Bill D.

You do the setup, including creating and naming the network, on one computer. Recent windows versions will ask if you want to make a disk to transfer the settings to the other computers, and you can use the disk or just poke in the settings. The settings that are transfered include telling the other computers what the network name is, so that they can find it and "take a number" to be identified on the net.

The only difference is that on the first computer you "create" and "name" the network, on the others you just let tell them what the name is, and let them find the network. Then you make sure all the details/settings are right. On the first computer it's an act of creation. On the rest of the machines it's just a matter of writing down the right laws made by the creator on the piece of rock.

A somewhat similar situation occurs if you want the simple-minded Internet Connection Sharing that came in with Win3.11 to let all the computers use a modem attached directly to just one of them. With it, ICS must be turned on ONLY on the one computer that has the modem directly connected to it. You tell the other computers only that there is a computer with a modem they can use, and the other computers look for the shared modem. If two computers both have ICS turned on, they'll both have the same 192.168.0.1 identity and it will all crash. The first computer that takes that name will tell the other computers what different 192.168.0.x id to use, via a simple (so simple it's nearly brain dead) utility. Only the computer directly attached to the modem in this system can have the #1 and it must be #1. The numbers for the other computers don't often get changed, but it can happen, so if you're adding an "ethernet printer" or other device into the network on which you assign a fixed number, it's a good idea to use a "high number" in the last place, like (192.168.0.190). The computer that keeps track of the other "sharing" computers for ICS purposes is nearly brainless so it uses mostly low numbers. (Most "routerless" Windows networks are limited to 8 computers, so it doesn't need to count very far.)

Through early Win98, if you accidentally got two computers set up with ICS turned on, it was a real mess; because the only way to turn one off was to remove Internet Explorer. Since IE is an integral part of Windows, lots of things would turn to crap if you tried to run without putting some version of IE back in place.

You can remove a version of IE without much problem, but that only backs Windows up to a previous version. There's a basic version for each Windows OS version that can't be removed without destroying the whole system, so you have to carefully remove the proper bits and then reinstall a fresh (at least the basic) version before you're operable. This involved significant Registry edits, and manual deletion of something like 30 "protected system files" that had to be restored from setup disks before the machine would turn back on.

With later Win versions, they figured out how to let you just "turn off ICS" so it's no longer a problem. Latest versions have "buried" the ICS idea into network setup, so you aren't really likely to recognize it. You'll just be asked what kind of modem connection you have and the wizard should take care of it.

You still can use ICS to let all the networked machines use the same modem, but it's a much more stable and better performing setup if you insert a router and let the router handle the modem.

John