I hate Windows Vista

[Guest Boomhower]

I don;t have problems with mine, but I also don't game. It's an office computer and that's what it is being used for.

I bought mine (laptop) to make my TGO experience better from my comfy arm chair.

[Guest c.a.s.]

Networking to XP or Lynksys really, really sucks. Took me a good 30 minutes of continuous tries to finally get it to accept that freaking encryption key.

[Guest Boomhower]

Networking to XP or Lynksys really, really sucks. Took me a good 30 minutes of continuous tries to finally get it to accept that freaking encryption key.

I use a D-LINK router, and didn't have any problems other than I didn't know what I was doing. Once I got that problem fixed, I was up and running in a matter of sec........I have been told the mac filtering IP's is the easiest way to secure your network. But I can't speak to the truth of that.

[BimmerFreak]

Networking to XP or Lynksys really, really sucks. Took me a good 30 minutes of continuous tries to finally get it to accept that freaking encryption key.

Thats good to know, since I have 4 XP and now 2 Vistas....

[Guest c.a.s.]

The main problem was that it has where you can put a little program on a flash drive and it'll connect you automatically, but that only works with XP. It would have taken all of two seconds had the program been Vista-compatible.

EDIT: Do you file share between your computers? I have yet to get it to work with the vista. I can only see what my computer is sharing.

[Guest Boomhower]

EDIT: Do you file share between your computers? I have yet to get it to work with the vista. I can only see what my computer is sharing.

Doesn't sound like you have your XP share set up correctly. Vista will more easily find networks than XP, but if I'm not mistaken, you have to set up the initial share from your XP machine, then find it with vista. I could be wrong on this, but I'll go back through some google searches.

[Guest c.a.s.]

Everything I'm sharing on my XP machines have no trouble being found by the others, but Vista doesn't see them.

[Guest Boomhower]

Everything I'm sharing on my XP machines have no trouble being found by the others, but Vista doesn't see them.

I had the same issue with mine. The problem was that on the XP machine the workgroup was named differently than the vista machine. Check that out and see if they are the same. On the Xp machine, right click on "my computer" and go to the "computer name" tab. Then on your vista machine, go to "control panel, network and internet, network and sharing center".

[Guest Boomhower]

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/baab4f1a-2461-482d-bb2e-c996a197e35f1033.mspx#EED

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/6ed24a90-6b57-4f0f-a3b3-e521ae945f331033.mspx

[Guest c.a.s.]

Okay, after going into the "network and sharing center", I saw that it had "view computers adn devices" at the side. That let me see everything, though it loaded a wee bit slowly (not as slow as the XP, though that has 512mb of RAM and this has 3GB). IT just wouldn't show up when I went into "tools" under my computer and went to netwrk connections.

As you can see by the increased number of typos, I'm still not that used to using a laptop keyboard again.

[Guest dotsun]

I use a D-LINK router, and didn't have any problems other than I didn't know what I was doing. Once I got that problem fixed, I was up and running in a matter of sec........I have been told the mac filtering IP's is the easiest way to secure your network. But I can't speak to the truth of that.

MAC filtering used by itself is horrendous for securing your network. Running in conjunction with encryption it'll keep most people out, and the encryption is far and away more important than MAC filtering.

Turn off ssid broadcasting, disable wireless administration if you can, and please for the love of God if you do nothing else, make sure you change your default router password. Those are THE biggest screw ups that people make with their home network.

[Guest dotsun]

Okay, after going into the "network and sharing center", I saw that it had "view computers adn devices" at the side. That let me see everything, though it loaded a wee bit slowly (not as slow as the XP, though that has 512mb of RAM and this has 3GB). IT just wouldn't show up when I went into "tools" under my computer and went to netwrk connections.

As you can see by the increased number of typos, I'm still not that used to using a laptop keyboard again.

If you have any more networking problems drop me a pm Cody, I'd be happy to run by there one evening and help you out.

[Guest Boomhower]

MAC filtering used by itself is horrendous for securing your network. Running in conjunction with encryption it'll keep most people out, and the encryption is far and away more important than MAC filtering.

