Home network

[Tom]

I have two computers on a home network.
I have a third computer not on the network
If I remove one of the computers, and then use that one's name on the odd one, can I just hook it up and the network will accept it?

One is XP and the oddball one is W2000.

[wilderness]

Hey Tom,
I'm assuming your referring to LAN/Ethernet cable and not wireless.

With a LAN/Etheret cable the each computer has its own name.

Thus your answer is NO.

You'll have to configure the 3rd computer as new one, and you may be required to remove the one your no longer using.

The process, however should not be complicated.
Since Windows 98 everything has been plug and play and the system should lead you through the process.

[vegasone]

Each computer does have to have its own name , but assuming that you are taking one computer off and replacing it with one that has the same name it should work. Just reboot everything.

It isn't a big deal to give each computer its own name anyways in case you want to put them all on there at once.

XP and W2K are kinda funky with networking and very aggravating sometimes so you may need to reboot them a few times.

[Dave Schwartz]

Actually, the same name will not work. Even though the name is the same, they have different internal IDs.

I am actually going through this right now. In the last 10 days I have suffered 4 computer failures; one hard disk and three OS issues with Windows updates. I have upgraded three of the four to Win7.

The XP machine was reinstalled with the same name. None of the old mappings worked and I had to disconnect and reconnect to the computer and then the drives.

The good news is that Win7 is just a fantastic OS; a major improvement of XP.

The bad news is that some of my XP machines cannot get access to one of the Win7 machines. I am stumped.

However, all of those issues will go away (I expect) in the next couple of weeks as I move the rest of my primary machines to Win7.

LOL - All in time for Windows 8. It is a good thing I get so many "free" licenses. (I pay an annual subscription to Microsoft which includes 10 copies of just about everything - i.e. Windows Pro, Office, etc. - and one copy of all the servers. If you are a developer or service provider you can qualify for the deal, and it is a good one.)


Regards,
Dave Schwartz

[Tom]

I am getting ready for Window 8......buy putting Windows 7 on a new computer. Actual, an old computer that I bought for a song when our neighbors at work went out of business and sold off everything.
I figure get more RAM for the XP and upgrade the other to W7 so that I will have enough to last me through the nightmare that will be W8. I should be good until W9 comes out to fix the oncoming disaster.

[fast4522]

Computers on the network, depends what you want to do with them. For printing skip the network printer unless you wish to have a wireless printer, I highly recommend a Belkin USB switch, can be used with anything USB 1x2, everyone should have one of these ($25). Win XP & 7 are excellent OS's and maybe anything under XP may not be worth keeping up. Back when the program Ghost was included in System Tools I fell in love with it and learned it and its capabilities. In today's networks the big upgrade is the router to delver best results with tablet devices. I have one netbook that I absolutely love (XP PRO) it has never been on the net period, if I want to print with it it goes through the Belkin. What is really neat is that tablets can retire computers from your network to do all your general internet operations leaving those computers retired from the net to do real work and be safe from the ills of the net.

[JustRalph]

Tom

the network card has a "mac address" that will be different

The network will see that it's different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

[Dave Schwartz]

Actual, an old computer that I bought for a song when our neighbors at work went out of business and sold off everything.

I just upgraded 5 of my XP machines to Win7. Big mistake for most of them. 3GB of RAM just wasn't enough and the motherboards won't take more.

Besides, even if they did, I'd have to be using Win7-64 to access it.

Tread carefully, Tom, when taking an old machine to Win7 with only 3gb RAM.

[Tom]

Update:

I have a home network on my XP machine, with a second XP computer. I want to add a W2000 Pro computer to the network. From what I have found so far, this seems to be not an easy task.

Would I be better off upgrading the W2000 Pro machine to XP first, or is W2000 an upgrade from XP??? I do have a brand new copy of XP I bought, but then I would need to add the service packs. I hope to ultimately upgrade the W2000 to W7, but for right now, I need to take my main XP computer off line for about a week to have more RAM installed and a faster processor, and I need to keep working without it.

I did buy a portable hard drive, thinking I could move everything to that and then plug it into the W2000 machine to use, but I need to log onto the internet, so I think I need to be on the network.

