Hello all i have just came accross this site excellent!..you guys know yer stuff Here is my longwinded question to a short answer I guess. I have a PII350 desktop machine with all the usual ports and trimmings and an external 56K modem, running W98SE....I wish to connect to my old Dell(wait for it)latitude dx2-50 with 20mbRam,win311, one serial,one parrallel port, I also have a dacom PCMCIA 56k+fax Gold card (gsm&isdn ready), also a Diva pro PCMCIA 128kbps ISDN modem/fax card too. Finally my questions; 1. How can I connect these two machines for the purposes of instaling a new Os (win95 on the laptop im hoping it wil churn along) from the Cd on the desktop machine & therafter to swap files update from them...please tell me I dont have to resort to a null modem cable and interlink!!! Thanks in advance newbidedoo

Without a Network Interface Card in each computer, you're left with these choices... 1. Null modem cable and interserve and interlink. 2. Connecting through the telephone lines using the modems. 3. Removing your laptop harddrive and using an adapter to set it up as a slave in your desktop and copy the files. 4. Download a program that will format a 1.44 floppy to a 2mb floppy and copy the files to the 2mb floppies. 5. Setup a home network that uses the telephone lines in your house. You'd need to upgrade to Windows for WorkGroups first.

While they are not easy to find, you can get Win95 installation floppy disks. My recollection is that the complete OS is on 28 floppies. When you purchased the Win95 CD, or when it comes installed on a new machine, there's a card inside the registration packet that says you can order Win95 floppy media, if you need to. If you purchsed a licensed edition of Win95, call Microsoft and tell them you're licensed, that you want to install the OS on a laptop that has no CD Drive. I think you will find them to be cooperative. At least give it a try. Alternatively, there are PCMCIA cards that will allow you to connect an external CDROM drive to the floppy. As for the occassional file transfers ("therafter to swap files update from them..."), if you don't have a room or at least a wall with a large shelf permanently allocated as your in-home pc lab, you aren't sufficiently committed to networking to be upgrading, and installing, and configuring, and administering, and maintaining a network. Networking is challenging, but its a lot of work,...enough to last a lifetime. It may not be as sexy as an SUV, but using a floppy disk to swap files gets the job done without many months of aggravation. Just as you can install a PCMCIA SCSI card for an external CD Reader, you can use that port for a PCMCIA network interface card (NIC). If you have an available slot, and available system resources (IRQ's, DMA, I/O) you can put a NIC on your desktop as well. Certainly anyone with time and patience is adequate to the challenge. It also costs some serious dollars. Make sure you pay the rent, the electric bill, the heating bill, the BP/Amoco credit card, and the IRS first.

This note from my post publication editor: "Alternatively, there are PCMCIA cards that will allow you to connect an external CDROM drive to the floppy." Should read "...connect an external CDROM drive to the laptop."

Thanks V much people for your input every one very helpfull. I guess its not going to be a permanent networking senario so, I think I shall percivere with interlink and a null modem cable to get me up and running or (beg or borrow a CD-ROM to PCMCIA). thanx again

One option that wasn't mentioned is that you could copy the cab files from the cd9X to the hard drive of the desktop and then copy them individually onto floppys to be installed onto the laptop.