I am trying to network a second PC and it is not working..any ideas?

[DoNotAsfinishedXmasshopping]

OK.

I have an old(ish) XP machine which was connected via a modem to AOL 9m ago. It has been in the loft and I have just got it back out.

I have my main machine running Vista and am currently running on O2 broadband with an O2 router (a Thomson I believe).

I bought one of these and installed it on my XP machine.

I then tried to install my O2 broadband assistant but when it checks if my PC is compatibe it says that there is no network card.

So i tried to configure it on teh USB netowrk thingy software and managed to pick up my router. My Vista machine can also see my XP machine. BUT I cannot connect to the internet on the XP machine and when I click on my XP machine in the network and sharing centre on Vista it says the path or filename is invalid.

Have I missed something obvious?

you may need a thomson usb adapter, best to jsut call tech assistance and they will talk you through anything straight forward.

We tried one of these, and it just didn't work for us. Ended up getting these and it was so much better and easier. Sorry I can't help with the Belkin thing.

Both PCs will talk to teh router - and my XP will talk to the internet.

They just won't talk to each other.

Sounds like your XP machine may not have the right wireless security protocol/network key set up, so it is telling you it can see the router, but the router is ignoring it.

Sorting these things out is notoriously difficult, particularly on XP. Can you bribe a knowledgeable friend to come round and set it up?

I probably could get a knowledgeable friend to come around without bribary...but it would mean letting my boss into my home so I would rather see if I can sort it.

Also my knowlegdeable friend(s) are all anti-XP (one has never moved on from 2000, one is a ubuntu (whatever that is) geek and one is a mac man) so I am not sure if they will be able to fix XP...

My router (and my vista machine) can both see the XP machine...even if they are ignoring it .

I should just ask Santa for a new laptop shouldn't I and throw away the XP machine ?

OK....I haev broken whatever connectivity I did have..by downloadingthe patch that MS said would fix me

Ubuntu is a flavour of Linux, probably the easiest for Window$ converts. Get your geeky friend to come and put that on: it will probably work a lot better than XP . Better than throwing it away anyway.

Okay, let's try to summarise. Please separate your answers into numbers as per below and answer every question!

1. Your XP box can "see" the router over the wireless adapter - what do you mean by "see"?
2. Your XP box cannot get onto the internet.
3. Your Vista box can see the router.
4. Your Vista box can get onto the internet.
5. Your vista box cannot see your XP box - how have you been trying?

OK current answers:

1. Your XP box can "see" the router over the wireless adapter - what do you mean by "see"?
   My USB software detects a wireless source. I go through and try to put in WPA key and nothing happens. My USB software says I am not connected to anything

2. Your XP box cannot get onto the internet.
   No

3. Your Vista box can see the router.
   Yes

4. Your Vista box can get onto the internet.
   Yes

5. Your vista box cannot see your XP box - how have you been trying?
   No. But my O2 monitor seems to be able to see the XP box. I am looking under "network" from teh start menu.

LAST night my answers would have been:

1. Your XP box can "see" the router over the wireless adapter - what do you mean by "see"?
   My USB software detects a wireless source. I go through and try to put in WPA key and nothing happens. When I put my WPA key in last night the USB software was telling me that it was connecting to teh router.

2. Your XP box cannot get onto the internet.
   No

3. Your Vista box can see the router.
   Yes

4. Your Vista box can get onto the internet.
   Yes

5. Your vista box cannot see your XP box - how have you been trying?
   I could see my XP machine in het network window but when I went into the network and sharing centre it would map my vista - router- internet but put the XP machine at the bottom saying it couldn't map it. When I double click on the XP icon from teh Network window I got an error saying that path does not exist.

Today I was looking at the help as to why I couldn't see the XP and MS suggested that I needed to download and enable an LLTD protocol to teh XP machine so that the vista machine could see and map it. I did this and that has caused the change in states between last night and today.

I am about to uninstall my USB network adapter driver and try using hte XP software/reinstall the USB driver.

Oh and I am confused as to why the O2 installation CD which I have been trying to run is saying that I don't have a network card on my XP machine when I have just installed it

Whoops, didn't spot your answers.

So the issue is very obviously that your USB wireless card's driver software isn't working, even though you had a certain amount of success last night. As you say, whatever protocol you've installed has squonked the settings. Reinstalling it may help, but that's where the problem lies.

