I would like to create a network for 2 rooms - one with 5 pcs and the other with 1. I would like to have extra lines for 1-3 laptops in the main pc room and at least 1 in the single pc room.

Cable service with modem in main pc room. What other equipment and setup would be best for this scenario? All pcs are running XP pro with NIC installed.

Thanks

An eight port router would do the trick in minutes. Are the rooms side by side so you can easily run cable?

Would you consider going wireless? Will simplify things greatly!

I have 8 computers plugged on a home network...all cabled.
all (excepted one) running Win98SE and working fine... one running WinXP, which does not view the entire network at all.
So I strongly recommend you to use the same OS on all systems.

Wireless is a must, but do not forget setting ALL paswords and permissions, never let them as "default" or you might have neighborhood "invaders" using your Lan.

Chris.

Right you are, Ironbender! In addition, what will prevent it totally is to encrypt. You don't have to get fancy, 64 bit will work fine. Then you will not get cross-talk, leeches using your bandwidth and privacy. And it is easy to do.

QUOTE (Ironbender @ Apr 30 2005, 09:27 AM)

So I strongly recommend you to use the same OS on all systems.

IMO a mixed OS environment is more work but not a disaster.

I had some fun and games until I enabled TCP/IP on all the Win98 systems and removed IPXSPX and netbios. Then most things settled down.

There's probably even a Win95 system running in the storeroom.

BTW I found the "Network setup wizard" to be no use at all IMO. Others may differ.