Communication between 2 PCs via modem 4

[cadbilbao]

Hello.

I've got two PCs (Win 98) with one modem each one, and two phone numbers. I want to communicate them both via modem.

With PC1, I can perform dial calls, and also with PC2. But if I try to call from PC1 to PC2 (or to PC1 from PC2), there is no signal, and I cannot connect.

What am I doing wrong? Must I set an slave and a master?

Regards.

 

[Styx]

You need 2 Internet connection (2 accounts) or setup a home network.

Home Networking

With computers getting cheaper and cheaper these days, it is not uncommon for a household to have more than one PC. If that describes you, then you have probably found yourself in the situation where you wished you could access the other PC to retrieve a file, use the printer attached to the other PC, share the modem on the other PC, or play multi-player computer games.

The easy solution to these problems are a home network where you connect two or more PCs to accomplish above mentioned tasks. If you think this requires a third computer that acts as a server, complicated installation, etc. think again. Regular home/desktop PCs running Windows 95 or 98 can be easily networked using what is called a peer-to-peer network. You can get the necessary parts for around $100, the installation takes around an hour or more depending how much cable you have to put in your house. Configuring each PC should take around 10 minutes.

What you need:

A network interface card (NIC) for each PC on the network.
When you go shopping for the network cards, you will notice that you can get either a 10Mbps or a 10/100Mbps card. This refers to the speed of how fast the card can physically transfer the data. Since 10/100Mbps cards are very popular and cost pretty much the same, you should go for one of those.

A hub to physically connect the PCs
Hubs come in different sizes, the main difference being the number of PCs that can be plugged into the hub. If you have two or three PCs and don't foresee another PC joining your family anytime soon, you should get a 4 port hub. If you have more PCs or plan to add more soon, you might want to consider a 8 port hub. If you foresee heavier traffic on your home network, e.g. multiplayer gaming, then you might want to consider a cheap switch instead.

Lots of cable
The cable most commonly used for networking is referred to as Cat 5 cable. Every decent computer store will sell you as much Cat 5 cable as you need by the foot. The cable should have a RJ-45 connector on each end, which looks like a phone jack just a little wider. Be sure to get plenty of cable, it is very easy to underestimate the length you need. Make sure the cable is "straight through" if you are connecting a PC to a hub or switch. "Cross over" cables are used to connect two computers together without having a hub or switch between them. If you want to run your LAN at 100 mbps then you should look into getting Cat 5 shielded cable to reduce errors induced by stray magnetic fields and cross talk in the wires.

Hardware Installation

First, install a network card in each one of the PCs following the instructions that came with the NIC. When you turn on the PC after installing the card, Windows should recognize the card and prompt you for the correct driver. Once it is installed, you should see a Network Neighborhood icon on your desktop. We need that icon to configure the network in a while.

Now you need to think about where the PCs are located in your house and what's the best way to run the cable. It involves a little more work if the PCs are not in the same or adjacent rooms. With adjacent rooms, you can probably just drill a hole in the wall to feed the cable through. In order to avoid serious injury inflicted by your spouse or landlord, please do not drill the hole in eye-height in the middle of the wall. Find an inconspicuous spot right over the base board, in a corner or in a closet. You might even be able to run the cable underneath the house or through the attic. Again, make sure that you have enough Cat 5 cable. Designate a central spot where to put the hub. Then run the cable from each PC to the hub.

Make sure that all the cables are securely plugged into a network card in a PC on one end and into the hub on the other end. The hub should also be plugged into an outlet as it needs power.

Note for Cable modem/DSL users

To access your cable modem after setting up your home network, plug your cable/DSL modem into the uplink port of your hub to make it available on your local network. To be able to access the cable/DSL modem from all PCs, you either need to install and configure proxy software, or get an individual IP address for each PC on the network from your ISP.

More information about Internet connection sharing can be found in our tutorial at

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/ics1.html

That should be all the physical work involved. Now you need to configure each PC.

Software Configuration

The last step is to configure each PC to see and be seen on the network. You should now see a Network Neighborhood icon on the desktop of each PC. Right-click that icon, select Properties. This will bring up the Network Properties dialog box with the Configuration tab selected. Here you need to install network protocols which enable the PCs to exchange data using a "common language."

Click the Add button, select Protocol, click Add, select Microsoft, highlight TCP/IP and click OK until you're back to the Network Properties dialog box. Don't close this box until after the very last step.

Now click the Add button again, select service, click Add, select File and Printer sharing for Microsoft Networks and click OK until you're back to the Network Properties box.

