There’s no magic involved in setting up a home network. You don’t need to spend hours going through the Windows Networking Wizard, only to find that you still can’t see the other computers in your house!
What you need is a basic understanding of how Windows creates a networking connection, a few basic tips in order to get your network setup and running properly, and a good dose of luck.
Creating a home network can be a daunting task these days. There are SO many options out there that it quickly gets very confusing and often overwhelming.
First the basics – which covers most households in America:
With so many version of Windows on home pc’s these days you may very well run into the biggest difficulty of all – Windows 7 does NOT allow networking with any other version of Windows. Not Vista, not XP and most definitely not Windows 2000.
So if you have a Windows 7 pc in your home along with some older Windows operating systems, resign yourself to leaving your Windows 7 machine all by itself and then network the remaining pcs. Oh and if you ever want to use your network for printing capabilities, be sure to attach the printer to one of your older systems. If it’s attached to your Win 7 machine, the rest of your pc’s won’t be able to access it.
In a perfect world, you will have 2 or more Windows 7 machines in your home. If that’s the case, networking is simple. Check to be sure that all machines are running Windows Firewall, then walk through the networking wizard on each machine, adding the password you generated on the first machine when you are asked for it. Done!
In an even more perfect world, you are running machines without Windows 7! If this is the case, simply use the networking wizard on your newest pc (in most cases that’s a Windows Vista machine). Once you’ve run the wizard and named your network, go to the other machines and follow their wizards in order to change the network name and establish the network. Done!
And in a not so perfect world, you just bought 1 Windows 7 pc and have a couple of other computers that run Vista and/or XP. This is where you have to resign yourself to simply leaving the Windows 7 pc out of the network loop. Setup the remaining computers by running the network wizard on each of them as described in the above paragraph. Done!
Now the not so basic home network setups:
Computer owners these days are purchasing a wide array of items that “can” be networked together. Some may have wireless adapters included, which require a wireless router in order to utilize them. Others are still hardwired and will require a standard router.
If this situation describes you, you will need to purchase a router that offers both types of connections. Once you have a router that fits your needs, you need to get everything connected to it – either hardwire connected, or wirelessly connected.
And once that’s done you need to set up the actual network that will allow you to see ALL the devices from each separate pc in your home.
The difficulty is in figuring how to network all the various components you own into one large, happy network that plays well with all its varied parts.
I’ve been working in the computer industry for 15 years and there are still things in setting up a large home network that stump me, so I totally understand if you are looking at your xbox, your playstation, your wii, your DVD player that says it’s ready for wireless networking and your brand new tv that says it has a wireless network adapter and throwing up your hands in frustration.
Add all of those items, plus an iPad touch, a cellphone with a data plan, a couple of home computers, a new home laptop plus your laptop from work to the mix and I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you ran screaming from the house like a little girl. =)
Before you do that though, take a deep breath and keep reading. It CAN be done!
We’re assuming that you already bought the proper router, as explained above. Now it’s time to move forward.
First you need to figure out which items in your house you want to connect and network with. Once you have your list on paper, group them by wireless device or wired (with cat5 cable) device.
Next you need to be sure you have all the cables you’ll need so count them up and go buy them if you don’t have enough, or if the ones you have aren’t long enough to reach your devices.
Once you have the cables, connect the wired devices to the router. Follow the instructions that came with the router and don’t skip any steps! Your router instructions will tell you how to connect it to your first pc, and then how to install the router software and configure it. So long as you take it slowly and read each part carefully, it isn’t difficult at all.
So now you have the router working and all your wired devices connected. It’s time to check each device to be sure that they can reach the internet. For now we’ll assume that they can.
Now it’s time to configure your home network. Choose the newest Windows pc (usually Vista, but might be an XP computer) and walk through the network wizard. This will establish the home network and give it a name. Your network wizard may ask you to copy the settings to a disk to use on your other pcs. You can do this if you want to, but I generally ignore it and just set up each computer by using the wizard.
Once your wired devices are on the network it’s time to setup the wireless devices. For this you will need to go back to your router software (it opens up in your browser window on your pc) to configure the wireless network settings.
Follow the instructions in the browser window in order to set a wireless network name and encrypted password. For the time being, it is easiest to allow the router to “broadcast” itself. Unchecking that option will require manually adding MAC addresses to the router through the software, so it’s not something you want to tackle if you’re new to networking!
Once you have a name and password for your wireless network it’s time to connect each wireless device! This part is fairly easy since your devices automatically search for any available networks.
Turn one of them on and it will try to find your network. Once it finds it, it will lead you through the setup. Part of that setup is to require you to enter the name and password that you set in the router software. Once you enter that name and password, your device should quickly connect to the network.
Do this for each wireless device until you have them all connected and talking to one another.
You’re Done!!!
Hopefully this brief tutorial has given you the necessary tools to setup a successful home network. If your particular home network is more complicated than the situations I’ve described, or if you followed all the instructions and still can’t make it work, I can help.
If you live near me, call me and I’ll do my best to troubleshoot your problems over the phone. If that doesn’t work, I can visit your home to setup your network for you for a low fee.
If you don’t live near me, send me an email (use my contact form) and I’ll be happy to help you out by emails or phone.