Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 07:09 PM

Bill D -

In the first and third links you posted, you need to go UP one level and click on Desktop (or My Desktop). Collapse all the levels you see as you go up so that the only line showing is "My Desktop."

When you click the "+" beside that one, it should open up just the top string of subfolders, and you should see:

My Desktop
      My Documents
      My Computer
      My Network Places

There may be a couple of other things, like Recycle Bin and maybe Control Panel, depending on options you've set.

When you click on "My Network Places" and open it (click the +) you may see other computers, but most likely you'll see the Network Name (MS Home).

Click on the MS Home and you should see other computers and maybe printers and such.

If you don't see the MS Home (assuming you used the default name) it means that the computer you're on hasn't found the network, or that the network hasn't been actually created successfully.

If you see the network MS Home but there are no computers/drives in it, it probably means that the computers where the wannabe shared drives are located haven't "joined the network" - or it could just mean that the drives haven't been shared by the computer/user where they're located.

Usually if a computer has been joined in, you'll see drives on it even if they're not shared. Seeing them doesn't mean you'll be able to access them.

To share a drive or just a folder that's on the machine you're using, you right-click the "thing" you want shared, and on the drop down menu click "Sharing and Security." There are a couple of tabs there where you can choose whether or not the thing is shared, and how.

On the "Sharing" tab, there should be a place to enter a "share name." You'll likely be sharing a folder so the name here is the name you want other people to see for that folder. You shouldn't really need to put the computername in, since the computer and the network both know what that is. If you enter "Trash," someone on another machine should see it as

"Trash on \\BigBill\Documents\Trash,"

or something fairly similar.

Once the drive or folder appears in the "My Network Places\MS Home" folder, you should be able to use WinExplorer Tools|Map network drives to give it a "drive letter."

Custom is that drives on the machine start with A:\, B:\, C:\, D:\ etc. Also by custom - and in many OS versions by unbreakable rule, A and B are reserved for "floppies."

Again by custom, network drives (on another machine) start with Z:\ and work backwards throug Y:\, X:\, W:\ etc, and the machine probably will give you the default of the next lower available letter when you map a new one. You don't have to use the default, unless you're hide-bound traditional; but sometimes it's easiest to follow the mob.

Once a network drive is mapped on your own computer, you'll see it in the "My Computer" space in WinExplorer, in the rather messy form:

"Trash on \\BigBill\Documents\Trash (X)"

At least the "X" puts it up where it looks like a drive on your own computer, and you can just use "X:\" to call for it in things like

"XCOPY X:\*.* /s /d /c"

instead of writing out the entire

"XCOPY \\BigBill\Documents\Trash\*.* /s /d /c" blob to do something.

IFF you have set passworded users on any of the computers, the user on any other computer that wants to access a shared drive may still need to have a user name and password that's valid on the computer where the drive/folder lives. (This usually doesn't appear as a problem until you move up(?) to Vista.) If that's the case, when you click on a apparently shared drive you should get an immediate "access denied" and whoever drives that computer may need to enter you as an authorized user on the drive's home machine.

(Vista is much more stubborn about requiring "external users" to be valid users on the shared location's home machine; but it's really not that much of a problem once you understand what it's whining about.) If both machines have a user "dingle" with password "bafflegarb" the user is "dingle" with password "bafflegarb" for all the machines on that network, regardless of which machine is in front of him/her - - - - usually. (There are no real guarantees.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 07:18 PM

cable modem to a switch
then put as many as you want
or go wireless

Susan I will send you a switch
that is faster then a hub

Dan

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 07:21 PM

A switch is a device for a network to reduce collisions of packets
it is much faster then a typical hub

you will see virtually no noticeable performance issue

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 07:29 PM

so... I am guessing that this applies...

"If you don't see the MS Home (assuming you used the default name) it means that the computer you're on hasn't found the network, or that the network hasn't been actually created successfully."

because this is what I see under "My network places"

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 07:34 PM

I truly appreciate all the suggestions and time...I will go thru all of them s-l-o-w-l-y again, but I'll bet I need to get someone HERE to sit down and muddle thru it all. There are so many places I could have done something that screwed up the settings in the many windows and menus.....