To be able for the PCs to identify each other on the network, each one needs an IP address. This is the PCs unique ID number that makes it positively identifiable. For your home network, you should use a specific range of IP addresses that are reserved for exactly this purpose, setting up local area networks. The number is 192.168.0.x with X being a number unique to each PC.

Highlight the TCP/IP entry and click Properties. If you see multiple TCP/IP entries, be sure to select the one for the network card, not the one for your Dial-up adapter. Go to the IP Address tab, select Specify an IP Address and enter 192.168.0.1 for the first PC, 192.168.0.2 for the second PC etc. Be sure not to use 192.168.0.0 because it is the network number, and not to use 192.168.0.255 because that address is reserved for broadcast traffic. The subnet number should be 255.255.255.0 on all PCs. Now you can close the TCP/IP Properties window since that's all we have to do here. If you were creating a bigger network with more PCs and access to the Internet etc., more things need to be set up here but to keep it simple and in the home network range we won't worry about that part.

Note for cable/DSL modem users

If you have a cable/DSL modem, the instructions above might not make quite as much sense as you will discover that on your main PC, you already have a network card and a TCP/IP protocol installed which is configured as instructed by your ISP. Don't change those settings. Instead, read on.

To be able to use your cable/DSL modem from all machines on the network, you have two alternatives:

Get additional IP addresses from your ISP for each PC on the network, so that each machine can access the Internet individually. This solution might cost a few extra dollars per month for each additional IP, but is very easy to set up and configure. If you do this, don't use the IP addresses and subnet mask mentioned in the previous paragraph, use the ones provided by your ISP instead.

Or

Use proxy software to share one IP address from your main PC with the other machines on the network. This is cheaper, but a little trickier to set up because you need to install and configure the proxy program and tell all applications to use this proxy. In this case, you would actually install a second network card into the main PC that already has one network card for the cable/DSL modem. The first network card remains configured the way it is, the second network card would connect the main PC to your hub and therefore your local network with the other PCs. This second network card needs to be configured with a local IP address as described above.

More information about Internet connection sharing can be found in our tutorial at

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/ics1.html

Now go to the Identification tab. Here you want to enter a unique name for each PC, the choice of name is up to you. Name them after the 3 stooges, the seven dwarfs, your favorite baseball players, whatever. Then enter a workgroup name. This one needs to be the same on each PC. If you can't think of one, use the word Network, or Workgroup, or Home.

Now you can close the Network Properties box. But first insert your Windows CD into the CD drive because Windows needs to copy several files. As soon as that's done, Window will prompt you to reboot the PC which you need to do for the new settings to take effect.

In order to see other PCs on the network and access the drives on the other PCs, you first need to enable File Sharing, which is simple. In the Explorer, right-click on the drives you want to share on the network, select Sharing, click Shared As, and specify the access type: Read-only, Full (read and write), or Depends on password. If you have a closed network meaning that this network is not connected to the outside world, and you have no sensitive data on your drives that not all user should be able to access, you can just set the access to full without a password. But if this network is somehow connected to the outside world via dial-up, cable, or DSL modem, you need to use password protection for sharing, as well as use a hardware or software based firewall solution. To share printers, you need to enable sharing as well. Go to Start/Settings/Printers, right-click the printer(s) to be shared and select Sharing.

After configuring each PC and performing the necessary reboot, you should reboot each PC again after each one has been configured. Then launch the Windows Explorer on each PC and check out the Network Neighborhood icon at the bottom. If everything went right, you should now see underneath Network Neighborhood an icon for the Entire Network and then the name of each PC on your network. If you open the Entire Network, you should see the name of your workgroup which contains again all PCs on the network.

That's it. You're done. Now you can share files and printers over your new home network.

***

Internet Connection Sharing

Nowadays with PC prices so low and computers becoming a common household item, it is not unusual anymore to have multiple PCs per household so that the whole family can take advantage of it and doesn't have to draw straws, spin the bottle or use more violent methods to decide who gets to use the PC to play a game, check e-mail, work on a school project, etc. Or maybe you work in a small office with only one Internet connection, yet several employees need to access the Internet throughout the day to check their stock portfolio, sport scores, what's playing at the movies that night, or gather other equally important information.

One problem that arises with multiple PCs is that most people still only have one phone line to use for dial-up access to the Internet which prevents multiple PCs from being online simultaneously. Who wants to shell out money every month for an extra phone line, buy another modem, and have a second account with your ISP? Thankfully, there is a solution to this problem: Internet Connection Sharing. It allows you to let multiple PCs use the Internet through only one modem and one phone line.

