How to Build a Network Using a Cross-Over Cable

Configuring The Client Computer

Now you need to configure the other computer to get its settings automatically from the network. This is really simple to do, as this is Windows’ default setting. However, it is always a good thing to double check whether your computer is correctly configured or not.

First go to Start, Control Panel, Network Connections. There you will see your network card and probably it will be listed with a yellow exclamation mark and being described with “Limited or no connectivity” (see Figure 7). This is normal to happen and we will fix this in just a second.

Figure 7: The network card on your client computer.

Right click the network card and, from the list that will show up, choose Properties. The window shown in Figure 8 will appear. There double click “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)”.

Figure 8: Network card properties.

The window shown in Figure 9 will appear. There you need to check if “Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Obtain DNS server address automatically” options are selected.

Figure 9: TCP/IP properties.

After clicking Ok, your network card will probably still being listed as having “Limited or no connectivity” with a yellow exclamation mark, see Figures 7 and 10.

Figure 10: Your network card isn’t connected yet.

Now you need to double click your network card (either on Network Connections or on its small icon on the task bar) and, on the window that will show up, click on Support tab (see Figure 11). There click on Repair button and your network connection will be automatically fixed.

Figure 11: Fixing your network connection.

After this procedure your network will be working. Try opening any website on your client computer to test it out.

If you want to share files and printers between your computers, read our tutorial How to Share Folders and Printers on Your Network.

If you do not have broadband Internet access – i.e., you have just one network card installed on each computer – you will need to manually configure the TCP/IP protocol. You should follow all the steps present on this page but when comes to configuring the TCP/IP protocol (Figure 9) you need to configure it manually instead of automatically.

At one of the computers, you should, on the screen present in Figure 9, configure your computer like this:

• Select Use the following IP address
• IP address: 192.168.0.1
• Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
• Default gateway: 192.168.0.1
• Select Use The Following DNS server addresses
• Preferred DNS server: 192.168.0.1

You should configure the other computer like this:

• Select Use the following IP address
• IP address: 192.168.0.2
• Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
• Default gateway: 192.168.0.1
• Select Use The Following DNS server addresses
• Preferred DNS server: 192.168.0.1