Set up your first Ethernet network at homeStep 4 - Installing the software Now, as you turn on your computer with the new NIC, the plug and play system should bring up the "New Hardware Found" dialog box. If you've ever added any hardware, this should look quite familiar. If you haven't, the box will have several options with radio buttons to select the option you want including:
In almost all cases, you'll select "Driver from disk provided by manufacturer." But make sure to check any documentation or diskette (check for a file called readme and double click on it) that came with your NIC. In some cases, the NIC will use a generic driver that came with Windows 95/98 and the first option would be correct. (Please note: Your NIC should have come with a diskette or CD-ROM that includes the drivers for Windows 95/98 and other operating systems. If you don't have a diskette or CD-ROM for the NIC, you can check our links pages for the manufacturer and see if they have the latest drivers available on their web page for download.) Once you put the driver diskette in your A drive or select the default driver button , hit OK. The installation program may also ask you to re-insert your original Windows CD-ROM so have it handy. After that is complete, the installation program will suggest you restart the computer. Do it. The diskette and Windows CD-ROM are not only installing the drivers for the NIC but also any basic network enabling files that were not installed when you first installed Windows on your machine. When the computer restarts, you'll be prompted to enter a network name and password. It will ask you to confirm the password. Do this and select OK. (You may already have had a name and password for you computer so this step may not be new.) Now you only have a few more things to do to make sure the computer will work on the network. Open the network control panel. If you don't know how, click on Start, Settings, Control Panel. This will open a dialog box with all of the control panels. Double-click on the Network icon. This brings up the network control panel. This should now look something like this:
As you can see, the installation process added several default components to the network features of your machine. In a basic Windows 95/98 peer-to-peer network, you won't need all of these. In fact, if you want you can in turn click on "Client for NetWare Networks" and click the remove button; and then click on NetBEUI and click the remove button. If you have an unusual setup (networking to DOS or Windows for Workgroups, keep in mind that you may need these or other components). We recommend the IPX protocol because it is almost as easy as NetBEUI (which is the easiest if you ONLY plan to share files and printers) and is the protocol most often used for networking games. In addition, it will work well for sharing files and printers. Some internet sharing software will require TCP/IP protocol which is clearly the most difficult to set up. Whichever software you pick should have separate instructions on how to set up TCP/IP. We also have included TCP/IP set up instructions in our how to on networking Macs to PCs. The specific setup instructions are here. Keep in mind that there are some differences in which protocols get "automatically" added during installation between Windows 95 and Windows 98. If you plan to network computers with those two operating systems, make sure that you have the same protocols installed on both systems. To add a protocol, click on the add shown above. Then select protocol and click add again. Now click on Microsoft on the left and click on the protocol you want on the right. You may then be asked for your original Windows disks/CD-ROM so have them ready. Once you have the protocols ready, select the "Client for Microsoft Networks" component and click on the Properties button. This dialog box allows you to select how your machine will logon to the network. With just another machine in a peer-to-peer network, I would select Quick Logon (as shown below).
Note that this is also the spot where you would select options for logging on to an NT server network. That is a topic for a later, more advance "How-to" Now, in order to make sure the other computers on the network can share your files and/or your printer, click on the File and Printer Sharing button. Select either or both options as shown here:
Click OK and click OK at the bottom of the network control panel. Once again, Windows will prompt you to restart your machine. Do it. When your machine restarts, you'll have a network card configured properly, a machine connected to a hub with other computers and the software enabled to allow you to share resources across the network. There is one final step which is to select the resources you want to share. You can do this from the Windows Explorer. Click on a drive, folder or printer and click on the right side button of your mouse. Select the option "Sharing...". Click on the "Shared As" option. Windows should automatically name the shared device (in the option below, the "C" drive). Next, select the Access Type. For our purposes, this should be Full. Don't select any type of password. Obviously, if you want to only allow some people on the computers in your home network, you could select the "Depends on Password" option and then type in a password and give it only to those selected people. (One way to lock the kids out of deleting your files). This should look like this:
Click OK and you are ready to go. Now you can go to another computer on the network and click on the Network Neighborhood icon on your desktop. You should see the computer you just set up in our How-to and with a double click on that computer name any of the shared drives, folders or printers. If you don't immediately see the other computers on your network, leave Network Neighborhood running. We've heard some reports that it may take time for the systems to see each other. You can also try connecting the two computers by "mapping a network drive." To do that, launch Windows Explorer on one of your machines and under the Tools menu, select Map Network Drive. The dialog box will automatically select a drive letter and ask for the path. Enter the following, filling in the name of the other computer and the name of the shared drive or folder (Make sure that you've actually shared that drive or folder back on the other machine). "\\computername\drivename". For example, "\\computer1\c" (remove quotes in both instances) if the name of your computer was computer 1 and you shared the c drive. Now a new Explorer window should automatically launch with the contents of the other computer's shared drive and will show the shared drive in the left panel of Explorer. You have a network. Congratulations.
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