Network it!

The first thing that is required to be able to use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) is that the PCs are connected to each other via a home network. If you don't have a home network yet, don't stop reading. Home networking is easy and if you need some help with it, check out my home networking tutorial at

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/hmnetwk1.html.

IP Addresses

Once your PCs are networked, there are several ways to go about ICS. If you use regular dial-up access to the Internet through a plain old phone line, your ISP will assign you temporarily an IP address just for the duration of your Internet connection to be able to uniquely identify your PC. Once you disconnect, it will take it away from you and let somebody else use it. The next time you log on, you will get another IP address, whichever one is free at the time, for that session. An IP address is a number that identifies your computer on a network and it could like this: 192.168.0.1. Every computer that is connected to a network, whether it's a local area network (LAN) or the Internet, has its own unique IP address for identification purposes.

When you're connected to your ISP, you only get one IP address, and your ISP doesn't know that you have more than one computer that you want to use. And if you set up your home network already, you either assigned a private IP to each of the additional PCs or set it up so that the main/primary PC assigns an IP automatically to each one. These IPs of the additional/secondary PCs are not being recognized by your ISP and don't provide Internet access. What you need to do is to let the additional PCs share the one IP you got and pretend they are all one PC using the same IP. In addition, you need to tell the secondary PCs how to get to the Internet since they are not directly connected.

Proxies

For all that, you will use something called proxy. What this proxy does is take requests for Internet access from the secondary PCs, translate them to the IP of the primary PC and send them out to your ISP pretending that the request came from the primary PC, accept the received information, and route it back to the secondary PC that requested it. Sounds complicated? It's not, really, and you don't have to worry about it, since the proxy software does all that for you.

All you do is

connect all PCs via a home network
install the proxy software on the primary PC
configure the secondary PCs to use the proxy
We assume that you have already completed the networking part using the home networking tutorial at

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/hmnetwk1.html,

so let's move on to the next step, the proxy software.

Proxy Software

There are several choices you have as there are many proxy programs available. The first one that comes to mind is actually called Internet Connection Sharing and is a new feature in Windows 98 SE. Please note the letters SE, which stand for Second Edition. The original version of Windows 98 does not have this feature. Take a quick detour to this article at

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/win98se.html

if you want to know about the different ways of upgrading to Windows 98 SE.

If you have Windows 98 SE, you can easily install ICS. First, insert your Windows 98 SE CD. Then go to Start/Settings/Control Panel, and double-click Add/Remove Programs. Now click the Windows Setup tab. High-light Internet Tools icon and click Details. In this window, click the box for Internet Connection Sharing to put a checkmark in it. Now click OK to close this window, then click OK again to close the Add/Remove Programs window. After a few seconds of files being copied, an ICS setup wizard will appear on the screen to guide you through the setup process. Follow the steps to complete the installation and reboot your PC when prompted.

Once you're back in Windows, you go to Start/Settings/Control Panel and double-click the Internet Options icon. Go to the Connections tab and click the Sharing button. Make sure that ICS is enabled and check the box to show the icon in the tray to have convenient access to status etc. Be sure to complete the setup by using the floppy that was created during the install process to configure the browser on the secondary PCs.

If everything was installed properly, you can now connect the primary PC to the Internet as usual. Once the connection is up, start the browser on the secondary PC to browse the web from there.

If you have problems and can't get it to work, take a look at the following articles from the Microsoft Knowledge Base to help you resolve the problem.

Problems Joining Games Using Internet Connection Sharing (Q236429)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q236/4/29.asp

No Sharing Button After Installing Internet Connection Sharing (Q236152)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q236/1/52.asp

Internet Connection Sharing Is Not Set Up Correctly (Q229829)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q229/8/29.asp

Description of the Microsoft Browser Connection Setup Wizard (Q230087)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q230/0/87.asp

Description of Internet Connection Sharing (Q234815)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q234/8/15.asp

Other Proxy Software

If you don't have Windows 98 SE and don't see the need to spend the money on it, you can use other software that will do the job just as well. There are several programs available on the Internet for this purpose. A few of them are

Proxy - available at

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/proxy.htm

Wingate - available at

http://www.wingate.com/

Sygate - available at

http://www.sygate.com/

They all come with setup instructions. Each one looks a little different and may have additional features, but they all do what you need to share an Internet connection.
The instructions so far covered a setup where you only have one IP address available from your ISP. However, if you have a public IP for each PC from your ISP, then read on for a slightly different, and easier, setup.

