Sharing connection between Vista and XP

[Mortac]

This is driving me INSANE so any help would be extremely appreciated (before I go blow up Microsoft).

I've been trying for the last 14 hours now to get connection-sharing working. I'm two laptops, one with Vista with SP1 and a wireless modem connection connected through USB. The other laptop is running XP SP2 and is supposed to get connected through the Vista computer. I'm using only a Cat5e cable to connect them (i.e. no router).

The Vista host keeps saying "unidentified network", while the XP client is stuck at "Limited or no connection". I've tried disabling IPv6, reinstalling the NICs, turning off firewalls for the local connection, and a whole bunch of different settings. Nothing has helped.

I'm perfectly able to share files between the computers, and I can ping between them, but the connection refuses to be shared.

Any help, PLEASE?

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Set static IP's on both the computers sounds like there in DHCP and not getting a IP

 

[Billb2]

U need a crossover cable.

The 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX Ethernet standards use one wire pair for transmission in each direction. The Tx+ line from each device connects to the tip conductor, and the Tx- line is connected to the ring. This requires that the transmit pair of each device be connected to the receive pair of the device on the other end. When a terminal device is connected to a switch or hub, this crossover is done internally in the switch or hub. A standard straight through cable is used for this purpose where each pin of the connector on one end is connected to the corresponding pin on the other connector.

One terminal device may be connected directly to another without the use of a switch or hub, but in that case the crossover must be done externally in the cable. Since 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX use pairs 2 and 3, these two pairs must be swapped in the cable. This is a crossover cable. A crossover cable must also be used to connect two internally crossed devices (e.g., two hubs) as the internal crossovers cancel each other out. This can also be accomplished by using a straight through cable in series with a modular crossover adapter.

 

[JackMDS]

Did you configure ICS?

http://windowshelp.microsoft.c...-fb92bc2b14771033.mspx

 

[Mortac]

The cable I use should be fine. I have used it for connection sharing for a couple of years actually; and file sharing works fine over the network right now.

Set static IP's on both the computers sounds like there in DHCP and not getting a IP

Yes, that seems to be exactly the problem, but putting a static IP makes no difference. I get a 169.254.*.* address on both interfaces when dynamic is set, so DHCP does fail. I have checked and made sure that the "DHCP client" service is running on both computers.

Did you configure ICS?

http://windowshelp.microsoft.c...-fb92bc2b14771033.mspx

Yes, at least 30 times, and a similar amount of reboots.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

if you set a static IP you shouldn't get a 169, it shouldn't even look for one, it should say connected regardless even if you cant move data across it.

 

[TheKub]

Do an IPCONFIG /ALL on both PCs and post the results.

If you are truly using the 169.254.*.* address it means the autoconfig(APIPA) took place when it couldn't DHCP. File sharing will work but I would assume ICS would fail because APIPA will not populate the Default Gateway field.

 

[Mortac]

Well, this is really... strange. I have spent over two days trying every single way I can think of to fix the connection, and now suddenly for no apparent reason, it is working again. I haven't even activated connection sharing yet. Both the connections are put to private network, but I have tried this in the past too.

This really makes no sense at all!