Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows XP in 24 Hours

By Greg Perry

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • Part I: Wake Up with Windows XP
  • Hour 1. Taking a Bird's-Eye Look at Windows XP
  • Hour 2. Getting Started with Windows XP
  • Hour 3. Managing the Windows XP Interface
  • Part II: Morning Windows Desktop Exploration
  • Hour 4. Working with the My Computer Window
  • Hour 5. Navigating Files with Windows Explorer
  • Hour 6. Calling for Help
  • Hour 7. Improving Your Windows Desktop Experience
  • Part III: Early Afternoon Windows Exploration
  • Hour 8. Installing Programs with Windows XP
  • Hour 9. Finding Files, Folders, and Friends
  • Hour 10. Using the Desktop Accessories
  • Part IV: Late Afternoon Internet Integration
  • Hour 11. Surfing the Web with Internet Explorer
  • Hour 12. Tying Windows into the Web
  • Hour 13. Networking with Windows XP
    • Networking Your Environment
    • Working with a Network
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 14. Managing E-mail and Newsgroups with Outlook Express
  • Part V: An Evening with Advanced Windows
  • Hour 15. Exploring Your Hardware Interface
  • Hour 16. Understanding Printing and Fonts
  • Hour 17. Using Windows on the Road
  • Hour 18. Giving Windows XP a Tune-Up
  • Hour 19. Managing Your Hard Drives
  • Hour 20. Tinkering with the Advanced System Tools
  • Part VI: Having Fun at Nighttime
  • Hour 21. Using Media Player
  • Hour 22. Picturing Windows XP Graphics
  • Hour 23. Making Movies with Windows XP
  • Hour 24. Advanced Windows XP Tips
  • Part VII: Appendixes
  • Appendix A. Differences Between the Windows Home and Professional Edition
  • Appendix B. Glossary
  • Appendix C. Answers to Quizzes

Networking Your Environment

Many homes and offices have more than one PC. Perhaps you use a laptop on the road and a desktop at work. Perhaps you replaced an older PC with a more modern one and the older PC is relegated to the kids'room. The victims of today's low-priced, high-powered PCs are yesterday's PCs. Older PCs are too expensive to throw out, they aren't powerful enough to use as a serious business tool, and you've depreciated their costs so you cannot donate them for a tax break.

You can now begin to use that second, slower PC in your home office. Such PCs used to be discarded, but new advances in simple networking technology enable the home and small office user to take advantage of every computer. Although the slower machine might not be your primary computer, you can use it to access the other PC's files when you are in another room, putting the slower machine back into operation once again.

Networking Hardware

A network used to require cabling between two or more computers. Most networks in use today still require cabling, but you have some new options that might eliminate the need to run cables. Right now, you can network PCs together using one or more of these three methods:

• Traditional wiring: Small wired networks are generally ethernet-based. Ethernet is a type of network that is simple to install and requires a network hub to which all network cables run to manage the traffic across the network (see Figure 13.1). The wiring, called 10BaseT wiring, is similar to telephone cable, is flexible, and easy to run through walls and under carpet.
  

  Figure 13.1 A hub routes network information to the proper destination.

• RF (Radio Frequency) transmission: Each PC includes an RF transmitter that transmits and receives network signals from other PCs. RF-based networks are traditionally slower than wired Ethernet but provide the obvious advantage of being wireless. RF networks are now beginning to show Ethernet speed performance, but the units are higher priced than traditional wired Ethernet cards, costing as much as five times the equivalent Ethernet-based network. Nevertheless, when you count the cost hiring a professional electrician to run the wires in a wired network, the RF network is not so costly.
• Telephone and House Current networks: Low-cost, but slower-than-Ethernet networks, these networks exist that you plug into your home or office's telephone or AC wiring, and the PCs will be communicating as soon as you tell Windows to share files and printers. The obvious ease of installation and setup makes these two kinds of networks attractive. You already have the wiring throughout your home or office. Some don't even require a network interface card or a hub. The drawback is their speed and lack of standards. These are the slowest networks you can get and suffice for temporary office setups but have some speed issues to resolve before they become the clear winner in networking.