Turn off ssid broadcasting, disable wireless administration if you can, and please for the love of God if you do nothing else, make sure you change your default router password. Those are THE biggest screw ups that people make with their home network.

If you have any more networking problems drop me a pm Cody, I'd be happy to run by there one evening and help you out.

Where in the heck were you half a day ago when Cody needed a computer guy......

I was only told about the mac filtering, but I had already encrypted my router. I do have a question though. Why do you say that mac filtering is a bad idea? As it was explained to me, you assign your router mac addresses, and if that mac address is not stored in the router, that computer can not access the router and therefore your network.

[Guest dotsun]

Because it's child's play to pull a mac address from a tcp/ip packet that can be grabbed from the air by a hacker within range of your wireless network. Once you have a mac addy of one of the computers on the network you simply clone it to your laptop and you're in. If the packets are encoded it helps considerably, but like most things in the geek world nothing's hacker proof.

Half a day ago? Are you kidding, this is the IT world we work when we feel like it.

[Guest c.a.s.]

Actually,I don't have remote administration on.

I'll look in the Control Panel (for the router from it's wired computer) about SSID

And I'll change the password.

[Guest Boomhower]

Because it's child's play to pull a mac address from a tcp/ip packet that can be grabbed from the air by a hacker within range of your wireless network.

Still lost here .....if a hacker can't access your network because they don't have the correct assigned mac add, how can they view your computer to clone your mac addy?

[Guest dotsun]

Still lost here .....if a hacker can't access your network because they don't have the correct assigned mac add, how can they view your computer to clone your mac addy?

The same way you pick up a radio station. Wireless broadcasts signals through the air exactly the same way. They don't need to view your computer or be on your network to pick up the signal. All one has to do is pick up the 'station' and if it's not encrypted they will have all the info to access your network in short order. If it is encrypted it just takes a lot longer and more know how.

It's really like locks on your house. All you can reasonably hope for is to keep an honest man honest.

[Guest Boomhower]

The same way you pick up a radio station. Wireless broadcasts signals through the air exactly the same way. They don't need to view your computer or be on your network to pick up the signal. All one has to do is pick up the 'station' and if it's not encrypted they will have all the info to access your network in short order. If it is encrypted it just takes a lot longer and more know how.

It's really like locks on your house. All you can reasonably hope for is to keep an honest man honest.

thanks for shedding light on this for me. Now I can tell my co-worker to shut his mouth already the next time we talk about it.

[Guest dotsun]

No problem, I'm happy to share my usually worthless knowledge with people when I can help them. If you really want to waste an evening I could show you first hand how ridiculously easy it is to get into improperly secured wireless networks. On a test network I have set up, of course, not on someone elses as that is illegal.

[Guest Boomhower]

No problem, I'm happy to share my usually worthless knowledge with people when I can help them. If you really want to waste an evening I could show you first hand how ridiculously easy it is to get into improperly secured wireless networks. On a test network I have set up, of course, not on someone elses as that is illegal.

So your saying that we could go to my co-workers house and use this test network ?.....What kind of cool things can we do....errrr....can you show me on this test network ?

[Guest Boomhower]

..........Sorry code man

[Guest dotsun]

You can cause all kinds of mischief, all the way to totally disabling his internet, but I'd find another way to play a joke on him as I believe it's a felony to break into someone's network.

The real problem with having an open network is if some sicko drives up and downloads kiddy porn. That's traceable back to you. And of course if you have financial info on your pc, there's a chance that someone could access that sort of stuff. It's highly unlikely that either scenario would happen, but the fix is relatively easy and free.

[SkWaShDeM]

We purchased a couple computers at Best Buy this weekend (Tax free weekend FTW) and it sucks that all elventy billion computers they had in stock was running on Vista

Hope I dont have issues networking these things....

PM me if you run into problems. I have way too much recent experience making Vista & XP play nicely together on a home/small business network.

[Guest c.a.s.]

While the thread was hijacked, it was quite amusing and educational.

In Computer Repair I, the students had learned a bit from the CR II students and actually hacked into the CR II server (which had been pretty damn secure) only using Command Prompt. It was funny to watch, as they redirected all the bandwidth over to their computer so they could play WoW in class.