How to connect 2 computers for file sharing;crossover cable

connection.
Posted on October 5, 2012 by gakwaya

There are many ways to connect computers for file sharing;one of them is to pass
through routers ,those magic black boxes we plug our PCs into to be able to surf the web.But what if you just
want your two computers to be able to communicate without using a router?You can do it!All you need is a
crossover cable and a few configurations on both PCs and you are ready to go!
In this article,we will be connecting a Windows 7 PC to a Windows XP Professional PC; if both of the PCs
you are connecting run one of the above mentioned OS’s,just follow the steps relating to that OS in the
following sections and they should communicate without complications.
 Step 1.Physical connection.

Connect the crossover cable to the RJ45 ports(Network ports)of your two PCs.The crossover cable can be
easily found in local computer stores.

 Step 2.Configure your PCs for network communication.

• 2.1 Windows XP Professional network configuration.

♦Click on Control Panel > Network and Internet Connections > Network Connections and you get to see you
Network Interface Card.(shown in the figure below).If it is disabled, right click and click on Enable.
 Windows XP Professional network card

♦Right click and select properties;

♦Highlight Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) and click on Properties;this gives us an interface that allows us to assign
an IP address to the Network Interface Card of our PC.Our IP addresses will be assigned manually because
there is no middle device to hand them over for PCs to collect.Usually it is the router that provides those IP
addresses.

Local area connection properties

 IP address configuration

♦Choose “Use the following IP address” and enter the information as shown below and click OK;one thing to
be noticed is the default gateway;in this particular configuration of two PCs communicating through a
crossover cable,we have to make sure that the Default gateway of one PC is the IP address of the other and
vice versa.
♦Choose a folder on your hard drive that you wish to share on your PC and configure sharing;right click on the
folder and click properties.Choose sharing in the interface that pops up.Some PCs that are configured for the
first time propose a wizard that sets up network sharing in a way that we are protected from internet
attacks;choose the wizard if it shows up and check the “Share this folder on the network” box.The “allow
network users to change my files” box means that they can add or delete content in your files.I recommend you
check it since it will allow you to perform network edits.

Sharing configuration

With these settings in place our Windows XP Professional PC is done and ready to fly!I mean ..communicate.

•2.2 Windows 7 Network Configuration.

In windows 7 ,settings are split into two sections: adapter settings and advanced sharing settings;lets start with
the adapter settings;

♦Click on Control Pannel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center> Change adapter settings and
you get to see you Network Interface Card.(shown in fig).If it is disabled,right click and click on Enable.
 Network card in Windows7

♦Right click and select properties;

♦Highlight Internet Protocol Version 4(TCP/IPv4) and click on Properties;this gives us an interface that allows
us to assign an IP address to the Network Interface Card of our PC.Manually enter the IP address information
as shown in the figure and click OK;again , remember that the Default gateway of one PC is the IP address of
the other and vice versa.To see this compare the two IP address configuration figures.

Local area connection properties

 IP address configuration

Next,we cover the advanced sharing settings.

♦Click on Control Pannel > Network and Internet >Network and Sharing Center> Change advanced sharing
settings; in the window that pops up,make sure you turn on “Network discovery ” and ” File and Printer
sharing”.For other settings ,do as shown in the figure below.

Advanced network sharing

 advanced sharing settings

♦Choose a folder on your hard drive that you wish to share on your PC and configure sharing;right click on the
folder ,click on properties and select sharing in the interface that pops up.Click on the share button .Select
everyone in the popup menu and click on add.Click on the share button to close the window.Now we are ready
to test our configuration.
 sharing configuration in windows 7

 Step 3 Test the connectivity.

In Networking,there is a long and rich list of commands we use to test and troubleshoot networks;one of them
is the “ping” command and it is used here to test if our network configuration is working.

On your windows XP Professional PC ,do the following:

♦In the start pop up window ,click on “Run”.In the small window that appears,enter “cmd”as shown in the
figure.

♦In the black and white screen that appears ,enter “ping 192.168.1.103” and hit Enter.If the system responds
with replies from 192.168.1.103 as shown in the figure,your network configuration is working and you can
share as much as you want!

Ping command response

On your Windows 7 machine ,just click on the start image and enter cmd in the search box that appears,the
same black and white screen appears and you can ping the Windows XP Professional IP address to check and
see if the connection is working.This is what you type in the black and white screen ” ping 192.168.102″.If you
replies from 192.168.1.102 pop up we know that our connection works.

Ping command response.

 Step 4 Find the shared Folder on the other PC.

On your Windows XP Proffessional PC ,do the following:

♦Click on Start > My Computer > My Network Places ;the window that pops up lists the foldersthe other end
of that are shared on the network(the windows 7 PC).

shared folder viewed on XP

On your Windows 7 machine,do the following:

♦ Click on Start > Computer > Network and the folders from the other PC that are shared appear in the window
that appears.

shared folder viewed on windows 7

How is this important?

Personally I think this kind of Network Configuration is important in three ways:

File sharing between PCs and Savings in storage space:With this configuration ,from my Windows XP
Proffessional PC I can watch the movie I have stored on my Windows 7 machine in the other room.All I need
to do is share the folder that contains the movie on the Windows 7 PC and access it from my Windows XP
PC.Since I did not copy the movie to the Windows XP PC ,some storage space is saved!
Moving large files between PCs:Normally,when I have to move large files,an external hard drive has to be
used.With the network configuration we have just covered,an external hard drive is no longer needed for these
purposes!Just share the source folder that contains large files you want to move ,access them from the other PC
and copy them to thedestination location of your choosing.
Educational purposes :This is the simplest network configuration I can think of.If a student understands the
concepts and principles involved in connecting two PCs for communication,it will be easier for him to extend
them to 10,100 or 1000 PCs.No,I did not mistype!1000 PCs can be connected for communication.

We have covered so much about networking in this article .If you have any questions or suggestions don’t
hesitate to comment and tell us what you think.We hope this has been informative to you and we would like to
thank you for reading.