When you install a network, each networked PC requires a network interface card (NIC) that you can insert into one of the empty PC slots. If you use a wire-based network, you'll run the wire from card-to-hub until all PCs are connected to the hub. Some modern network devices plug into the USB jack that many modern PCs have.

All the network options offer home-based packages that come with enough network interface cards, cables, and the hub if required to connect at least two PCs together right away. Computer stores also sell individual parts of the network so that you can add PCs to the network as needed. Buying a complete network has never been easier or less expensive; you can often come away with a two-machine network for less than $100.

If you use a laptop, you're not out of luck when it comes to networking hardware. All the hardware options are available to you because laptops have available a PC card-based network interface card that connects to networked PCs. When you work on the road and come back to your desktop, you only need to plug your laptop into its network cable and the laptop becomes another PC on the system. You will be able to transfer files back and forth without using floppy disks.

After you assemble two or more networked PCs, you can keep all your name and address contact information on a single machine. When anyone in your house adds or changes a name and address, every other PC will instantly reflect that change because each machine will be accessing the same file. Your kids will also appreciate the networked files because they'll be able to play those cool, multiplayer, multimachine games!

Windows XP Helps You Network

Just ten years ago, managing a network of any size required a Network Administrator, one who was responsible for maintaining the network connections, adding users to the network, and setting up security, giving access to certain files and printers. Networks were extremely cumbersome to maintain. Although larger network systems still require extensive training and procedures to operate, the home-based PC boom of the past few years has turned the smaller segment of the networking market into a consumer-oriented technology segment.

One of the reasons home-based networks don't require much know-how to operate is because of Windows. Beginning with Windows 3.11 (called Windows for Workgroups), peer-to-peer networking became a reality instead of a difficult-to-deliver promise. More importantly, Windows 3.11 (which continued throughout all the versions until Windows XP appeared) gave the industry a standard on which to build network hardware and write network software.

Each Windows network installation requires a slightly different setup. You'll have to read the documentation that comes with your network package, assuming that you purchased one of the all-in-one packages described in the previous section. These packages are designed to make the home or small office network as simple to install as possible, and you should have little trouble.

Keep in mind, however, that you will probably have to change some system settings although these settings should be described in your network's documentation. As an overview, the following To Do item explains the steps you can expect to take to get your network installed, set up, and running.

To Do: Setting Up a Network Manually

1. Install the network interface card in your PC. Most are plug-and-play, and as long as you use Windows XP, your card should configure automatically the next time you start your PC and Windows begins. If you use a wireless network device that does not require a card slot, or if you use a USB-based device or PC network card in a laptop, you don't need to open your system unit to connect the device.
2. You might have to access your Start menu's Control Panel window to configure your network from the Network Connections icon that you open. Figure 13.2 shows the Network Connections window from which you might have to make settings. This To Do item cannot accurately describe the settings. The settings are technical and confusing and differ for virtually each network system that exists. Your network card's documentation will describe exactly which settings you must make.
   

   Figure 13.2 You might have to make some adjustments to your Network window's settings.

3. Designate which disk drives on each PC will be shared. In many cases, you'll share all the PC files between the computers, but you can also designate only certain folders and printers to be shared if you don't want someone else to have access to a particular device. You must designate each PC's sharing capabilities from each individual machine.

   To share a folder on a particular disk drive, open the My Computer window, double-click the disk drive with the folder you want to share, and right-click the folder to display the pop-up menu. Select the Sharing option and check the option labeled Share This folder on the Network. Optionally, you can add a name that all networked computers will see for this shared folder. That name will appear to the other shared computers, but the folder's original name will remain intact on the owner's computer.

   To share a printer, open the Control Panel's Printer and Faxes window. Right-click on the printer you want to share and click the Sharing tab. Select the Network Setup Wizard to start the Network Sharing Wizard shown in Figure 13.3. Run the wizard to turn printer sharing on.

   

   Figure 13.3 Set up a printer for network sharing.

4. After you complete the final PC's file and printer sharing specifications, your network is ready to use. You must now make sure that other computers see your computer on the network.

