XP Internet connection sharing of a wifi connection and vpn?

I want to quickly set up internet connection sharing on one xp laptop to share it's wifi connection to all the other laptops. Can I do this by connecting to the wifi point and also using the same wireless card to connect to talk to all the other laptops to let them piggy back the connection?

I remember reading something about a connection limit on a workstation for internet connection sharing, can't remember if it was 3 or 10 connnection limit. Anyhow, I expect the standard microsoft connection limit of 10 would apply. Is ICS limited to 3 or 10 clients?

Also would I be able to share the VPN connection and would it actually work? I expect I'd have to connect to the vpn first and then go the properties tabs and tick share this connection.

I guess I can't share both at the same time? Could I have both the wifi shared and the vpn shared so clients can just get a DHCP lease and then browse to the other side of the vpn?

I have to do this on the spot at an event and I'd like to know if it would work and what the limitations/pitfalls are.

All ideas and speculations welcome.

I'm pretty sure ICS won't do that. You could have 2 wireless cards, one establishing a connection with an access point, and one set up as an ad-hoc network with another PC, and then use ICS to share the internet connection that way.

However, an ad-hoc network is a peer to peer netowork, it will only work with another single computer.

What you want to do is have one wireless both connect to an AP, and then reboadcast another signal acting as another AP for others - I dont think thats possable.

What you could do is take with you a regular wireless router. Use your wireless card to connect to your internet connection, connect your onboard NIC to the wireless router, and then bridge the wireless connection to the outbound LAN connection. That way the router could handle the switching, IP addressing, etc.

I'm pretty sure that ICS can share for more than one computer and works like a not quite as good nat, without control basically

I'm really not sure about that bridging your on-board wireless with a wireless router, you mean rj45 to the wifi point to provide wireless to the rest of the laptops?

how would I go about doing this? I'm not sure what kind of routing capabilities Windows XP has, I know the server versions have RRAS which might do it, but I'm limited to laptops with XP here...

Does anybody have any more info on ICS? I recon it must be able to do, cos you select share this internet connection, how would it expect to share it then, if the clients couldn't connect to that interface, would it just auto route between other interfaces to let them go out this way?

Does anybody have any more details on ICS?

Thats true. On a regular lan, however, your computers are connected to a switch. A plain old wireless card in a Windows computer can not act as an AP and can not act as a switch, so your connection would be limited to one other wireless user.



Yes. Plug your physical RJ45 from your laptop to the WAN side of the router. It would be just like plugging a wireless router into your cable modem, it's just that your computer is acting as the ISP in this case.



XP would be doing no routing whatsoever. All the OS would be doing is receiving an internet connection via wireless and spitting it right back out RJ45. The router would be doing all the routing, IP addressing, switching, managing, etc.

At least it sounds plausable to me.

thanks for the input, if you have any more ideas of find out anything on this them please let me know...

I'll do some tinkering tonight and see what I can come up with

helo everybody i'm new here


this is my senario: i'm using smart broadband in my lappy and i want it to connect to my sisters laptop too it is possible to do that using our built in wireless connection?


i can do this in desktop to laptop using utp cable in crossover and 2 NIC, i can setup ICS but in laptop to laptop it is possible also to share internet using built in wireless?

you need a wifi point to connect the two laptops, I did this on Friday.

can i please tel me what is the procedure so i can start to work with this thing and thanks alot bro and i wud like to share my experience in using vnc with hamachi it's very great now i can connect to my clients pc to fix some minor problems in there pc's but sometimes the problem is slow connection but it is very usable for me while i'm in my work

just set up a standard wifi point, connect both laptops to it, then do ics on the laptop that has the broadband with the wifi interface as the internal interface and the broadband interface as the shared interface.

Although, by the time you get a wifi point, most of them can do adsl or whatever as well, so just get one that is both a broadband router and a wifi point and don't do this ugly setup, instead just make the broadband/wifi point do it all, it will be much nicer and your sister's laptop will not depend on your laptop then.

thanks sir i send you feedback as soon as i set the wifi connectio and by the way how about the vncand hamachi can i hide them in systray icon? only the two of them!... before i edit the regsitry to hide systray icon but all of the systray icon already hide may you can help me with this thing.....

that's a separate issue, you should start a separate thread, not ask in someone else's thread....

Thanks for this topic and input. It has given me an idea for my predicament described here(hardware/problems-with-home-network-t28881.html)
I have a few questions which I shall try to answer in follow up.
AP =?
ICS= Internet Connection Sharing, is this known by some other term?
clients...Eudora, PC-based e-mail?
VPN= virtual private network
DHCP=?
LAN= local area network...I have used a wireless router and it registers as a LAN
why is this? Why not WAN?

is there an RJ-45 to USB adapter?

UTP cable?
in crossover?
NIC?
VNC?
hamachi?

UTP cable?"Twisted pair cabling is a form of wiring in which two conductors (two halves of a single circuit) are wound together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference (EMI) from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from
unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cables" wikipedia

NIC?>>?Network Information Center

VNC?>>"VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is remote control software which allows you to view and fully interact with one computer desktop
hamachi?>>"Hamachi is a centrally-managed zero-configuration virtual private network (VPN) freeware

---------
Crossover = not a method of using cables/particular arrangement, but a cable such as ethernet(RJ-45) to connect two(or more?) computers in an "ad-hoc"-like connection(peer to peer).

--
Now for a comment pertaining to RJ-45 cables and other flimsies. Know of a good, reliable, enduring cablehead? These ethernet cables that snap in place are so easily worn out.

AP = Access Point
DHCP = Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (this is what assigns an IP address)

LAN = your router connects your ISP to you. The ISP connection side would be considered the WAN while your inside network is considered the LAN.

UTP Cable = CAT5 cable. This is the cable you connect from your PC to the router
crossover = this is a CAT5 cable. There are two types, straight through and crossover. Straight through cables you would use to connect your PC to a router or switch. A crossover would be used to directly connect two PC's together.
NIC = Network Interface Card (ethernet adapter)
VNC = This is an application that allows you to connect to another PC and share their desktop. Very useful for helping people troubleshoot problems.
Hamachi = this appears to be a VPN (virtual private network) program.