I have the Sprint wireless broadband.It is connected to the XP desktop.Im looking for a way to wirelessly share it with a Vista laptop that is WiFi enabled.
There is no way to plug the wireless broadband antenna directly into the wireless (linksys) router.The software that came with this setup seems to have disabled Windows internet connection sharing (ICS)dialog.
I did look into wingate but am hoping that theres another solution.
I do know how to set up a wireless router(security) otherwise (with dial up or cable broadband,etc)
I did a search I couldn’t find this topic here. Thanks
Disclaimer: I do not use Windows nor Sprint wireless broadband. However, I’d like to see if anyone else has a solution for this, so I’m giving it a bump.
As I think you realize, you need to connect the broadband antenna with something that can route packets. I believe that the wireless broadband is a card (PCI or PCIMCIA), right? As unsatisfactory as it may be, my suggestion would be to put it into an old PC running Linux, whose sole purpose is to act as a router. Or, perhaps better, have the linux box act as a simple bridge that promiscuously transfers all packets it receives. You’d need a second network card, which might then be connected to the Linksys router (giving you a personal wireless LAN).
As I said, probably not the answer you’re looking for, and it assumes that Sprint wireless broadband plays well with non-Windows boxen. I’m hoping someone will show up with a better solution…
Hm, I use Sprint Wireless Broadband as well and I don’t have ICS greyed out. I know for a fact that I’ve shared this connection.
However, that linked device is a USB device that is different from the PCMCIA card that I use. I’m guessing there might be a way around your greyed-out ICS. Have you tried creating a new dial-up connection that uses the USB device? (You may want to temporarily disable the existing one.)
Also, as a sanity check, is ICS enable-able for your other connections?
Thinking about this more: my recollection of this 2nd-PC setup was that I couldn’t share the internet connection of the satellite modem, but instead I shared a 2nd ethernet card on that machine to my network, and the other machines could see that connection.
Ok it look as though the ICS on the desktop is not disabled, my bad.
But when I go through the setup steps I get to two check-box choices 1) 1394 connection 2) LAN.
I checked both and the wizard created a 'bridge". But when I connect the wireless router to the desktop via ethernet cable I dont get an ‘internet signal’.
As you can tell by now I’m not so good at this…
Ok what you want to do is before futzing with ICS, create the ad-hoc wireless network (using wifi to connect the two computers).
I think this is how I did it, but I don’t have another wireless machine at the moment so this is largely from memory.
Control Panel -> Network Connections -> Wireless Network Connection (double-click or right-click) properties
In the Wireless Network tab, near the bottom to the left should be a button labeled Add, click that. Name the network whatever you want. Disable data encryption for now (go back and re-enable it once you have it working). Check the box at the bottom that says “This is a a computer-to-computer (ad-hoc) network …”.
Then, also under the Wireless tab, click the Advanced button (bottom right, not the tab). Select the radio that says computer-to-computer only (uncheck “Automatically connect …”).
Now, enable ICS on the broadband connection and share it out to the network you just made. At this point your other computer should be able to see it and connect to it thru its wifi and hopefully escape out into the wild internet.
Hopefully I remembered it right. Let us know how it turns out.
Thanks arSenal. It doesn’t seem to be working. I’m getting a “waiting for the users to connect” mssg on the Vista laptop despite following all the steps.
In the case I want to disable the sharing on the desktop,how do I go about that? Because I’ve been trying. I’m close to throwing in the towel and really don’t like the idea of continuing the broadcast since it seems to be only WEP
Wait a minute, which machine did you create the ad-hoc network on? I meant for you to do it on your XP machine (the desktop with the sprint card). Then the Vista laptop should just have to discover and connect to that network. Not sure what would be giving you the “waiting for users to connect” message.
To turn it off, go back to the Wireless Network tab in the properties of your wireless connect and remove the network with the Remove button. Then go into the properties of your broadband connection and uncheck ICS.
I was creating the ad-hoc on the Vista laptop. :smack: I figured something wasn’t right.
Anyhoo after reapeated attempts to create an ad-hoc on the desktop (and nothing showing on the laptop WiFi “radar”) Ive come to the conclusion that either: a) this isn’t possible because the sprint software wont allow it. Or **b)**its possible but not by myself. So Im tossing in the towel…Thanks everyone
I missed the ETA window. I want to add that I’ve asked quite a few people personally.
From the Sprint people at the mall kiosk to those techy people at computer stores to friends who know this stuff better than me.
The general answers I got were: “I don’t know how” or “I didn’t know that could be done”.
-TM