It’s a rare Windows XP Pro machine indeed that isn’t connected, sooner or later, to some kind of office network (officially known as a local area network, or LAN). And no wonder: the payoff is considerable. Once you’ve created a network, you can copy files from one machine to another just as you’d drag files between folders on your own PC. Everyone on the network can consult the same database, phone book, or calendar. When the workday’s done, you can play games over the network. You can even store your MP3 music files on one computer and listen to them on any other. Most importantly, you can share a single laser printer, cable modem or DSL Internet connection , fax modem, or phone line among all the PCs in the house.
If you work at a biggish company, you probably work on a domain network, which is described in the next chapter. You, lucky thing, won’t have to fool around with building or designing a network; your job, and your PC, presumably came with a fully functioning network (and a fully functioning geek responsible for running it).
If you work at home, or if you’re responsible for setting up a network in a smaller office, this chapter is for you. It guides you through the construction of a less formal workgroup network, which ordinary mortals can put together.
You’ll soon discover that, when it comes to simplicity, setting up a network has a long way to go before it approaches, say, setting up a desk lamp. It involves buying equipment, installing adapters, and configuring software. Fortunately, Windows XP’s Network Setup Wizard makes the software part as painless as possible.
You can connect your PCs using any of several different kinds of gear. Most of the world’s offices are wired with Ethernet cable, but all kinds of possibilities await, including networking systems that rely on the phone or power lines already in your walls, and even wireless systems that don’t need cables at all. Here’s an overview of the most popular networking systems.
Note
Be sure that whatever networking gear you buy is compatible with Windows XP by checking the compatibility list at http://www.microsoft.com/hcl. Networking is complicated enough without having to troubleshoot some gadget that’s not designed for XP.
Ethernet is the world’s most popular networking protocol. It gives you fast, reliable, trouble-free communication that costs very little and imposes few limitations on where you can place the PCs in a home or small office.
In addition to the computers themselves, an Ethernet network requires three components:
Network adapters. You need an adapter for each computer. (You may also hear a network adapter called a network interface card or NIC ["nick"].)
The network adapter provides the jack, shown in Figure 18-1, where you plug in the network cable. If you have a desktop PC that doesn’t already have an Ethernet jack, you can buy a network adapter either in the form of a PCI card (which you must open up your computer to install) or a USB box (which connects to the back of the computer and dangles off of it).
If you have a laptop, you can use one of these USB adapters or a PC Card that slips into your computer’s PC Card slot.
A hub. An Ethernet network also requires an Ethernet hub (also shown in Figure 18-1), the nexus into which you plug the network cable from each PC. Hubs come in different sizes; five- and eight-port hubs are popular for home networking.
Tip
Buy a hub with a few more ports than you need. You may eventually add another computer to the network, not to mention shared network equipment like laser printers or a router (which lets you share a cable modem among all of the PCs on the network).
Of course, you can always expand your network by adding on another hub when the time comes, thanks to a special connector called an uplink port that lets you hook one hub into another.
If you have a cable modem or DSL connection to the Internet, you may want consider buying a combination router/hub instead of a standard hub. (The dialog boxes in Windows XP call these boxes residential gateways, although almost no one else does.) In addition to serving as a hub, a special connector on this gizmo also accommodates your cable modem or DSL box, so that all of the PCs on your network can share the high-speed magic of just one Internet connection. (You can also purchase a router and hub separately.)
Ethernet cables. The cables used for most Ethernet networks look something like telephone cables, but they’re not the same thing—and they’re definitely not interchangeable. Both the cable itself (called 10BaseT, 100BaseT cable, or Cat 5 cable) and the little clips at each end (called an RJ-45 connector) are slightly fatter than those on a phone cable (Figure 18-1). You can buy ready-made Ethernet cables (that is, with the connectors already attached) in a variety of lengths and in many different colors. Each computer must be connected to the hub with a cable that’s no longer than 100 yards or so long.
Figure 18-1. Top: The Ethernet cable is connected to a computer at one end, and the hub (shown here) at the other end. The computers communicate through the hub; there’s no direct connection between any two computers. The front of the hub has little lights for each connector port, which light up only on the ports that are in use. You can watch the lights flash as the computers communicate with one another. Bottom: Here’s what a typical “I’ve got three PCs in the house, and I’d like them to share my cable modem” setup might look like.
Tip
Ethernet gear can be shockingly inexpensive; a search at http://www.buy.com, for example, reveals Ethernet cards for $10 and five-port Ethernet hubs for $30 from no-name companies. If you’re willing to pay slightly more—$20 for the card, $50 for the hub, for example—you can get brand-name gear (like Microsoft, Netgear, 3Com, or LinkSys) whose support with installation, phone help, and driver updates through the years may reward you many times over. Setting up an Ethernet network generally goes very smoothly—but in the few cases where trouble arises, cheapo equipment is often the problem.
