internet? It doesn't. If you read this properly, maybe you'd actually understand what it did.

Requirements: Wireless Router & Power pack 1x Ethernet cable (RJ45 CAT) 2x wireless adapters (one for PC, one for Laptop) or x1 wireless adapter for the laptop, and another Ethernet cable to plug into the router (note: I have only tried this over wireless but I assume that would work too!) 1x PC, 1x Laptop 1x PCI or Equivalent Network Adapter installed in PC Ethernet (wall) socket Windows 2000, XP or Server 2003 Background info: So, you've just got to university... and you have an Ethernet socket and a Ethernet cable... wireless? That's "impossible" I was told by the university. So great... you have a massive desktop... and you have you're laptop... you want to use your laptop on the net while you talk to your flatmates but you get told you can't. Well... that's not true. But with an hour or two of thinking and some coffee, I came up with a solution - and it works pretty well too. The Hak: Please note: These instructions are for XP, other installations will be pretty similar and will not be hard to work out what if anything is different/needs doing. Step 1) Switch on PC, plug cable from wall socket in, then into the PC's network card. Step 2) Install wireless cards/adapters on Laptop and PC. Step 3) Switch on Router, make sure to setup the most encryption method it supports and configure wireless cards/adapters with appropriate settings. Step 4) Check PC and Laptop both connect to the router properly. Step 5) If all goes well, the PC and laptop will now have a wireless signal from the router. Time to setup the connection... On the PC, go to Control Panel > Network Connections, then click on "Create new connection". Click Next, then click "Setup an Advanced Connection" then Next, then check the "Accept incoming connections" option, click Next, click Next ignoring the following screen. Select the "Allow Virtual Private Connections" option, click Next. Select the users you want to be able to access the internet etc. click Next. Finally click Finish. Step 6) Now on the Laptop, do the following, go to Network Connections again. Click "Create a new connection", click Next. Click "Connect to the network at my workplace" click Next. Click "Virtual Private Network Connection" click next. Give the connection a name, click Next. Type in the IP address of the PC (not laptop!), it will most likely be something along the lines of 192.168.1.2 you can check this by clicking Start > Run, typing cmd hitting enter, then typing "ipconfig" and hitting enter on the PC. Click Finish. Step 7) Double click the connection you just made it will be under "Virtual Private Network" in Network Connections. Enter one of the usernames and passwords you allowed access to the connection from (Windows username and password for the PC not laptop!) hit connect. The laptop will connect to your PC, and forward the internet connection through the wireless over the VPN. Yay wireless internet for your laptop! Hope this is useful & that it makes sence to you all!

If I were you i'd be *very* careful before you do anything which you don't have permission to do on a school network... sysadmins get *really* annoyed with people that do things accidentally or on purpose that can compromise their networks. I made an honest mistake in year 7 of school, and ended up being suspended from the school for a week - the sysadmin wanted me expelled - but luckily the school knew it was a mistake, I also got a months ban from the computer systems... be careful. Just a bit of advice.