Windows 7 Internet Connection Sharing

[pemba76]

I have 2 computers running Windows 7 Professional.

I have installed 2 NIC on Computer-1. First NIC has a direct cable internet (no router/modem) and has static IP assigned by the Interent Service Provider.

In Computer-2, there is one NIC that is use to connect to Computer-1's Second NIC using cross cable.

I have been successfull in sharing the internet connection of Compute-1 with Computer-2 but i have noticed that there are many time when some websites that open very easily in Computer-1 does not open is Computer-2 in one click. I have to always do a refresh to get the website to open in Computer-2.

How do i go about the Interent Sharing properly.

1> ICS feature of windows. (using now)

or

2> How do i do it using router ?

or

3> Using a proxy server.

Note : My First NIC in Computer-1 has Statis IP Address / Subnet Mask / Default Gateway / Preferred DNS and Alternate DNS.

I am not at all networking savvy. But i need to get this to wor.
Please guide.

Thanks

[jdMorgan]

Since you have no router to do DHCP for your "crossover" network or to server as a DNS proxy, you will need to define the IP address, subnet mask, DNS servers, and default gateway for computer-2.

Set up the second "crossover" NIC in computer-1 with a static IP address (like 192.168.0.2).

Set the default gateway of the "crossover" NIC in computer-1 to the IP address of the first "internet" NIC in computer-1. Set its subnet mask to 255.255.255.0.

Give the NIC in computer-2 an IP address that is one number (or more) above the IP address of the "crossover" NIC in computer-1 (like 192.168.0.3).

Set the subnet mask on the computer-2 NIC the same as the "cross-over" NIC subnet mask on computer-1 (we set this to 255.255.255.0 above).

Set the DNS servers on computer-2 the same as the internet NIC on computer-1. You cannot use "automatic" here. You can use ipconfig on computer-1 to get these numbers if necessary (see below).

Set the default gateway on the computer-2 NIC to the IP address of the "crossover" NIC computer-1.

You can use "ipconfig" from the Windows Start->Run->CMD command prompt to display the current settings of each NIC on each computer -- even the settings that do not appear in the network configuration dialog boxes.

I hope I understood your current set-up properly and didn't forget anything... It would be easier to configure, maintain, and expand this network if you had a router or a cable modem/router.

Jim

[pemba76]

Worked like magic. But it seems to be a bit slow on Computer 2.
Thanks a ton.
Will using a router help in terms of speed ?
How do i configure a router in this case ?

[jdMorgan]

"A bit slow" implies problems finding the gateway or problems finding the DNS servers. Double-check both of those settings on computer-2 and double check the gateway setting on the "crossover" NIC of computer-1. With this ICS set-up, the gateway should always be the IP address of the "internet" NIC on computer-1, since that NIC is the "gateway to the internet."

If the LAN gateway or DNS settings are wrong, the networking drivers will effectively "search" for them, which is slow. Also, be sure that the crossover NICs on computer-1 and computer-2 are different as previously described, and that the LAN ("crossover") subnet is different from the WAN (internet) subnet.

The best approach to configuring a router is to read the manual that comes with it... They're all a little different. :)

In general, though, tell the router to get its WAN address and DNS servers from your ISP, give it a non-routable LAN address of 192.168.0.1 (example subnet consistent with previous post), and set all the other computers to use the router's LAN IP address as their gateway address, connect all computers to the router, disable ICS, and disable the second NIC on computer-1. If the router supports acting as a DNS proxy, you can set the router's LAN address as the DNS servers for both computers. If not, then just hard-code them to the value provided by your ISP.

You could also use the router's DHCP server to set the LAN IP addresses automatically, but for a small network, hard-coding them isn't any more difficult than using DHCP, and you'll always know which IP address you're on. This also makes using 'hosts' files to define domains for local-server testing possible, since you will always know your local server's fixed IP address.

Jim

[pemba76]

Its working perfect now. Actually, the internet connection was slow by default yesterday.
Thanks for the guided instruction.