Windows 7 and XP Wifi - BasilMarket Forum

thread starter Bloodjedi Jul 08 2010 + PM | QUOTE | PERMALINK | REPORT

Hey, i'm currently running windows 7 on my laptop. My parents recently came back from a trip and brought an old XP laptop back with them. Both of the laptops have Wifi capacity. I want to connect the two together through a wireless network, to share files, movies and internet. Trouble is, even when both computers have their wireless on, they can't (or don't) pick each other up. Can someone please tell me how to do it? I've googled, but nothing much has turned up. Will keep trying, though! Thanks Basil community!

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BobR 07/10/10 + PM | QUOTE | PERMALINK | REPORT

This gets a little complicated, so naturally this will be a bit longish... If your Windows 7 computer already connects to the Internet via wireless, and you can get the Windows XP computer connected to the Interenet via its wireless also, then the two computers are ALREADY connected to each other, via the router. You don't have to make a separate wireless connection between them, the router acts as a "central hub" to do that. If you don't have a wireless router (that is, your Windows 7 computer plugs directly into the Internet modem or router with a cable), then the simplest way of connecting the two computers together is to use a second cable to plug the Windows XP computer into a spare "LAN" socket on the router. Again, the router acts as a "central hub" to connect the computers directly. (If the router or modem only has one "LAN" socket it gets a bit more complicated, and the easiest way would be simply to move the cable from the modem/router socket to the ethernet socket on the Windows XP computer to connect the two computers together via the original cable.) If you don't have a wireless router, and you HAVE to use the WiFi in both computers to connect them together (for instance if they're located too far away from each other to use a cable), then it gets a LOT more complicated. To connect two WiFi computers together directly, you need to put the WiFi adapters into "ad-hoc mode", which allows the devices to connect directly, rather than going through a central hub. This CAN be done, however it's highly dependent on the capabilities of the adapters and whether they're compatible with each other. It can also be essential to have the original driver disc for each computer or adapter in case any special setup needs to be made. I've never set this up myself (it's a rather unusual thing to do), but I found this page through a Google search for "connect two computers via wireless" that shows how to set up an "ad-hoc" network for connecting the two computers directly without using a router: http://www.conniq.com/WinXPNetworking_wifi_direct_connection.htm Then once you've worked out how to connect the computers, in all cases you'd need to enable "File and Print Sharing" in Windows on each machine so the two will be able to talk to each other and share files. That procedure will be different for each Windows version. I found this page through a Google search for "file and printer sharing windows 7 and xp" that looks pretty detailed, and it looked like there were a lot of other choices as well: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/share-files-and-printers-between-windows-7-and-xp/ So yes, it can be done.. it just depends on how you want to actually do it. Good luck..!

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