I cannot get my two computer to see each other over the network with my new 5port Netgear Hub. I'm running Window's Me and my Home Networking Wizard is not working properly. I get an error that says "Home networking Wizard is unable to install one or more files on drive C. The files may be in use." This makes it impossible to run the wizzard. Is there any other way I can set up the network without doing this? I have tried. I just can't get out computers to see each other when I click on Entire network under My network places. Does anyone have any ideas. They would be much appriciated. Thanks

Try putting them in the same workgroup, and make sure they have different computer names. Also be sure you don't have firewalls running because they will block the traffic. And have you assigned separate private IP addresses to each of these computers?

I have them in the same workgroup and they have different names and don't have any firewalls. I have The IP to obtain automatically. How would I go about assining seperate IP addresses myself? Again any help would be great. thanks.

Don't make any changes to your ip configuration. Install netbeui on both machines. Make sure you have shared something on both machines. Nice thing about netbeui [not to be confused with netbios] is that it is not routable and won't go out to the internet. ALWAYS have your firewall software running especially when you are sharing. Otherwise you are advertizing "come get me" to the hackers. You can configure your firewall software to include your local stations from exemption.

Netbeui is nice and secure, but to answer your question: I am not sure about WinME specifically but if it is like Windows 98, you can go into the networking control panel (or right click on Network Neighborhood and to go properties) and then open the properties of the TCP/IP protocol for your network card. Then where it says obtain IP automatically or assign one, you click on assign one. This is the slightly difficult part. You need to have unique PRIVATE IPs. I like the 10.*.*.* range so I would assign one as 10.0.0.1 and one as 10.0.0.2. The subnet mask should be the same, I would recommend 255.255.255.0. If you don't have a router, leave the gateway blank, if you do, put the IP in there. I hope this answers your question and I hope that I was able to do this by heart ;).

Using a hub and two computers it's just assumed that there is no internet connection and this is a standalone LAN. In this situation a firewall is useless unless you like to attack yourself.

The netgear router is capable of running DHCP rather simply. You can assign a pool of Private IP's (192.168.1.x), this will allow for future expansion and ease of setup with new computers!!