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This is Leo Notenboom with news, commentary and answers to some of the many questions I get at askleo.info.
One of the areas that I find myself actually avoiding these days when answering questions on Ask Leo! is local area networking. I have an article or two covering the basics, but more and more "regular people" are starting to ask more and more of their home and small business networks.
The problem is that, well ... networking sucks. Networking Windows machine together remains incredibly difficult for the average user. Making a connection that is both secure and flexible - two concepts that are inherently at odds with each other from the start - is a very common stumbling block.
There are no simple solutions. Things like the network setup wizard work, sort of, in common cases. But even though it sounds contradictory, those common cases are becoming less and less common.
It seems like almost everything impacts networking. Operating system versions, or even variations between flavors like Home and Pro. Workgroup names. Obscure Windows settings. Firewalls installed, or not, enabled, or not. Access points, routers and broadband modems that act as routers. Everything from cabling, to nitty-gritty protocol quirks will sometimes stymie even the most patient user.
And yes, like many of my readers, I to have spent multiple hours trying to get one system to connect to both another system and the internet at the same time. Without much success - though I do understand now why: in my case it happened to be a DSL modem that was unexpectedly also acting as a router. The prognosis for everyday folk in similar scenarios, which are slowly becoming more common, is pretty darned bleak.
Some things are getting better. Wireless networking, for example, has made great strides over the past few years. For average users, it's gone from being "nearly impossible" to merely "difficult" in that time.
Yes, I do plan to address networking, but it'll be a long and difficult process to explain in layman's terms. And even then, that layman will have to be very, very patient.
I'd love to hear what you think Visit ask leo dot info, and enter 9309 in the go to article number box. Leave a comment, I read them all.
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Article C2441 - October 20, 2005
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Best solution to my Vista problems was to chuck it in the trash and go to Win 7 Pro. No more problems other than reading about changes etc. Vista was a hateful joke, especially the Home version
Posted by: GeorgeB at July 12, 2011 10:57 AMI gave up on Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7 and took a different approach. I dragged anything I wanted to share into the corresponding Public folder and it worked. You can find your Public folder and Public subfolders under your C:\Users\Public folder. That said, using Public folders is not the default and using these folders rather than the default ones can come back to bite you in relation to other software you might be trying to use that is looking for things in the default locations.
Posted by: Arlene at November 22, 2011 8:25 AMMaybe bypass Windows security with a network drive? Any networked computer should be able to access it.
Posted by: Phillip at November 22, 2011 10:57 AMThe problem with networking is that it is all a mess. Mixed up with Windows' neurotic security politics the whole thing is confusing and difficult to overview.
Posted by: Nils Torben at November 23, 2011 12:45 AMThe idea of GUI (Graphic User Interface) was, that the user should not need to be an ingeneer to use a computer, and that is fine - as long as it works. Which it does not... Then comes a double need to be your own computer engineer, and you have a hard time trying to find and understand the concepts being behind. Windows Help comes out with a bunch of weird names, mostly undefined and is a very little help indeed.
What is a Network Bridge? What is DDE share? What is a port? Then some day you get the advice to run cmd (command prompt - oops wasn't it a GUI?) and type ipconfig /all, and a new set of undefined denotions turn up. What the hell is a DNS-suffix? Subnet mask?? Node type?? IP-routing? wins-proxy?? And the system acts like that is something all folks know what is.
How has communication between computers become like this? I suppose it is a result of lack of planning combined with random ideas and general clumsyness.
We are in a state of confusion and we are happy, when things work despite that we usually don't know why...
I would love more info on networking too. I know a little, which gets me through at home and helping out others, but it would be nice to have a real idea of what is going on rather than 'fiddling' till it works!
Posted by: Nigel at December 24, 2011 7:35 AM