Any advice?
__________________

[johnhannibalsmith]

For part 1, I found this little tidbit if it helps:

Note Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Professional can only be upgraded to Windows XP Professional. You cannot upgrade Windows 2000 to Windows XP Home.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978307

The above deals with upgrades to XP.

[wilderness]

rather thank upgrade from 2000 to XP, just buy a used (even non-working) machine with the XP license sticker on the case.
Remove that sticker and switch to your machine, having a tec add XP.
Many recyclers will do sell you the case with the license and install a genuine version of XP for an approximate $50.

Service Packs are part of the upgrade.
Be leery of using IE 8 or newer on older machines. IE 8 requires SP3 which is a useless upgrade for older machines.

[bigmack]

What are you setting up a network for, T?

Dollars to donuts says you can do 99% of what you want with the ext HD.

[Tom]

I already have a network, just want to add a computer to it. W2000 sounds like it might not a nice and easy addition. I got the machine for next to nothing during a business shut down. I really need a dedicated machine for horse racing.

I already bought a full version of XP a while ago, so I would be sure to have a copy for the future. That would mean just totally wiping the W2000 drive and doing a fresh install?

W8 is not on my horizons - no way I want the POS. I'll got to Ubuntu before I go to W8. W8 is going to be the next ME.

[wilderness]

W8 is not on my horizons - no way I want the POS. I'll got to Ubuntu before I go to W8. W8 is going to be the next ME.

FWIW, don't confuse Windows ver 8.0 with Internet Explorer ver 8.0, they are two different things.

[Dave Schwartz]

rather thank upgrade from 2000 to XP, just buy a used (even non-working) machine with the XP license sticker on the case.
Remove that sticker and switch to your machine, having a tec add XP.
Many recyclers will do sell you the case with the license and install a genuine version of XP for an approximate $50.

I know a shop that did this. When Microsoft got thru with them, they were happy to pay the $20k levy offered instead of the full lawsuit.

Tom,

Just be aware that Win7 (and I can assume Win8 as well) does not like to allow XP machines that are under-secured to connect. Be prepared to create a login and password for each machine.

Despite this, I have 3 XP machines that simply cannot connect to most of my Win7 machines. I have had 3 tech guys look at it and they just cannot get it figured out.

[bigmack]

I already bought a full version of XP a while ago, so I would be sure to have a copy for the future. That would mean just totally wiping the W2000 drive and doing a fresh install?
NO QUESTION, wipe that sucka dry and do a clean INstall of XP.

Boom, you're makin' a movie.

[wilderness]

I know a shop that did this. When Microsoft got thru with them, they were happy to pay the $20k levy offered instead of the full lawsuit.

The sticker is the legal license.

When a consumer sells or trashes their computer, it's their obligation to destroy the license and the data.

[Tom]

FWIW, don't confuse Windows ver 8.0 with Internet Explorer ver 8.0, they are two different things.

Ooops.
I do have SP3.

Dave, I only plan to use the W2000 networked to transfer files, so maybe I won't have a problem.....:bang:

God, I love computers.
Such time-savers.

[Dave Schwartz]

That is precisely the problem, Tom.

My XP machines cannot see the Win7 machines!

[Tom]

Good old microsh^t.

I'll rip out W2000 and put in fresh XP.
There is earthly reason to not use XP.

That is why they are discontinuing support - it works! :lol:

[JustRalph]

Good old microsh^t.

I'll rip out W2000 and put in fresh XP.
There is earthly reason to not use XP.

That is why they are discontinuing support - it works! :lol:

A one time file transfer or continual ?

[vegasone]

I must be lucky. I haven't had any problems with my XP machines connecting to my Win 7. Firewalls can be a problem, as well as possibly using XP home. I use XP pro.

[Tom]

A one time file transfer or continual ?

Continually transferring files from one to the other.

[headhawg]

There really should be no problem adding a Win2K box to an XP workgroup, assuming that is what you mean by "network". You might run into a problem sharing files because of permissions (on the XP 'puters; Win2K is very lax security-wise out-of-the-box), but to make things simpler just create a user account on Win2K that matches an admin account on the XP machine. vegasone brings up a good point -- are they the XP Home versions? That can change things somewhat but you should still be able to do this.

[Dave Schwartz]

Tom,

One thing I have found is that the Win7 machines have no trouble finding the XP machines. It is only the other way around.