TCP/IP home networking tutorial

Have you rebooted your computers recently? We just made a load of configuration changes so be sure to reboot them! When your computers start up, give them a minute or so to become 'aware' of each other. Sometimes you will get error messages if you try to access your network neighborhood too soon.

Next, open your 'Network Neighborhood' or 'My Network Places'. If you do not immediately see your other computers, you may have to drill through the 'entire network' selection.

Once you locate another computer, double click it to view the network shares available. You can right click a network share and select 'Map Network Drive'. This lets you map the share to a local drive letter - like F:. Now you can use that share just like a local hard drive.

In this picture, drive F: is a network share called 'shared' on a computer called 'dual800'

Try using the 'search for computer' command

Try to map the share into a drive letter manually

Sometimes using the "Search for Computers..." command will force your system to find the other computer.  Simply right click the "Network Neighborhood" or "My Network Places" icon on your desktop and select "Search for Computers".

You should now see a screen that looks like the this

Type in the full name of the computer you need to find and click search.  Remember when I said to keep the computer names simple?  This is why!!

Once the computer is found, double click it and map the share into a network drive.  You may start seeing this computer in your network neighborhood now too!

If you still can not locate the computer, try manually mapping the drive

First, collect the COMPUTER NAME and SHARE NAME that you wish to map.  Next, right click the "Network Neighborhood" or "My Network Places" icon on your desktop and select "Map Network Drive".

A screen like this should appear

Select an drive letter and then type in the full path to the network share on the other computer.  The syntax of the share should be \\computername\sharename as shown above.  In this example drive F: will be mapped to a network share called 'shared' on a computer called 'dual800'

Example of a mapped share in Explorer

In this picture, drive F: is a network share called 'shared' on a computer called 'dual800'

TCP/IP home networking tutorial