When setting up your folders for sharing, you might want to allow networked users to change the folder's contents. When you select a folder for sharing and type its shared name, you can click the option labeled Allow others to change my files, giving others full read and write access to the folder. You can also give only read access so that others can use your files but not change them. If you turn sharing off altogether, nobody on the network can access your files in any way.

Making Your Network Connect All Your Computers

Windows XP includes a Network Setup Wizard that takes the drudgery out of setting up network connections. After you've installed the network cards and set up file and printer sharing on the computers, you are ready to run the Home Networking Wizard to guide you through the remaining setup.

To Do: Using the Network Setup Wizard to Share an Internet Connection

1. Install your networking hardware by following the hardware's instructions. This includes your cables and NIC cards.
2. Open the Control Panel.
3. Select the option labeled Network Connections.
4. Select the option labeled, Set up a home or small office network. The Network Setup Wizard begins.
5. Click Next to display the wizard's opening screen. You are reminded that all your network cards must be in place and that you should turn on all computers and printers that will comprise your network.
6. Click Next to display the Internet connection window. The wizard must know how your computer connects to the Internet. If you connect using a modem, select the first option. If you're running the wizard on the computer connected to a high-speed Internet connection or networked to an Internet connection, you would choose the second option. That option signals to the wizard that the other computers will use the network to share this computer's Internet connection. Another wizard, the Network Connection Wizard, will finalize the Internet connection sharing process. The Network Connection Wizard is described in more detail in the next section.
7. Click Next. You must type a description and name for your computer so that others on the network will know which computer yours is.
8. Click Next. Enter a workgroup name. A workgroup is a sub-group of networked computers. Suppose you have seven computers on your large home-based small-business network and two are related to one project, three are for another project, and two happen to be your children's computers. You might set up three workgroups so that those three groups of computers can share files and act as though they were part of three separate networks. The fact that they are actually one physical network allows you to monitor and manage all seven computers, but each user connects only to the computer within the matching workgroup.
9. Click Next to see a summary window, similar to that of Figure 13.4. Use the scrollbar to read the entire summary.
   

   Figure 13.4 The Network Setup Wizard summarizes your network settings.

10. Click Next and the wizard will set up all the connections needed to make your computer available to others on the network.
11. When you click Finish to close the final screen, other computers on your network will be able to recognize yours once you've run the Home Networking wizard on them also.

Sharing an Internet Connection

After the network is working, you might want to share an Internet connection across the network. In doing so, only one computer needs to be set up to access the Internet directly; the other computers on the network will use the network to tap into the one computer's network connection. The following To Do item explains how to share your Internet connection.

To Do: Using the Network Connection Wizard to Share an Internet Connection

1. From the Windows XP Control Panel, go to the network area and open the Network Connections window.
2. Select Create a new connection. The New Connection Wizard will begin.
3. Click Next to display the New Connection Wizard window shown in Figure 13.5. You have several options from which to choose. The first option allows users over your network to share an Internet connection. The rest of this To Do item will explain how to do that. The second option allows a process called tunneling, or Virtual Private Networking (<VPNII>) whereby you can dial into a network from a remote location, such as dialing to your office from home. The third option enables you to connect to an existing network (as done in the previous section). The last option sets up your computer so that you can access it from a second computer connected by a parallel or serial cable. The third option is less stable and slower than a true network connection that you would have from an Ethernet or similar connection; however, if you want to transfer files on a one-time basis, connecting by a parallel cable is sometimes more cost-effective than buying network cards. Hour 15, "Exploring Your Hardware Interface," describes this process of direct-cable connection.
   

   Figure 13.5 Windows XP makes sharing an Internet connection simple.

4. Click Next to continue the wizard. Choose whether to connect by a broadband or a dial-up connection.
5. Click Next. Enter a service name for the Internet connection. For users with multiple Internet connections such as DSL and a dial-up connection as a backup, you'll type a name to the connection you're sharing, such as Family DSL Connection.
6. Click Next. Although you'll typically select the top option that will connect the networked user to the Internet connection's default name and password, you can specify an alternative login name and password for this connection. When a networked computer accesses this Internet account, the name and password you specify will be used.
7. Click Next to display the naming screen where you will name this online networked connection and determine how the shared connection will appear on the primary computer.

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