I have a friend with a "3" dongle for internet access and no landline. There is consequently no router on site. Yesterday, I dismantled my bedroom to take my gigabit switch and ton of cabling over there. She runs 32bit Vista and I'm on XP Pro. After setting an IP of 192.168.1.1 on my laptop and .2 on her PC. They seemed to talk to each other (except Vista kept firewalling everything).

My question is, is there an easier way or perhaps an alternative to a router that offers DHCP? What if more of us wanna go round there etc. I'm getting too old to be manually configuring IPs. I wanna be having fun and relaxing, not being the only tech in the village

Set one up to offer WINS and DHCP...

For example tinyDCHP.

Sorry Dave, I'm being a div. Set what up? One of the PCs? How do I do that?

Yeah, one of the PCs could be setup as a DHCP server.

Dave recommended tinyDHCP to do it. I've never used it though.

Personally, I would take a router with me and let the router act as DHCP. You can keep your settings exactly as they are in your home, just disconnect it all and take it round hers. When you're there it won't need to be plugged into the phoneline or cable, just plug it into the switch and away you go it will dish out IPs perfectly happily even though it doesn't have an internet connection. When you are done just take it home and plug it back into your phoneline or cable connection.

Thanks Nick. I suppose I'll have to try tinyDHCP. CBA to unplug all my stuff again! My PC runs pretty much 24/7, but also my bro would moan if he had no net access
Just thought I might've been able to buy some kind of switch for this that would dish out addresses

You could buy new hardware, but tbh, if tinyDHCP does the job then why spend the money?

Shame you can't use your home router, that would have been ideal.

Yeah, a box to do it for me would be lovely. For the sake of two machines, it's probably easier just to manually set the IPs. Gay.

Oh well, at least I've got someone to play with sometimes

I'd probably turn on ICS on the box with the dongle. Just tick the box that says "share this internet connection" and it'll work as a DHCP server on the local network

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Window ... 71033.mspx

Thanks JJ, that sounds a lot nicer! I'll give that a go next time I'm round there.

Yep definately go for ICS or setting up one of the pcs with a dhcp server. plugging a router into the network would work for dishing out IP addresses but may also give out its own IP as a default gateway. If you are using a method other than this router to connect to the interwebs then the traffic would not be able to find its way out of the network.

Welcome to the forums

Just so everybody knows, ICS has worked beautifully and Amanda is now beginning to learn the ways of Starcraft 10 years after I first discover LAN gaming!! Hopefully, more people will be joining us soon. Cheers.