Two pc's - one (host) P4 - 2.4 - 512 Mb two - AMD 1800 - 256 Mb Both systems running Windows XP Home, host has SP2 and second system has SP1 (when SP2 is installed I get a "limited Connectivity" message. NIC in both - cross-over cable installed. If I manually set up IP addresses eg 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.2 I can ping both ways, although I can demonstrate no other level of connectivity. If I run Network Wizard, I am not able to ping and get a "destination unreachable" message. The hardware, as it stands has, for a short period, allowed internet connection of the second pc through the host, although I was never able to achieve any level of file or printer sharing (although I have tried every permutation and followed the guides that I have been able to acquire). I have no third party firewall, and rely on the one suppled with XP. I would be grateful for any advice and suggestions as my wife is currently threatening to take over my pc to facilitate her access to the internet. Thanks in anticipation Edrex

For ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) do not need to statically assign IP addresses. I would highly recommend disabling the Firewall on the network cards, but leave the one on the internet connection (on the internet enabled PC). You should then be able to setup ICS on the internet PC (right click the connection, properties and advanced tab) and after rebooting the 2nd pc it should be assigned an address (be sure to set it to 'obtain IP address automatically' (and the same for DNS servers)) by the 1st PC. Hope this helps.

I've found that the XP firewall is not the best to use when networking to computers to share resources...can you try a third party software that will give you more flexibility and would allow you to set up your home computers on a trusted zone so that you can share printers etc? I could be wrong, but that is just my guess based on my experience with XP's built in firewall. Sempron 2400+ OCed to 2.2GHZ Abit NF7-S2 1 GB PC3200 Ram Thermaltake T2-M4 HSF rmackie@microtailors.com www.microtailors.com

by the way...you may want to go to www.zonelabs.com and download the free firewall: ZoneAlarm. It's pretty useful and easy to setup. Hope this helps. Sempron 2400+ OCed to 2.2GHZ Abit NF7-S2 1 GB PC3200 Ram Thermaltake T2-M4 HSF rmackie@microtailors.com www.microtailors.com