ICS with multiple IPs

If you have a cable modem or DSL, then you can normally get multiple IPs from your ISP, one for each PC on your home network. In this case, the whole setup is even easier.
First, you hook all your PCs into a hub to connect them as a network. Then you plug your cable or DSL modem into the Uplink port of your hub. This connects each PC directly to the Internet through the hub and the cable or DSL modem. Another small pro of this setup is that not all PCs have to be running, while with the previously described one IP setup the primary PC always has to be on so it can serve as a proxy.

Then you configure the Network properties for each PC identical except for using a different IP address as assigned by your ISP to each PC.

That's all you need to do. Now each PC can access the Internet individually since your ISP recognizes each IP as a public one that can be used for Internet access.

Of course you don't have to use this type of setup if you have a cable modem or DSL. You can still have only one IP and use the first setup I described using a proxy. It works the same way.


Please see the other home networking related tutorials at:

http://www.PCNineOneOne.com

 

[cadbilbao]

That would be OK if I had my 2 PCs AT HOME, but one of them is at 1,000 miles from the other one.

So I'd prefer connect them via modem. (I consider Internet very insecure)

 

[Styx]

There is a way to do remote PC to PC connections over a private line. However to get your own private line 1000 miles long is do-able but very expensive and no more secure than using a firewall, mentioned below. What your asking to do should be directed to your local phone company for cost assessment and/or your ISP for techniques as to how you can do a remote peer to peer connection.

The Internet is very insecure, if, you're foolish enough not to use a software firewall on your computer(s). If you have DSL, then you should be sure your Router has firewall capabilities. Some routers do, some do not.


*** Mandatory (get a firewall of any brand) - Get free Zone Alarm personal firewall anti-hacker countermeasure from

http://www.zonelabs.com.

(not the ZA Pro demo) 'Don't let anything out to the Internet you don't know what it is.' The terrorists hope you don't use a firewall, quaranteed. Or, get free Sygate personal firewall from

http://www.pcworld.com/Downloads.

Go to the Utilities' Security Section. If you don't they pass messages and programs through your computer using Trojan Horse programs without your knowledge when your only on-line for minutes. Ask your ISP if the problem does or does not exist. It does!

***

Update your antivirus, temporarily disable your screen saver (choose None) and scan with your anti-virus set to scan All Files. Update and scan bi-monthly. Create your anti-virus' Rescue disk(s) and update them after each Windows anti-virus update.

You can scan on-line to double-check your Windows scanner at

http://housecall.antivirus.com

 

[cgwright]

Hi cadbilbao

It will be difficult to get two Win 98 machines to talk to each other, because one of them (the "answering" computer) will have to act as a Remote Access Server (RAS) device. This functionality is not (to the best of my understanding) in Win 9x. It is there with Win NT - and so probably in Win 2000 - but I don't know 'cos I only know NT. Can you change one of the machines?

In NT install the RAS service and set it to accept dial-in connections, and you are done. You will need to set the user permissions to allow that person to dial in, then they will be the same as on a LAN (except slower, of course).

I don't know more about networking two Win98 machines via DUN. I would suggest that you might have a look at the excellent "World of Windows Networking" website (

http://wown.com)

- see if there are any clues there.

Hope this helps.

 

[JorGeVaL]

Another way to do the configuration that you want is:

Windows 98 has a feature that enables the machine to answer a incoming call via modem and you do not need to connect to the internet just call from machine A to Machine B and that is All.

If you want control of the remote machine you can use netmeeting.


How to make a Pc A call a Pc B:

On PcB go to Control panel => Add or remove programs => windows Installation => Communications and then select details.

You will see an icon with the name Dial Up Access or remote access server i am not sure because my test was done on a windows installed in spanish. Anyway is the last one.

You have to enable that feature and windows will requiere the cd to install the software.

After that go to Dial-up Networks , the same as if you were to connect to the internet , but on that menu you will see a Connecttion Menu and there you can select Allow Access.

Now your Pc B is ready to answer the call.


On Pc A

Configure a dial-up conection that dials the PcB tel number and when you get connected use teh command Winipcfg to see which Ip address was asigned to your PPP Adapter.

With netmeeting on Pc A put the remote PPP address and you can access the Pc B desktop.

If you need more help please feel free to drop me an e-mail

jorgval@gmx.net