The bad news is that wireless connection software varies hugely between vendors, so diagnosing a problem over a forum would just be too hard. :-\ Sorry - if I had the machine in front of me it would prolly only take a couple of minutes.

WoooHoooo...I am seem to be connected...on an unsecured connection ATM though.

And here I am on XP, on a secured connection too

I googled and found out that the Belkin software was crap so I have been trying to get my connection workin without the Belkin software using teh XP built in connection. Problem was that I needed the drivers installing...I just happened to stumble upon a solution which told me how to inactivate the software once it was installed but keep teh drivers!

Anyways...I just need to reboot and see if obeys my instructions....then all I need is a computer desk and I can get up off the floor....

TY for your help...well at least listening!

Well done. Let Windows Update run so that it installs Service Pack 3 to XP (you may have to reboot a couple of times, and keep running Windows Update until it says there is nothing more to update).

Then turn security back on on your router and try again.

Early versions of XP did not work with WPA security (only WEP) so this could have been your original problem.

I am doing that ATM. I am not letting them (DTDs) on it until it has installed all updates. I also need to clear off old software, set up a non administrator XP account for them to trash and look into parental controls.

I need to get a computer desk before I do all that though 'cos my back kills after sitting on the floor for the best part of 5hrs trying to sort that out!

SP3 has destoyed my network connection

It is switched off now...I shall restart my investigations tomorrow [ho hum]

You could always try Ubuntu. Or use it as a doorstop .

Its unlikely that SP3 broke the network connection and more likely that it was already a little fragile.

It sounds like you are comfortable with fiddling around so I would remove the USB wireless adaptor software and then re-install again and it's very likely you'll have things working again in no time. Wireless cards and their drivers are notoriously bad and can quite often just stop working for no obvious reason.

The powerline adaptors which someone recommended before are a great alternative and simply work, so it might be worthwhile returning the wireless adaptor and obtaining a pair of these instead. I work in IT and this is the solution I now use having lost far too many hours trying to fix broken wireless network connections.

As for family safety, can I recommend Windows Live Family Safety which is free (and not to be confused with their One Care anti-virus product which does require a subscription) as this is an excellent solution to protecting young ones right down to them having to obtain permission before adding someone to their messenger contact list.

Lastly there is some software, also made by Microsoft called Windows Steadystate, which can return the pc back to a specific state each time it is rebooted so that any files/settings changed are reverted back again. Even without administrator access it is possible for curious kids to cause hours of work re-installing the PC. Also XP is very bad at running happily under non-administrator accounts not because it's a bad operating system but just because lazy software companies historically made assumptions that users would have administrator access.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask additional questions and good luck!

Mr Debscee (Mrs DC wishes she knew all that stuff )

TY both of you...google actually suggests that SP3 has broken many network connections...something to do with ActiveX controls which I need to look into today.

Although i agree that it may have been fragile in the first place; I haven't really had a significant amout of time to test how stable it really was. Signal strength is classed as excellent - but given that the receiver is about 30cm from my router ATM it would be....not convinced by the software though given my problems....and appears to be notoriously bad given my google results.

If I can't get it sorted I will look those blue things....it is the cost whcih puts me off..if I was going to spend £40 I would probably save an extar £100-£120 and buy a cheap laptop, with everything pre-installed and running Vista - which despite a lot of heavy criticism I am at least familiar with ATM

fiddled for a couple of hours installing and uninstalling.....still broke (mainly cos the windows software I was using instead of hte belkin didn't seem to be available).

Tossed a coin to decide whether to continue downloading the further updates hoping that there would be a cure in there that MS had issued or whether to do a system restore. Decided on the latter and guess what - it is working again!

Now I want to know if/how I can install the other XP updates without installing SP3?

I'd be very surprised if ActiveX is your problem, these are hardware drivers causing the problems and ActiveX is software applications to make websites more interactive. I'm running SP3 on our laptop, using a wireless connection (the only one that does now), and it is working perfectly.

Vista draws heavy criticism and deserves very little of it and most of it comes from people that have never used it. Vista is a fine operating system, especially on new machines, and the small niggles that were there have all been addressed now. I'm digressing but we use Vista for all of our live and recorded TV without problems (well except for those caused by our 23 month DS finding the off switch!)

