Making a LAN Work for Me

TychoCelchuuu

If this goes in the stupid technology subforum, feel free to move it.

So I'm on a LAN right now with a bunch of dudes. We can create LAN games in Warcraft III or whatever and join each other's games and everything. It would be nice if we could do more than this: transfer files that won't fit on a USB flash drive, talk with each other without the interference of the Internet (and without having to leave our rooms durrr), set up shared folders and stuff, whatever. The problem is, I've never done any of this. I've had one computer my entire life, which has left me woefully unprepared for dealing with a LAN. The thing is already 100% wired and working and everything. I just need to know what software we need. I figure it's a built in Windows component, and I poked around the Network Connections thing in the Control Panel but I couldn't quite figure it out. Does anyone who knows what they're doing want to help us out?

AngelHedgie

Sharing folders is just a matter of right-clicking on a folder to share, then selecting Properties. From there, you need to select the sharing tab, then enable share access for that folder. Your friends should now see the folder available on My Network Places.

If your LAN is more or less permanent, you may want to map the shares as network drives.

Eat_Fire

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Sharing folders is just a matter of right-clicking on a folder to share, then selecting Properties. From there, you need to select the sharing tab, then enable share access for that folder. Your friends should now see the folder available on My Network Places.

If your LAN is more or less permanent, you may want to map the shares as network drives.

You might also have to do one other thing:

All the computers need to be in the same "workgroup" to find out what workgroup you are in do the following:
Right Click "My Computer" - Click "Properties" - Click on the Tab at the top that says "Computer Name" This will list your workgroup the most common two names are "WORKGROUP" and "MSHOME" choose a name you all want to use and enter it using the "Change Name" button.

lunchbox12682

For the chatting thing ,you can run your own jabber server (Teamspeak or something).
This may take some work setting up though.

TychoCelchuuu

Yeah we run a Vent server but that's clunky for typing. I'm apparently already on a workgroup, so that's set up then. It looks like the folder sharing thing is working too. Unless anyone has any suggestions for anything else to do with a LAN, I think I'm good. Thanks

AngelHedgie

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

Yeah we run a Vent server but that's clunky for typing. I'm apparently already on a workgroup, so that's set up then. It looks like the folder sharing thing is working too. Unless anyone has any suggestions for anything else to do with a LAN, I think I'm good. Thanks

Well, as I said, if your LAN is more or less a permanent installation, then you should map your shares.

1. Open My Computer.
2. Click on Tools.
3. Select "Map Network Drive"
4. Choose a drive letter (like Z:, for example) for the mapped drive, and for the folder, list the full location of the shared folder you want to map.
5. Once you have this done, the shared folder on your friend's computer will now appear as a drive on yours.