Please Help...Wireless Network w/WINXP Problems

[forcemac101]

Okay, heres the background info:

I have a desktop running XP Pro, that is tied into my dsl using an INTERNAL dsl modem. The board has an integrated Intel 10/100 NIC. I have a linksys WAP11 plugged into the NIC via a cross over cable. The laptop that I want to network is a Gateway 5350, with an integrated ORiNOCO wireless pc card (not gold or silver from what I can tell, just a regular card), the lap top runs XP Home.

Okay, the problem:

The laptop sees the WAP11 in the status screen for the integrated wireless card. But fails to network to the desktop. I have tried all the XP wizards that configure the computer for connecting through another computer, but to no avail. Tried everything that I know for wired networks which is limited, the workgroup names are the same, etc. I have also tried setting up (through wizards) the desktop to act as the centeral (proxyy??) computer for the internet, but to no avail. Obviously, the computers must recognize each other on a network before I can dream of using for a proxy for internet access.

Things I have noticed:

Tried setting up the laptop lan card under networing properties (which is difficult compared to win2k) for TCP/IP protocol, and found a wierd thing. Under network connections, there is a Network Bridge Connection, that for all intents and purposes, ties the wireless lan connection to it. I cannot add/change protocols, services to the Wireless card, but I CAN add/Change those things to the Network Bridge connection. This is all on the lap top, so I am confused.

Reading the manual for WAP11, its says to set it to infrastructure mode so its not set to bridge mode. Also, further perplexing me is that on the desktop, there is no indication that the WAP11 is installed, except for the USB configuration utility. Since the WAP11 is just a glorifed wireless hub, i don't know if I should expect to see any indication thats "installed or connected properly" or not.

I guess in the end, I am having problems with the networking portion of this setup. Like I said before, the wireless card in the laptop sees the WAP, but it not sending info back and forth.......also, there is no real Wireless Card Configuration Setup utility for the card in the laptop, unless I am missing it, I can't seem to setup the channel or other stuff.......

Please Help, this is driving me nuts.

 

[ktwebb]

MS wizards suck IMO, so since you have done multiple wizard tries, there's not telling how screwed up it is. You never mentioned anything about setting IP's, either through a DCHP server or static IP's. That's your first step. ONce you shared your connection on the desktop, it should have auto-configured a DHCP server on that box and started doling out IP's to any DHCP clients making a request. Again, not telling with the wizards, their bunk. Manually add static IP's on a reserved network ID. 192.168.0.1 .2, .3, etc....... Then ping to see if you have connectivity.