I'd just say that any cheap laptop is cheap because they have cut costs somewhere, the Vista licence is a fixed cost so to make it cheaper they have to cut hardware, normally in the amount of memory (Vista needs at least 2GB), graphics, and processor speed.

I'm frustrated because I'm certain I could get this working if I could get my hands on it. You said that after SP3 the windows software wasn't there but if you are using the built-in XP wireless software then it must be. If you are using anything else then this might be causing your problems.

Ideally we want to install this wireless card using the drivers only so lets try and do that. Can you post the exact product number and I'll try and locate a drivers only download for you. Then we can get the wireless adaptor installed and be certain that the built-in XP wireless software is the only part controlling the wireless connection.

There is a way to block SP3 from installing via automatic updates here but this will only block until 12 months after the release of SP3. As long as you install all other updates then you will be OK since SP3 added no new functionality and mainly just rolled up previous updates into one package.

I'm certain we can get this working although sadly we can't rule out the possibility that this is an old machine and so might really be in need of a fresh Windows XP install to wipe out anything affecting this process.

Mr Debscee (who thinks that Mrs DC is very clever with computers and more importantly she is a really fab mum and wife)

TY.

I have the driver seperate on the disk but my PC couldn't didn't know what sort of program to use to open it (IIRC it was a .sys file). I also ttried downloading it from the Belkin website and still couldn't do it. I got that message where you come up with a box which asks which program you want to use to open the file with a list of all teh apps to chose from. The thing is a Belkin 54g USB wireless adapter. If you google there is a huge range of threads on forums describing exactly my problems. Their advice was to install driver only. Sadly I didn't seem to be able to do that.

I did come across 1 solution which was to install it all and then disable the control software - which I have done and have got it working of sorts. It still drops out loads though and I basically have to re-connect to the router every time I switch on the PC..and it often takes more than 1 attempt and often loses connection during use. I think I am going to try and return it and get a better brand. half the Amazon reviews are 1 star. Shame I didn't read this before I bought it .

WRT the SP3 thing I am not sure what happened there. When I installed SP3 I lost my Windows wireless network sysem tray icon thing and couldn't seem to get into it from the control panel. I know I tried to find it for a couple of hours and couldn't. I tried googling and there was a lot to say that SP3 had screwed a lot of networks...don't know if it is related. But I did a system restore to the poin immediately before I installed SP3 and it is now working again...albeit with the caveats described above.

Oh and I am runnign Vista on this PC and am perfectly happy. The laptop I was looking at did have 2Gb RAM, not great processor but would cope with surfing the net....

Thanks for the clear response which provides a lot of very helpful information. The drivers only download can't be installed by running any of the files, we need to get the new hardware wizard running and then we can tell this to use those files.

I did mention to Mrs DC after I had posted that it might be worth replacing the wireless adaptor for another brand but the fact you have this working, even intermittently, suggests that the hardware is fine.

Can you try un-installing any of the Belkin software that is installed using the Add/Remove programs feature found in the Control Panel. Then right mouse click the My Computer icon and select Properties and finally the Hardware tab of the dialog box that should open. Then left mouse click the button that says "Device Manager". This will open up a new window titled "Device Manager" with a list of items with + signs to the left of them. Locate the item called "Network adaptors" and then right mouse click any that say Belkin Wireless 54G and select the uninstall option. If asked to delete the drivers select yes.

Now when they are all gone look for an icon at the top of that window that looks like a computer screen with a magnifying glass over it. Left mouse click that button and you should get the new hardware found wizard. Now this last part is from memory but in that wizard there should be an option to install the drivers manually and also to say you have a disk provided by the manufacturer which should then allow you to select the folder or CD in which you have the drivers only. All this should mean that the card is installed but still using the built-in XP wireless software.

If you can get to that point then we can see how stable the wireless network connection is which should be perfect given the closeness of your router. If at this point it is still failing then I'd certainly suggest trying to return it.

Hope you didn't feel I was preaching about Vista, I just wanted to make sure that if you did buy something it would fit your requirements. 2GB is great and in this day and age I wouldn't worry too much about the processor speed so long as it is Intel Core 2 Duo based.

Let me know how you get on re-installing the drivers.

Will do.

It will probably be tomorrow/Thurs before I try though. So please check back Thurs/Friday for an update.

Many thanks.