Thanks, guys and gal.

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 07:35 PM

Susan I will send you a switch
that is faster then a hub

Will I know what to do with it??? Will I need to do what Bill is doing?

Do you know you are only about 3 hours away from me and Hardi? :~)

~Susan

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: Austin P
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 07:43 PM

Tech:

A hub broadcasts signed packets: (192.168.0.2 / 192.168.0.3 /192.168.0.4 ) down a single wire. This is a holdover from old (like me) linear network configurations (daisy chains). Hubs are slow when you have more than 2 computers on the network.

Now. Routers are smarter. They send it down the right wire. (a 'star' configuration).

Christ. I hate technology.

AP

PS. Chorus of one of my songs (I'm in love with the SatNav Girl) with no words:

D.I.V.O.R.C.E
4.A.G.P.S.P.D.A.
D.I.V.O.R.C.E
4.A.G.P.S.P.D.A.

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 09:59 PM

plug the cable you normally plug into your pc, instead plug it into the device I will send you, Then just plug your pcs into the device

bam ... all screaming fast. How many PC's i can give you a switch for 4 PC's or one of my Extreme summit 48 switchs for 48 PC's

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 11:01 PM

48???????

I never even had that many guests at a Mudcat Gathering, and those that came didn't bring computers!

Four's gonna be my limit, believe me!

~Susan

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:38 AM

Bill D -

In your linked "My Network Places" your "My Network Places" contains a "My Network Places" that definitely is "unexpected." Note also that the "My Network Places" inside "My Network Places" has the same (what shows of it) "Comments" as "The Dell." The identical, or at least very similar, comment would suggest that both of these came from the same source, but I can't make a good guess of where they came from or how they got there. Being mysterious doesn't mean they're wrong, but using a "standard system name" for something apparently is installed is not normally a "good thing to do."

My Vista, at least for this bit of WinExplorer display is a lot cleaner, but of course is irrelevant here.

From LiK's WinXP Pro, what I'd expect you to see would be something like:

Desktop
    My Documents
    My Computer
    My Network Places
        Entire Network
            Microsoft Terminal Services
            Microsoft Windows Network
                MShome
                    Computer A
                    Computer B
                    Computer C
            Web Client Network
            A Shared Folder on Computer A
            A Shared Folder on Computer B
            A Shared Folder on Computer C
            Recycle Bin

On LiK's machine, the "Microsoft Terminal Services" and "Web Client Network" are empty folders, because we don't use anything that would go in them. They show up in WinXP Pro if your network installs protocols the could use them even if nothing actually does use them, and they may or may not show up regardless in WinXP Home.

The machine you're at should show along with any others on your network.

When you click on "My Network Places" (the real one) in the left panel, you should see two or three "wizards" in the right panel. There should be "Add Network Place," "Network Setup Wizard," and possibly "Wireless Setup Wizard." They're not there in your screen shot, so you might look in the other My Network Places and see if maybe it's the real one. It may also be just a difference between the Home and Pro versions of XP.

In particular, the Add Network Place can be used to put anything you eventually can get into in the list of "A Shared ..." junk at the bottom of the view you're trying to get, so a mellofahess of crap sometimes shows up. Deleting extraneous shared locations just takes them out of your list, and shouldn't otherwise affect how they show up on other machines.

My Network Places can "contain" more than one network, but at least for early versions that included this simple(?) networking, can only "legally" have one "peer-to-peer" network of the kind you're wanting to get working. Since MShome doesn't appear in your screen shot, unless it's in the other "\My Network Places\My Network Places" either the network hasn't been created, or this computer hasn't been "joined" into it so that it's recognized.

Some "appearance things" here have changed from time to time on our machines, and I can't say whether it's due to system updates or to changes we've made in our own stuff. WinXP is pretty good about giving you what you need for your setup, without a lot of "extras," but sometimes other stuff does show up without any explanation.

A common point of confusion in creating your kind of network is trying to create - or join - a "real" network. If the choice contains the word "domain" or "server" it's the wrong one for what you're trying to do. I can't be a lot more specific because of differences between OS versions and update status - at least without poking into one of our surviving XP machines, which are both XP Pro and could still be quite a bit different than XP Home.