On paper, the hardware part of setting up the network is simple: Just install a network adapter in each computer, and then connect each one to the hub using an Ethernet cable. It’s that “using an Ethernet cable” part that sometimes gets sticky. Depending on where your PCs are and how concerned you are about the network’s appearance, this wiring process may involve drilling holes in floors or walls, stapling cables to baseboard trim, or calling in an electrician to do the job.
When all of your computers are in the same room, you can run the cables along the walls and behind the furniture. Buying cables that are the same color as your walls or floors can help to hide the installation. If you have to run cables between rooms, you can secure the cables to the floor or baseboards using staples (use the round kind that won’t crush the cables) or plastic raceways with an adhesive backing.
you can secure the cables to the floor or baseboards using staples (use the round kind that won’t crush the cables) or plastic raceways with an adhesive backing.
Of course, you might not be thrilled about having any exposed cables in your home or office. In that case, the installation process can be much more complicated. You should probably hire a professional cable installer to do the job—or don’t use cables at all. Read on.
Instead of going to the trouble of wiring your home with Ethernet cables, you might consider using the wiring that’s already in your house—telephone wiring. That’s the idea behind a kind of networking gear called HomePNA. With this system, you can use the network even when using the modem or talking on the phone, although you can’t make a modem and voice call simultaneously.
Unfortunately, the average American household has only two or three phone jacks in the entire house, meaning that you don’t have much flexibility in positioning your PCs. If you’re trying to avoid the plaster-dust experience of installing additional wiring, consider one of the networking types described next.
Here’s another way to connect your computers without rewiring the building: use the electrical wiring that’s already in your walls. Unlike phone jacks, electrical outlets are usually available in every room in the house.
If you buy Powerline adapters (also called HomePlug adapters), you get very fast speeds (14 megabits/second), very good range (1,000 feet, although that includes the twists and turns your wiring takes within the walls), and the ultimate in installation simplicity: You just plug the Powerline adapter from your PC’s Ethernet or USB jack into any wall power outlet. Presto—all of the PCs are connected.
This isn’t the cheapest avenue; at this writing, Powerline adapters cost about $100 apiece. But they afford a great deal of convenience, and a five-year-old could perform the installation.
All of the networking methods described so far involve various schemes for wiring your computers together. Millions of people, however, have embraced the flexibility of a networking system that involves no wires at all—a cordless networking technology that’s based on a standard called WiFi or 802.11 (“eight-oh-two dot eleven”). (Your Macintosh friends probably call the same thing AirPort, because that’s what Apple calls it.)
To create a WiFi network, you equip each PC with a special network adapter (about $60) whose little antenna pokes out of the computer. If all of your equipment is wireless, that’s it: your PCs can now communicate with one another.
If you want to be able to get onto the Internet with them via a shared cable modem or DSL connection, though, you also need an access point (about $100)—a box that connects to your network router or hub and lets your wireless computers communicate with the cabled network. The usual gang—LinkSys, Netgear, 3Com, and others—sell these access points (also called base stations).
802.11 equipment has a range of about 150 feet, even through walls. In concept, this setup works much like a cordless phone, where the base station is plugged into the wall phone jack and a wireless handset can talk to it from anywhere in the house.
Wireless networking is not without its downsides, however. You may get intermittent service interruptions from 2.4-gigahertz cordless phones and other machinery, or even the weather. Furthermore, big metal things, or walls containing big metal things (like pipes) can sometimes interfere with communication among the PCs, much to the disappointment of people who work in subways and meat lockers.
Wireless networking isn’t as secure as a cabled network, either. If you drive around a typical middle-class American neighborhood these days with your wireless-equipped laptop turned on, you’ll be surprised at how many home wireless networks you can get onto, piggybacking onto other people’s cable modems because they failed to turn on the optional password feature of their wireless systems.
Still, nothing beats the freedom of wireless networking, particularly if you’re a laptop lover; you can set up shop almost anywhere in the house or in the yard, slumped into any kind of rubbery posture. No matter where you go within your home, you’re online at full speed, without hooking up a single wire.
Not many PCs have FireWire jacks (which are technically called, unpoetically, IEEE-1394 connectors). If yours has a FireWire card, you probably bought it because you wanted to edit video you’ve captured on a DV camcorder.
But if you have a handful of computers with FireWire cards installed, Windows XP offers one of the world’s simplest and fastest methods of connecting them in a network: just hook them together with six-pin-to-six-pin FireWire cables. That’s it—no hubs or boxes to buy. (Because a typical FireWire card has two jacks, you can link several computers together this way, like a chain.)
Of course, this arrangement connects your computers only. It won’t help if you want two computers in your house to be able to share a single cable modem or laser printer. Furthermore, FireWire cables can’t be longer than 15 feet, which may cramp your networking style.