to get Windows 7 to share an Internet connection, just right click the modem/ network card that is connected to the internet select properties then sharing, enable sharing to your LAN, that’s it.

Things get more complicated if you try to share a windows 7 internet connection through a wireless access point. Usually access points have a dedicated network port to be connected to the internet source (that is the case with D-link). if you just plug that into your computer it will not work, not only because of the fact that you will need to use a crossover (needs testing to confirm) to switch the send\receive lines. but also you will be unable to get file and printer sharing normally from the server computer. because the IP that your computer is proving the access point will be considered a WAN IP, and the access point will not be able to DHCP the client computers to the same IP range as the WAN IP.

The solution here is to place a switch between the wireless AP and the computer, with DHCP off. the AP will get the wan IP from your computer, something like 192.168.137.100, then with the AP’s DHCP it will assign IPs in the range of 192.168.1.xxx to other wireless clients.

to get file and printer sharing you will need to directly connect to the server computers IP, as it will not appear as a regular computer in your network.

to create a shortcut to the server’s shared files :
right click your desktop, select new then click shortcut
for the address write :
\\192.168.137.1

If you have file sharing enabled through your windows 7, you will be able to access shared files and printers.

I also have another approach that is not that catholic, and that is to place a normal network cable between the AP’s LAN ports and the switch. this will create an irregularity where the AP tries to assign an IP to the server, and the server already has an IP and that is the WAN IP of the AP, if you are lucky, your server will appear as a regular computer with other wireless clients, but this is a very unstable method and I wouldn’t recommend it.

I also noticed that file sharing speed through this method is not that great, I will look some more into that.

Any Ideas, thoughts or discoveries? please share

Not many people really know how to configure and use Remote desktop specially over the internet because it requires IP knowledge and port forwarding.

Here I will explain in details how to use this feature on windows Vista over the internet.

First we will have to configure the home computer: From the start menu right click “Computer” then select properties.

Click Remote settings from the menu on the left. from the start menu select “all programs ”  then click “Remote desktop connection” under accessories.

Now you will have to set up port forwarding on your router. you will have to look up the internet to find out how to access and setup port forwarding on your computer.

In my case. I have a sagem ADSL router and a Dlink wireless access point. The correct method here is to forward Remote desktop packets from the router to the access point to the computer. But generally you will have to setup only one device.

Now you need to find out the LAN IP address of the computer to be remotely accessed, you can do that from the network status on the computer. in my case it was 192.168.0.199.

Now you need to setup your router to forward port 3389 to the computer to be accessed.

Now you will have to know your Internet IP at all times. If you have a static IP you are ok. If not you can setup an account on any dynamic DNS service. usually it is free.

You can also use another trick and it is to leave your Gmail Email open on the computer to be accessed then access the same Email from the other computer then hit “Details ” in “Last account activity: X minutes ago on this computer. Details”  you will see a list of IPs the accessed this Email. Ignore any IP with a star next to it and copy the other IP.

Now on any computer open “remote desktop connection”  from the start menu under accessories.

enter the remote computer IP. If everything is OK you should be asked for a user name and a password. enter the user you used to enable remote desktop on the other machine then hit Enter.

You are there!

You can always mess up with some settings to improve the connection speed (window size, quality etc)

Many people don’t know how to configure it, and if you don’t, you should expect strangers to be sharing your local network, checking out your family album, and spamming the universe through you Internet connection.

Enough with the dark thoughts, here is how you can access your Linksys Wireless-G Access Point WAP54G and setup its security.


First if you are still not connected through Linksys Wireless-G Access Point WAP54G, power it up, give your self a 192.168.1.xx IP, if you don’t know how. open your control panel and follow the picture.

Setting the IP address

note that in the picture the IP is 192.168.1.11 you can change 11 to anything between 1,244

OK, now press apply, OK , yes, confirm , alright, yeah…. on all open windows.

Now you should be able connect through your  Linksys Wireless-G Access Point WAP54G.

Just refresh your wireless networks connection and select Linksys.

Now open a browser window and type the following in the address bar

192.168.1.245

You will be asked for a username and a password.

The default username for the Linksys Wireless-G Access Point WAP54G is blank (empty, nothing, nada)

The default Password for the Linksys Wireless-G Access Point WAP54G is admin

Now you should see the following window:

linksys configuration

Now we need to maybe change the static IP to dynamic IP DHCP and save.

Now press Wireless in the top bar. and change the Network Name(SSID) to anything, for example homeinterent, if you dont do this any hacker or leecher will know what kind of access point you have and that will give him a very good advantage to successfully login to your network.

Hit save.

Now press security.

As you can see the Linksys Wireless-G Access Point WAP54G has many security protocols. keep in mind that the more complicated encryption you use, the slower your network will be.

If you feel safe and your neighbour’s kids don’t look like hardcore hackers  you can use WPA-personal.

Keep the encryption at TKIP and set the Passphrase: to any 16 letter word for example:

HackersCantGetMe

Don’t use the example, be creative dammit

hit save.

Now click Administration.

Change the default password (it was admin, remember). and hit save.

Now when windows tries to connect to this network it will ask for the password, enter it, save it, and that’s about it.

Note that it would be much safer to use MAC filtering, but lets keep that for later.

You can always comment if you feel like it