Almost a side note: "When things get messy - reboot." When you get an excess of multiply defined overlapping ineracting crap all trying to run at cross-purposes with nothing looking like it should, quite often a reboot will let Windows "sort out the chaff" so that you don't continue having the things you're now doing right blocked by junk from when you did something right differently. On a "home network," sometimes it helps to reboot all of the machines at the same time, or at least restart them all before you continue scratching at it.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:15 AM

"When you click on "My Network Places" (the real one) in the left panel, you should see two or three "wizards" in the right panel. There should be "Add Network Place," "Network Setup Wizard," and possibly "Wireless Setup Wizard." They're not there in your screen shot, so you might look in the other My Network Places and see if maybe it's the real one. "

Yep John...I have seen and tried all those locations. I think that some of the 'problem' items in my list came from trying to DO "Add Network Place" before everything was properly configured. As you might guess, after going thru all those menus and confronting 'wizards' that are less-than-concise about exactly what they expect you to do or have done, it has become .... ummmm.. "muddled" in my head. *wry grin*

This is really the first time in 13 years that I have not been able to carefully work my way thru a computer issue and eventually GET it to work, and thereby extract MY explanation so that I can then show someone else... (Like the discovery of where items are stored in temp & cache files and how to access them)

I am tracing this thread, as I'm sure that between your explanations & Austin's, I can get it done *if* I can find my way back to the beginning with previous 'mellofahesses' erased..*grin* (My mother said 'mellofahess' all the time)

Subject: RE: Tech: Ethernet Y-Splitter for Cable Modem?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 11:42 AM

Bill D -

I've been using the Home Network setup since early Win98. I tried it with WWG3.11 but never really got it to do much.

I used ICS via a dialup modem built into one of our desktops until we switched to DSL about a year ago. (Actually burned out at least three modems while doing so, but it wasn't from anything I said - it was lightning and thunder storms.)

It actually has gotten a little better. If everything works the first time - as it usually does since WinXP - it's great. If something doesn't work, it remains one of the more difficult "cleanups" because it's still hard to figure out just what's causing the problems.

When I was forced to add a Vista machine to my formerly "all-XP" setup, I ended up with two "local networks" in the mix, that blocked getting all the machines to work for a while, and found that there really isn't any way to remove one once it's been created. The solution there was to re-create a new one (with the same name as the existing one that I wanted. After making sure that nothing was joined to the other one it eventually "went away" but I have no real explanation for how it got removed.

***

Clarification for some others:

A hub is a device for connecting multiple devices on a network. The simplest hub is a passive hub that just joins all the devices. A devices sends something to the hub, and a passive hub sends it to all the other devices. The devices have to decide whether to accept or ignore the signal.

A "switch" is still a hub, more correctly called a "switching hub" and is much like the "passive hub" except that it tries to decide which device the signal is supposed to go to, and sends it on only to the device intended. This leaves the lines to the other devices somewhat more clear, and with a good "switching hub" (a.k.a. "switch") other signals between devices can be moving at the same time, so the speed is (potentially) greatly increased. It still is intended for communicating between devices within a single network.

A router incorporates - in somewhat over-simplified terms - all of the capabilities of a switch/switching hub but with some additional gimmickery to allow signals to pass between networks, so that (in theory) devices on one network can talk back and forth with devices on a different network.

The "Home Network" we've been talking about her is a simplified Local Area Network (LAN) of a sort. (The term peer-to-peer network sometimes comes up.) While it's seldom thought of as being one, if you have an external USB hub, or more than one USB card in your computer, the "USB system" actually is a separate network.

WinXP Pro will (at least should) automatically insert a "bridge" between the "Home Network" and the "USB Network," if you have both, to prevent "looping" and "crosstalk" between the two networks. WinXP Home probably will do this, but I can't be sure how well. Earlier Windows OS versions usually worked okay, but sometimes need a little "manual assistance."

A "hub" (passive hub) is a basic requirement. A "switch" (switching hub) is quite a bit better, especially for giving better speed. A router is a whole lot better, if it's justified by the complexity of your setup. They're (somewhat) priced accordingly, but the price difference isn't really all that great if you get the one that fits your needs.

John